The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-12-26
Daughter of J. Pierpont Nor
gan Is Head of Corps.
Re-EstabIish Refugees in Their
Devastated Farm Homes.
RUN BIG STORE ON THE SIDE
From This They Fill Needs Left
by Hun LOOters.
Provide Means for Restoring
5000 Acres to Cultivation.
BY w. S. FORREST.

With the French Armies in the Field,
Dec. 1.-(By Mail. "A big Limousine
today rambled into what was once
village of the Aisne in northern
F-ance-now two piles of Jumbled
stone separated by Il road. A woman
.tepped out of the car. She wore a
horizon blue tunic neatly tailored and
with pockets cut after the fashion of
French officers. Her skirt was of the
same material as well as the mannish
untrimmed hat. In her hand she car
ried a walking stick.
"Sylvie, how's that cow?" she ques-
toned the old French woman. Sylvie
aYowed that the COW was fine and
giving more milk every day. Thea
the conversation drifted to pots and
pans and other things Sylvie needed
in her new home built where the old
home used to be before the war. The
woman of the uniform, made some
notes on a writing pad, climbed into
the car, waved "Au Revoir' and dis
appeared up the road.
Wears Military Uniform.
i The woman OF the limousine and
uniform was Miss Anna Morgan,
daughter of the late J. P. Morgan,
and now guardian angel over some
twenty-six ruined villages of the Aisne
where war has reached the stage of
reconstruction.
! Like the cat who refuses to desert
the ruins of a burned farmhouse, the
people who inhabited those villages
before the Germans drove them out
and burned or blew up everything that
stood, are beginning to come back
one by one.
Old Sylvie was one of the first to re-
turn. The COW she spoke of was a
community COW. Except for the fif-
teen cows brought into the district
by the civil section of the American
! fund for French wounded, headed by
! Anna Morgan in the field, the entire
| &c villages are cowless. Five of these
| cows are now in the various ruined
villages-sold to the community at
cost price. Ten cows remain at Miss
Morgan's headquarters = five new
wooden barracks and what remains of
the ancient chateau, destroyed during
/ the French revolution but today keep
| ing company with the ruined houses
of Blerancourt village. Sixty families
/ get their milk morning and night at
| the chateau even tho in some cases
it means a walk of several miles.
| Each Has Charge of Village.
| Assisting Miss Morgan are nineteen
! young American women who with five
autocamions make daily visits to all
of the 26 villages. Each young wo-
man looks after a village and some of
them have two.
If the returning villagers have mon
ey they are enabled to buy necessities
! of every description delivered by the
! young Americans with their cam1ons.
If the villagers return destitute it is
| only necessary to tell the American
milIionairess and her young assistants.
! The barracks contain everything
from cows, goats and chickens to pots,
pans, knives, forks, food, clothing and
| agricultural implements necessary to
the procedure of beginning life all
over again.
The scope of the work carried on
may be judged by the fact that aside
from building homes and furnishing
them for the most needy villagers. the
American millionairess and her nine
teen assistants have provided the
wherewithal to place 1900 acres OF
the Aisne region back under cultiva-
ton