New Britain herald., 1917-03-02
AMERICAN WOMEN
 BEHIND TRENCHES
Succorins Those Made Sad by
 RaVages Of War


 March 2.-American sympathy with the civilian sufferers from the war has been given more concrete ex-
 pression in this little village than ii, any other part of the devastated country immediately behind the French fighting lines.
 When Mrs. William Crocker. of San
 Francisco, chose Vitrimont in whicl,
 to carry out her idea of reconstruct ing with her own means one of the villages destroyed by the German troops in their first rush into France she met with much doubt and sus- picion. The people of Lorraine are practical and hard-headed and also object to partake of anything given in the form of charity. It was there fore necessary to make the proposi- ton purely business-Mke one be- fore laying 1t before the villagers.
 All the men of fighting age are al the front with their regiments One of the villagers while in the trenches one day received from his wife let ter giving details of the plan of re- construction. He immediately re- piled: Don't waste ink on telling me fairly tales. You are ready to swal- low any yarn told you. Just make up your mind as I have done that we have lost everything and don't dream that good fairies are going to re- store all to us.''
 In order to convince this man and many of his village neighbors serving in the same corps that somebody was really taking interest in them and that they would not merely have to be content with the government in- demnity of sixty per. cent. of their losses Miss Daisy Polk, also a Cal and now administrator of the plan, gave printed plans and details of the scheme to the wives left be- hind. These were forwarded at once to the men at the front. who could be assured only by documentary evil dence of this kind of the good for tune to be conferred on them and their dependents.
 Living in Ruins.
 Miss Polk. who since the beginning of the war has been occupied in re- lief work of various kinds. was chosen by Mrs. Crocker to administer her benevolent scheme. She decided at once to live among the people so as to become better acquainted with them and to learn their needs. Every house. without exception, had been either shelled or burnt. She. how ever, was able to find one-roomed cottage which could be repaired and here from her single room Miss Polk directs all the work. She interviews there the architect. the builders, the departmental officials and government and only recently re- ceived Ambassador William c. Sharp, who had come to lay the cornerstone of the first new house. Of the seventy houses composing the village thirty-f four were shelled and the remaining thirty-si burned. The government itself decided to re- pair the bSmbarded houses, which were not so badly damaged as those which had been set afire. The re- of these latter was by Mrs. Crocker.
 No attempt was made by the au- thors of the scheme to force Ameri- can ideas down the throats of the Lorrainers. Very little had takep place in the village since the fifteenth century and the style of architecture was very uni- form. usually taking the shape of one pr two story cottages with grange door entrances and attached at the back the granaries and cattlesheds. The only changes insisted on by tho promoters of the scheme as we'll as by the French government were the of sanitary arrangements which hitherto had been existent, the provision of ventilation in the rooms and the separation by an in- courtyard of the cattle sheds and the human habitations.
 It was with difficulty that the peas- ants could be induced to accept some of these changes, but at length req son prevailed and the plans were fin- ally drawn up.
 The new village~i is to have wider streets and the main road through it is to be planted with trees. while the own hall and school are now to oc- ,upy prominent and spacious posi- ions in the center of the village in- stead of being hidden as before the war in narrow lanes without any air space.
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