The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-03-20
Let's Go With the Sunshine of Paradise Alley and Peep Into Conditions Confronting District Nurses Association
By DOLLY DALRYMPLE

stress of business and war and society and spring togs'' and house. keeping and motoring and the hundreds l of other things that occupy our minds ] in this busy work-a-day world, and take peep with The Sunshine of Paradise Alley into that part of Birmingham where sickness and pestience and pover- ty hold sway, and whers the high cost of | living is printed in the lines under eyes that peep out from white strained, al-
 most gray-blue faces?
 ! I say take peep with "The Sunshine of Paradise Alley" for this is what I've chosen to call the wonderful district nurse. It is my own little name for her;
 one that I think fits her like a glove, for If she isn't "The Sunshine of Paradise Alley" then the world doesn't move, and
 the flowers do not bloom, and the birds do not sing, and the sick are never made comfortable!
 With the charity ball at the Southern club on the evening of April g, the tenth mile stone will be reached by this or ganzation At each ball the chairman has been chosen from among the most prominent and popular citizens of Bir- mingham, each serving well in their turn, each striving to make their ball better and more successful than the other.
 The first charity ball 10 years ago, had for it's chairman Mrs. J. Edward Miles; the second, Mrs. Thomas Greene Bush; the third, Mrs. w. E. B. Davis the fourth, Mrs Charles Gracies Davis; the fifth, Mrs Edward W. Barrett and Mrs. lWalker Percy; the sixth, Mrs. Edward H. cabaniss; the seventh. Mrs. Sydney J. Bowie, Mrs. w. E. B. Davis and Mrs. Frank Nelson, Jr.; the eighth, Mrs. Mor- ris w. Bush and Mrs. Henry Key Mill ner; the ninth, Mrs. John c. Henley and Mrs. Charles Fairchild DeBardefeben. This year, for the tenth annual ball an innovation has been made by the fact that no individual chairman has been asked to serve, but all those who are in- terested in the worksof helping the Dis trict Nurses association are invited to act as chairmen, so to speak-so won't you do your part?
 Poor little Tommy Tucker; ne
 couldn't have doctors like other httle
 boys when he was so desperately Ill
 and his mother didn't know about the
 District Nurses association. and So
 Tommy just grew up all crooked ana
 twisted and never complained, but
 went on taking care of his little baby
 brother just the same. while the poor
 little mother washed and washed and ironed and ironed during the day time trying to earn q bite of bread, and then
 suddenly The Sunshine of Paradise Alley" heard about little Tommy Tucker and went to see him and began to work with him and give him the right treat ment-- massage and things-and to give him some nourishing food, and the Loru be praised-little Tommy Tucker is going to grow straight, maybe-and the little, pitiful arm that has been glued to hls
 little side for months is going to get fat and he is going to move it like other lit
 tie boys, and, and, he just sits there smiling every day waiting for the dis trict nurse to come and bathe him and rub him, this blessed, wonderful district nurse, "The Sunshine of Paradise Alley!'
 And then suppose-just suppose-you peep in round the corner and look upon another spectacle, through back yard,
 where soot and grime and dirt and dust
 choke the sturdiest and strongest, up three flights of rickety. shaky old stairs with the smell of stale fish reeking under a line hung with filthy washed clothes; suppose you ask Mrs. Cheery about her little 4-week-old baby that the "Stork'' left. She smiles as "The Sunshine of Paradise Alley" asks her how the little family is thriving today and Mrs. Cheery smiling Justify points to the little 2-year- old boy clinging to her apron strings and the little girl Az years sobbing piteously; the mother who explains to you that she worked in a factory until two months be- fore her last born came, also explains that the other two children are in mortal dread now that something would take her away from them again-an awful dread that something would take their
 mamma"-and their little faces, white and drawn, showing their anaemic con- dition spoke pitifully this fact as well as the fact that such things as doctors and medicine and comforts, even food, were things unknown in their poverty stricken
 home and unless the district nurse had
 come, the conveniences of a sick room and clean linen and nourishing food would never have been known.
 I say-won't you step aside with me just for moment, please-from the
 stress of business and war and society,
 and ''spring togs" and housekeeping and
 motoring and the hundreds of other things
 that occupy our minds in this busy work a-day world and take a peep with "The Sunshine of Paradise Alley" into that part
 of Birmingham where sickness and pesti-
 lence and poverty hold sway and where
 the high cost of living is printed in the lines that look out from white strained almost blue-gray faces?
 Can you do this, without the very heart strings of you being torn asunder-you who know not the discomfort of even so little bit of an inconvenience,