Mohave County miner. [volume] (Mineral Park, A.T. [Ariz.]) 1882-1918, 1917-03-03
VITRIMONT BEING
REBUILT BY AID
OF SAN FRANCISCAN

VITRIMONT, near Luneville,
France, Feb.15.-American sympathy
with civilian sufferers from the war
has been given more concrete express
sion in this little village than in any
other part of the devastated country
Immediately behind the French fight
ing lines.
When Mrs. William Croker of San
Francisco chose Vitrimont in which to
tcarry out her idea of reconstructing
with her own means one of the vii
lagos destroyed by the German troops
in their first rush into France she
met with much doubt and suspicion.
The people of Lorraine are practical
and hard-headed and also object to
partake of anything given in the form
of charity. 1t was therefore neces-
sary to make the proposition a purely
business-like one before laying it be-
fore the villagers.
All the men of fighting age are at
the front with their regiments. One
of the villagers while in the trenches
one day received from his wife a let
ter giving details of the plan of con-
struction. He Immediately replied:
Don't waste ink on telling me fairy
tales. You are ready to swallow any
yarn told you. Just make up your
mind as l have done that we have
lost everything, and don't dream that
good fairies are going to restore 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 Cali
fornian, and now administrator of the
plan, gave printed plans and details
of the scheme to the wives left behind.
They were forwarded at once to the
men at the front, who could be as
sured only by documentary evidence
Of this kind of the good fortune to be
conferred on them and their depend
ants.
Miss Polk, who since the beginning
of the war has been occupied in re-
lief work of various kinds, was chos-
en- by Mrs. Croker 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 a 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
functionaries, and only recently re-
ceived Ambassador William G. Sharp,
who had come to lay the cornerstone
of the first new house.
Of the seventy houses composing
the village thirty-four were shelled
and the remaining thirty-six burned.
The government itself decided to re-
pair the bombarded houses, which
were not so badly damaged as those
which had been set afre. The recon
struction of these latter was under |
taken by Mrs. Croker.
No attempt was made by the au-
thors of the scheme to force Ameri-
can ideas down the threats of the con-
sentative Lorrainers. Very little
change had taken place in the village
since the fifteenth century and the
style of architecture was very uni
form, usually taking the shape of one
or two-story cottages with grange
door entrances and attached at the
back the granaries and cattlesheds.
The only changes insisted on by the
promoters of the scheme as we'll as by
the French government were the in
PRODUCTION of sanitary arrangements
which hitherto had been nonresident.
the provision of ventilation in the |
rooms and the separation by an inter
Vening courtyard of the cattlesheds
and the human habitation.
1t was with difficulty that the peas
ants could be induced to accept some
If these changes; but at length reason
prevailed and the plans were finally
lrawn up.
The new village is to have wider
streets and the main road through it
S to be planted with trees, while the
own hall and school are now to oc-
'upy prominent and spacious positions
n the center of the village instead of
'elng hidden as before the war in
harrow lanes without any air space.