The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1918-07-18
HELPING FAMILY
LEFT BY SOLDIER
THE RED CROSS HOME SERVICE
AND WHAT IT MEANS TO
THE ARMY
FAMILIES Of SOLDIERS NOT FORGOTTEN
This Service ls Being Developed Every
Day As Experience Shows New
Ways to Render Service
(By Marion BOnsall Davis)

(By Marion Bonsall Davis)
Wherever our soldiers or sailors are
in training they are seeing or are
shortly to see a statement like this
one, which is posted at Camp Upton:
Notice to Members of the National
Army: The American Red Cross is
prepared to be of service to the fam
lilies Of enlisted men. Soldiers are in
vited to communicate with the Red
Cross field director at Red Cross
headquarters upon any problem which
may confront their families at home.
The home service of the Red Cross is
equipped to aid in any emergency that
may arise in the home Of soldiers"
Very quietly, now to this soldier,
now to that sailor, now to this canton
ment, now to that camp, now to this
family, now to that community, the
realization of what this notice means
has come as a great revelation-as a
new strength; as a new hold on life.
1t means, briefly, that the home SER
vice and the camp service of the Red
Cross are charged with the duty of
safeguarding the homes of the men
called to the misunderstanding
them as literally, as humanity as this:
Several weeks after a certain sok
der had enlisted it happened that his
wife and children were threatened
with election from their home for non
payment of the rent. A neighbor sug.
gested that the home service of the
Red Cross might have influence with
the landlord. But the Red Cross
workers did more than bridge the fin
ancial crisis. they brought friendship
and a new sense of life to that home.
In another soldiers. home the little
brother-eleven years old-who had
walked On crutches all his life, fell
and broke them. The family did not
have enough money to buy new ones,
and went to the home service section
Of the Red Cross. The workers there
took the child to an o%rthopedic sur
geOn. He said he could help the boy
by an operation. The child was eager
at the prospect of being like other
children-and he is that now, running
and jumping. And the big brother in
n mn fhinEc nf chat ftn,n hA
sees the sign of the Red Cross.
Private b at Clamp
to his officers willfully stupid.
The thrilling things of the new life
were only terrible to him. Worry
about his family kept taking on new
If her allotment did not come
promptly, what would his wife do?
Who would take are Of her in her
approaching confinement? Who would
care of the children? Would the
refuse credit? AS the others
seemed to catch the spirit of the
to respond to the bugle and the
drums and the military ceremonies
when %battalions of new soldiers swung
clearly into the traditional formations
to salute the colors-he who saw new
souls born in some of them felt him
self outcast. rebellious, desperate.
When the notice went up in the
camp he saw his Red Cross field d.
rector. It's assurance that the Red
Cross was ready to help meant, in his
case, that the young wife. who had
been so lonely and so frightened when
her allotment was delayed, had expert
care in that happy maternity ward in
New York-always bright with kind
.ness-which is the greatest profession
al pride Of a group Of distinguished
physicians who are proud to offer their
skill to the home service section Of
the Red Cross; that the children were
tenderly cared for, meanwhile, and
money difficulties settled. But again
it meant much more than this.
For the Red Cross home service
friends did not let that family drop,
but continually brought new pleasures
and interest into their lives so that
they came to have the invigorating
sense of their part in the community.
New economies took on an interest
a kind of dignity of patriotic observ-
ance; there raj something new in
everything; an unexpected fash of
meaning here and there In things that
had just been words. They began to
realize new possibilities in living. new
possibilities in themselves. And quite
naturally. there came to the man the