Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1918-11-21
VILLAGERS F IND
NAUGHT Of HOME
WHERE HUN WAS
Houses in Ruins, Furniture
Sent to Germany Few Find
Enough Shelter 10 Protect
Them From the Elements.
llssocIaied rress correspondence.l

! Paris, oct. 1j.-Carrying their little
bundles of household possessions, the
French refugees are returning to their
| homes in Chateau Thierry and the
little French villages around it, to
NauX, Lucy, Bolleau and the rest,
| places now, q part of American his
tory.
They are coming back to ruins of
villages and houses demolished by
| German or American artillery, to live
in cellars and in the shelter of tot
| tering walls until they can rebuild
/ their homes and their return is a pitt
ful spectacle.
Sometimes they find no home at all
Never do they find any furniture Oft
en- they find no food, and then the
American Red Cross steps in and
helps them. The woman who can dig
out her stove from heap of dirt and
plaster and patch it UP again so that
1t will burn counts herself inordinate-
~ lucky. One woman found remaiu-
ing CT all her household goods Just
ono big salt-cellar Forks are worth
their weight in gold and feather
bed is priced above rubies rive thou
sand five hundred blankets the Red
Cross shipped out to returning refu-
gees in q single week.
The people in the Aisne will not
be able to spend the winter in their
own villages. The villages on the
banks of the little Marne are too ut
telly battered by shells to afford hui
man habitations during the winter
weather. How, while DAYS are warm
and skies are blue, their owners can
find some tiny corner or other to live
in, but tho rain and mud and chilly
damp Of a French winter will drive
them, or If it does not a paternal gov
eminent will send them. back to their
temporary homes in the uninvaded
provinces to wait for spring.
One purpose in sending them home
so quickly was to harvest the wheat
crops but there was no food, so the
Red Cross established canteens in
many villages and served two meals
a day free to those too poor to pay
while others paid small sums. Forty
carloads of food We're sent to the
Marnc ana the Aisne in single
month I A grocery store has been
opened,fn Chateau Thierry which al
ready is a busy town again, though
the walls of its houses have been bat
tered and torn by shells. 70 keep in
truders ont the residents scrawl on
their homes in chalk Proprietor re-
turned" or House occupied
Rolling stores on trucks tour
through the villages in the valleys of
the 0isnc and Aisne to supply the re-
turning refugees with food, clothing
and household utensils. Demands
come for coffee mills, scrubbing
brushes, pals, knives. forks, spoons,
and pots for the pople taking UP
housekeeping again as literally all
that they left behind them when they
fled has been destroyed or carried
away to Germany.
10 Amiens the refugees are Just be-
ginning to return but they will come
soon IN large numbers. and they viii
find the Red Cross ready to receive
them. There is a big building IN
Amiens that was bows school IN
these half forgotten days when the
city was not under she'll fire. 1t be-
longs to the Red Cross now and ITS
class rooms are turned 10 strange uses.
There is big ''salie de reception,
where the returning refugees are sort