The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1918-08-17
TEXAS S. A. WOMEN
DEFY HUN SHELLS
sa5 i
SERVE COFFEE AND FOOD TO
YANKEE BOYS DURING
GREAT BATTLE
RISK LIVES WITH SOLDIERS
Stick to Work Until Ordered to Re-
tire Account of Terrific Gas and :.
Shell Bombardment
BY Robert S. DOMAIN
international News Service Stan
Correspondent.

= ~ = ny
by day and by night, living in water
filled dugouts in the American frs
lines, eight American women, Saliva
ton Army workers. went through thu
German attack on the American for
ces near Montdidier April 80. Smear
ed from head to foot with mut
which chung in clods to their rubbe
boots, the women finally staggered
back to little village behind thu
| American lines ON May 1.
They were the same women wnt
rode $50 miles on army trucks ant
caissons from the Toul front to the
Montdidier front, which the Ameri
| can troops took over at the height
OF the German attack upon Amiens
American army officers speak with
tears in their eyes of the work these
Salvation Army women have done
and are doing.
When our boys came back through
the German barrage, which played
night and day upon the roads near
Grivesnes,'' said an American Off.
GER, they were met by these fear.
less women who served them hot
cocoa and coffee and handed out
American-made doughnuts and pies
to the lads.
"At 8 a. m. each morning in a
week when the rain poured down
and soaked both troops and women,
these Salvation Army workers stuck
to their posts near the front line
trenches. They met every ammuni-
ton train going up to the trenches
and every company of men coming
out. They met the bandaged walk
ing wounded along the roads swept
by shell Ere and ministered to their
needs.
They built fires in dugouts in the
battle zone and warmed the rain
soaked troopers; they kept their
cauldrons of cocoa constantly well
filled and they baked doughnuts and
pies in reliefs, day and night. No
wonder the Buddies, the Sammies,
the Yanks, the Jacks swear by the
Salvation Army from one end Of
France to the other
For five days preceding the attack
the eight Salvation Army women
were not able to come up out Of their
dugout except at brief intervals dur
Ing the day. During most. Of the
day they slept or worked in relays.
In the early morning hours all came
up to do their work before the dawn
made them and the American troops
and truck trains visible to the enc
my.
An American Army officer who
went through the Montdidier fight
ing recommends that these eight
women be mentioned. They are
Miss Cora Van Norden and Miss
Geneva Ladd of New York City, the
sisters Irene and Gladys Mcintyre OF
Mount Vernon, N. VI; Myrtle Turk
ington of South Manchester, Conn.,:
Miss Gertrude Simonds and Darmar
Williams OF Chicago, and the famous
Mother (Mrs. Minnie) Burdick of
Dallas, Texas, of apple pie fame.
Recently Mother Burdick wheed.
led big batch Of dough out of the
army cooks on the Toul front and
baked several thousand doughnuts,
which were put aboard one of the
few Salvation Army trucks. Fred
StlliWell, II years old, of Chicago,
and Capt. Charles Marks of Bay
C-ty Mich, attempted to drive the
sfack in daylight up to the trenches.
A boche battery Immediately got on
the truck target when the latter, in
avoiding a shell hole, went into the
ditch. Stillwell and Marks were
Obliged. to take to the ditch when
sixty shells fell around the truck and
steel fragments riddled it in a hun
ored PAGES. From the ditch they
cfaWled to communication trench,
carrying several sacks of doughnuts
with them. Finally, they reached
the American trenches. That aft.
ernoon, Col. William S. Barker, in
charge of the American Salvation
Army work in France, found that
the truck and its drivers were miss.
ing. The Germans let him reach
the truck in his fiivver before thew
opened fire. Colonel Barker narrow
" escaped with his life when a show.
er OF shells broke around his little
machine and the badly shattered
truck
That night, however, with a quar-.
termaster truck, he succeeded in null
ing the Salvation Army truck out
OF the ditch and got the doughnuts
now cold but as good as ever, in ia
the boys The same night another
army truck, trying to avoid the same
shell hole, went into the ditch ut
the same spot. When daylight came
the Germany battery blew it to
spIintens
Il wish every American who has
stood on street corners in Amar;oo