Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1918-10-24
The BLUE TRIANGLE
Oil BABEL'S TOWER

across her face and shrank down on
the station platform bench as the solid
biue figure suddenly bent down over
her. EXcitedly she shook her head IN
answer to the question that she could
not understand. She searched through
her red plaid waist for the paper that
Irony had folded into a little square
and given to her. The writing on it,
in the English that Tony knew and she
dld not, told the house where she lived.
Tony had explained it all to her that
morning. He had told it to her again
at the station. Then, waving his hat
he had disappeared into the train via
the rest of the men, and Lucia haG
been left standing oueside the gate.
There were crowds of women pushing
all about her. They were weeping.
So Lucia wept, too.
Lucia had been betrothed to Tony
in the old country Five years before,
with long ticket for New York
pinned into his inside pocket, her lover
had left her. He wrote in every let
ter that he had made her home in
the new country. Her. dowry money
had finally provided her own transport
tation, and for two months Tony and
she had been married. Then he had
drawn a ticket with a number on it,
and this morning he had gone off to
war
To the policeman Lucia told all these
things in rapid Italian. But the po-
liceman only talked back to her as
rapidly in a language that was not
italian. She followed him dumbly to
. headquarters. An hour later a w0m-
an wearing American clothes gently
began talking to her in beautiful Ital-
! IAN
Italian Lucia was only one of thou
sands Of foreign-born women, Syrians,
I, Italians, Armenians, Russians, Lithu-
anians, Polish, who, when the draft
/. called their men folk to the American
colors, asked in helpless confusion
what it was all about. When would
their men be back? What did people
mean when they told them they would
receive money through the mail?
Where could they find work that they
who could explain it all to them in
their own language?
The Y w. G. A. was ready to offer
assistance, but it would be of no value
T to offer it in English. Consequently
it had to supply corps of women who
could talk to the foreign-bOrn woman
at her own door in the language that
che 70 in hn
| land. To teach her English was as
|. essential a factor in her Americaniza-
|. ten as to find her a job. Therefore
| the war council of the 7. W. G. A. set
out to find her English.
A year before the war began in Eu-
rope, the leaders of the Young Wom-
| an's~Christian association fOresaw just
such a situation, and made ready to
meet it. They studied the needs Of
the Immigrant. They trained skilled
! American social workers to become IA
|: miliar with the home habits and to
! speak the language of the Lett and the
| Hungarian and the Greek and the 9TH
er foreign mothers who brought ba-
| bies and bundles over from Ellis island
+ to Battery park.
| The organization into which this eX-
| pertinent has developed was named
! by the Y. W. c. A. national board, THE
! International Institute for Young
Women" In terms which these wom-
en- can understand, it is teaching the
foreign-born how to sew and cook and
care for the baby.
| IN.
fusedly fingered on the station plat
| forms when the draft trains pulled out,
the w. Y c. A. is giving direct as
sistance. Educated European women,
appointed to the regular staff of work,
,ers at the camp Y w. G. A. Hostess
:Houses are able to talk to the drafted
men in their own language, assist them
in writing letters home, and in ar
ranging furloughs and little visits to
the camp.
''The Home Information Service for
Foreign Families of Enlisted Men, is
doing practical relief work for the
| wives and mothers. The purpose of
the board is to help the women folk
| left behind to understand where their
boys are and how they are being treat
| ed; hOwe they need home support and
cheer, how to send them comforts, and
to keep pace themselves by learning
English and other things, so that when
the boys come home they will not find
their women still very un-American
land out of sympathy with them.
Food conservation bulletins have
beer. translated into IS or 10 languages.
AT the factories and munition plants
4 : int erpreters are available for the non
English speaking women by whom the
real var industries of the country are
| being largely carried on. In % i'm
portant cities international Institute
Bureaus are training American and
I.forefgn women for full time social
! service work with foreigners. Twenty
four trained women are employed on
the newfoundland district field staff of
the Y. w. c. A. On June 10 there were
/ 105 trained women working at ~Ameri-
-canization.
When more. than 10000 Chicago men
filed out their blue cards for the Sep
teinber y draft, Gang Luo Wong APP
4seared at one precinct bringing with
! him Mrs. Gang Wong and the three
children. All five wished to register.
f The enrolling CLERK explained, but the
+ Gang I1to WOngs. make many broken
/ Chinese circumstances before the mas
ter Of the family was induced to sign
: - cf4Ti without his wife Mrs Wong