The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1919-01-30
Y, ". c. A. WORKER.
IS BIG SISTER
Industrial Woman's Service Club
Brings Home to Girls in New
Factory Community.
BLUE TRIANGLE MEANS CHEER
Club Stands for Hot Lunches, Clean
Towels, Comfortable Cots, Parties,
Games and Recreation to
Girl Workers.
Katherine Holland Brown.

tfN Try name is May Isabel Carna-
MI han. am eighteen years
old, and work In a big fac
tory in Michigan. More than four
hundred other girls work there TOO.
[ don't aim to tell you about our jobs.
You can read about our work in the
labor department reports. But do
aim to tell you about our Big Sister
and of the things she has done for us.
ITO begin with, our factory town
isn't a town at all. It's huge barn
of buildings stuck down in the country
nineteen miles from nowhere. There
is a railroad siding, station the size
of dry goods box, seven farmhouses
and one general store and postoffice
pretty near as big as
hot tamale stand. And. that's all. NO
Main street, no banks nor stores, no
ice-cream parlors, not one solitary
movie show, in all those nineteen
miles. Lonesome? It's the ragged
edge of desolation, that's what it is.
81 was one of the first carload. of
forty girls that was shipped up from
Chicago The factory was swarming
with workmen putting in the machin-
cry, and we girls couldn't begin work
for a day or so, so we began hunting
places to eat and sleep. That was
trifle that the employment folks hadn't
thought of. The workmen were Sleep
ing and eating In the cars that had
brought them there. backed on the
siding. Our only chance for beds ana
food was with those seven farmhouses,
so we marched straight to the farmers
wives and asked for board and room.
Farmers Wives Hospitable.
"I will say that those women were kind
and hospitable. They fixed it up be.
tween them to feed us forty girls, and
they gave us good food too. But for
rooms, that was the question. They
could each spare one room. That
meant sleep five or six in room. But
right then along came the boss OF the
factory and told us the machinery was
ready and he'd expect us girls to work
double shifts, night and day.
"He wanted to make use of every
minute, you see. But that gave us our
chance as to sleeping. We fixed it up
with the. farm folks that we'd work
double shifts and sleep double shifts
too.
$50 we planned it. Three girls
would use room from eight at night
till six the next morning. Then they'd
hustle over to the factory, and the
three girls who'd been working all
night would take the room and sleep
till afternoon. 1t wasn't any luxuri-
Gus slumber, believe me. The farm
women had so few sheets and pillow
cases that most of US went without
And towels were scarce as diamonds
on blackberry bushes. AS TO soap
well, the general store kept yellow bal
soap, that kind that is so full Of rosin
you could use 1t to calk a ship. But
we made out till the next three car
loads of girls came rolling in. Their
we went most distracted. Those poor
girls had to sleep in tents and in the
cars that the workmen had abandoned
by this time. and they were lucky L
they got a straw tick and blanket
BY this time it had turned raw cold
and maybe you know what late au
| tumn nights In Michigan feel like. II
cap the climax the farm folks Gu
down on food, and for week it wa
potatoes and beans and mighty few
beans at that.
Along Came Miracle.
"Rut right when we were abou
ready to quit our. jobs and beat it 70
home, along came miracle. Tw'
quiet, businesslike women climbe,
down from the eastbound train on
morning. With them came eight work
men. a carload Of scantling and ia
paper, another carload of cots an
blankets and pillows and sheets an
i towels-brand new blankets and bed
think of the glory of that IAN
bushels of dishes and rolls of oilclot
and enough burlap to carpet the couI
try. You won'tbelieve me when tie
you that in ten days their workme
had ling-and-tar-paper shac
put up and burlap tackled over tn
j walls, and the Y. w. G. A. secretar
\ and her helper had set up board table
and coffee kettles and were serving U
the grandest hot lunches every da.
And back behind the burlap screen
were set those rows of clean cots, wit
enough cover to keep you warm til
J coolest night that ever blew, and
towel apiece for every single girl. Z
, you wonder that we all felt, as or
,, girl put 1t, I'll wager the Fritz-Carl
ton has nothing on this 7
"Who were tt use women? VIII
Y. w. G. A. secretaries. of course. /
4 think you'd know that without beir
n told. All over the country .wherev,
4 we girls have pitched in to make aer
D plane cloth or overalls or munitions
0 canned goods you'll find Y. w. G.
secretary working harder than an
0 body else to make the girls comfor
able and to keep them happy and we
0 Sometimes they haven't money enou:
U to get all that we really need But &
U ways they stretch every cent to NAL
it do fits level best for us. Do you wo