The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-06-25
The War Camp SerUice Hostess

| II the headquarters" of the war camp community service at the
 corner of Twentieth street and Fourth
 avenue, you'll find there these days a
 busy lot of people; organizing, cleaning
 house, making preparations for active work, and in the midst of it all petite figure-fair of face, with mop of red gold hair surmounting it--enthusiastic,
 energetic-and this nice young wom- an you'll find to be Miss Mildred Cher ry-direct from Galveston, Tex, where
 for IS months she has been engaged in this sort of important work.
 Miss Cherry is hostess for the "re-
 creational center of the war camp community service here, and 1t seems to me that she is the right person in the right place; she knows her work and what's more she does it.
 If any one had told me two years ago that I could have done the work required by the war camp community service as hostess I would have de- clared it was impossible" Miss Cherry told me as we chatted yesterday about her work. In my home town-Galves- ton-before the war 1t was considered most awful breach of etiquette to speak to man without knowing him. and of course we observed the rules of the game. Especially was this true of the men in uniform. In Galvestion, you see, we have three army posts, Fort Travis, Fort Crockett and Fort San Jacinto, and the men in uniform were no novelty to the girls in Galveston.
 Army men, many of them. were sup- posed to be rather wild and dissolute characters, said Miss Cherry, many of them escaping justice for crimes committed; assuming another name and entering the army. All this sort of tra- dition held good out there; so when the offer came to me from a war worker loaned to Galveston by the Y. M. c. A., to wear the insignia of of- flee, assume the rule of war camp com munity service worker and go to the soldiers and sailors and speak to them and extend them an invitation to our recreational center--why, I simply said I couldn't do it.
 q was at that time greatly inter ested in my work in Trinity Episcopal church. said Miss Cherry, when the offer came to me and when it was inn pressed upon me that the highest class and highest type of women were need ed for the work among the uniformed men-of course I accepted it.
 T shall never forget my first ex perience," Miss Cherry said. T went up to soldier and asked him if he would like to attend one of our dances and to meet some nice young ladies' and he stared at me like he thought I had lost my mind; he did not answer. And I was so completely discouraged that I went to the Y. M. c. A. war worker and told her I'd have to resign; but she wouldn't hear to that and bade me go and speak to a young sailor boy whom we saw in the street I told her if this proved a failure I'd never try again, and that fact that I've been working in the war camp community service for IS months proves that it wasn't a failure.
 We had marvellous work out in Galveston Miss Cherry said Of course the town was filled with sol diers and sailors, marines and fliers; o you see, Ellington field was between Galveston and Houston, and there were some 2500 fliers there. Our work filled a long felt want with these men and we had many wonderful experiences.
 q recall young fellow coming to the recreational center one day" Miss Cherry said, "who looked as if he had lost his last friend. He was terribly homesick. and I asked him if there was anything I could do for him. He said, Yes; there are two things I want, one is to know a nice girl to take out to a show this evening and the other is a baby to play with. I looked at him in astonishment not knowing what he meant. Then he explained that In his family there was only himself and his -