Smyrna times., 1919-01-15
Y. W, 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.

M han. I am eighteen years
old, and l work in big fac
tory In Michigan. More than four
hundred other girls work there too.
1 don't aim to tell you about our jobs.
You can read about our work in the
labor department reports. But l 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 town at all It's a huge barn
of buildings stuck down in the country
nineteen miles from nowhere. There
is a railroad siding. a station the size
of q dry goods box, seven farmhOuses
and one general store and pOstOffice
cOmhined-it's pretty near as big as a
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.
"I 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 III eat and sleep. That was a
trlfe ,i.at 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 and
food was with those seven farmhOuses,
so we marched straight to the farmers
wives and asked for board and room.
Farmers Wives HospitabIe.
'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 a 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 1t. 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
/ tDi0bt v.-O,1Id tolya tho rOOu1 ond cIaon
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 we're scarce as diamonds
| on blackberry bushes. AS to soap
well, the general store kept yellow bar
soap, that kind that is so full of rosin
you could use it to calk a ship. But
we made out till the next three car
loads of girls came rolling in. Then
| 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 If
they got a straw tick and a blanket.
By this time it had turned raw cold,
| and maybe you know what late au-
tumn nights in Michigan feel like. To
cap the climax the farm folks cut
down on food, and for a week 1t was
potatoes and beans and mighty few
beans at that.
Along Came a Miracle.
"But, right when we were about
| ready TO quit our iObs and heat II for