Milford chronicle., 1919-09-12
ITALIAN BRIDES HELPED
BY AMERICAN Y. w. c. A.


Port work for Italian brides Of Am
erican soldiers has been established
bv the American Y. W. c. A. in Naples
and Genoa as a part of the Assocla-
tion's after war work for American
women.
The work will be modelled after that
done for French war brides at Brest
and St. Nazaire and will probably con-
tinue for about six months as many
more women will be sent from ltaly
than from France.
"The difference is that in Italy 1t
is a family proposition" says MISS
constance Clark, finance executive for
the American Y, W. c. A. overseas,
who has Just made an investigating
trip through Italy. In addition to the
war brides, there are numbers OF Wo-
men. forty or fifty years of age, who
are waiting to cross to America for
the first time. Their husbands are
Italian-American who fought in the
great war. and for this reason the
American Army is willing TO send over
their wives and children, despite the
fact that the offspring in family often
number eight or nine
One advantage in Italy as against
/ France, Miss Clark says, is that ltal-
ian brides speak the same language as
their husbands so that Y. w. c. A.
/ secretaries do not have to be matri-
monial interpreters as they frequent
! ly are in France.
Association war work in Italy has
opened up in ten different cities:
Rome. Naples, Florence, Belegna,
Turin, Genoa, Spezia Palermo in Sicily
and Trieste, under the direction OF
Miss Lillian Hall, who started for Rus
sia last autumn and on finding it i'm
possible to get into Russia until the
spring. decided to go to Italy. Miss
Jessie Bidwell is finance executive for
the Italian work General headquar-
ters are in Genoa.
The central Y. w. c. A. building in
Via Balboa, Rome, which was given
by Miss Helen Gould, has not been op-
Grated for years because of lack OF
funds. This building is being taken
over and being operated under the
name of the American Y W. c. A. for
a year. 1t is to be a foyer fOrl working
girls and also an information hostel .
for students Miss Mabel Warner, who .
was in charge of the Hostess House F.
in Rome during the winter, will be
head Dof this work.
A large, old fashioned hotel on one .
Of the central squares in Genoa has
been taken over The main dining
room and some floors are to be used as
Hostess House or women's hotel,
while the upper floors will be fitted up
for industrial girls who have diff
Guilty finding reasonable living accom-
modations. The ground floor will be
made into a recreation room, cafeteria
and class room.
A vacation camp has been opened .
up in the Tuscan hills, above Florence, .
for girls who have become anemic .
during the war through lack of food T
and bad living conditions. Miss Clark
reports that the Italian girls are quite .
generally underfed.
"They lived on chestnut -four, or
whatever they could get I saw one
little girl there. worn out from lack .
of food and from lack of wages. She
was an embroiderer and got fifty cen
times day-ten cents. I think l
shall never again put a piece Of en-
broidery on my body, the cost is too .
great.
This camp was quite badly shaken .
up and the walls cracked quite a bit .
during the earthquake on June 29th.
The shocks occurred every hour so
that the entire household had to sleep .
on the stones in the open driveway
one night, but earthquakes are such
a common thing that this disturbed
no one. A fresh group of girls were
eager to go to camp next week. Many
of them had not had a country vaca-
ton since 1914"
A Y W. c. A club and an American
Hostel for students is to be opened in
Florence probably in the building
which was formerly a German student .
hostel and which has been taken over
by the Government. Recreation CEN
ters will be opened in Turin, Milan,
Venice, Palermo Spezia. Belegna, Tri-
este and Naples
During her stay in Italy Miss Clark
saw several riots and in Naples acci-
dentally rode into a maccarOni riot.
The women, she said. were protesting
against the high cost of living but did
not resort to violence.