The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-04-16
FRENCH "ARDENS"
 GET WINES BACK

In the many cases like that of EnOch Arden, where French husbands listed as dead returned to find their wives married to other men, for the most part the first husbands took back their wives, while the second husbands retireA gracefully. This is the observation of American Red Gross workers who noted such cases abroad during the war.
 Mrs, Helen Carter of Washington, D. C., who was in France since No venber, 1917, working among refugees and evacues In conjunction with the French government, brings home the story of the reunion of wives with husbands they believed dead.
 ''It is an interesting fact that, since the arTnistice, many men who went to fight, and who were reported as killed, are returning to find their wives married again. said 0frsL Car ter. ''But these French wives have a peculiar sense of loyalty to the men who have gone to the front. And it is, in the majority of cases, quite easy to make them see that their plain duty Hes with their first hus- bands.
 "Of course, tfI1s does not make for a great deal of happiness on the part of-the second husband, who is uusally in love with the wife. But a fine eense of justice prevails among them; when the first one appears, they give up gracefully, if not happily.
 'T remember one case. It was quite pathetic. There was a. young woman, Q repatrlee, who came through ESvions to Fouls She was i'll when she first came to the Red Cross Headquarters, and we sent her to a. hospital, when an operation soon put her in good shape for work
 We then obtained her a position In one of the munition factories It was because of the illness that she was allowed to bs repatriated, as the Germans considered her one of the useless mouths that they sent back into France. because the Germans did not want to feed any one who could not work
 "A few weeks after the first battle of the MaIne she had received word through the American Red Cross, which then had relief stations in northern France, that her husband was among the missing. For over two wears she had tried to locate him in the German prison camps, and there was no Of1ical record of him. She finally received a letter from the French government telling her that her husband was dead
 Tn the munitions factory in Tolll she met q reforTne Ca soldier who had been injured and was not fit to go to war, but worked well with his hands). A love affair followed and they were married.
 "A month after the armistice she was walking in the streets of Toul when she came Hace to face with her first husband. For a moment she was almost overcome with fear. But she had loved him deeply, and forgetting her new love she rushel1 madly up to her husband, throwing her arms around his neck, rejoicing in his re- turn
 'Tn great distress she came to us to ask us what to do, and matters were arranged so that according to the French law she received a divorce and was returned to her first love. The other man was upset for while, but Tose to proper heights and under standing
 It was in tho Department of Cor reze and Cruze that a great deal of the work of civilian relief was ac- complished by the American Red Cross, which worked only at the re- quest of and in cooperation with the French government The French government furnished the lodgings for the hundreds of thousands of refugees. reforms and evacues who passed through here.
 It was the part of the Red Cross to furnish them with clothing, food when necessary, medical care and to find work for them. To show the magnitude of the accomplishment Mrs. Carter cites one instance, of which there were thousands whose stories might be told on similar lines.
 ''I remember one woman,'' she re- lates. Her name was Mariette. When the e-GerInans came rushing for ward on the spring defence now a year ago she was in a hospital in a town in northern France. Ten days before she had been operated on for hernia She had three little children Her husband had been invalided home and was able to do very little for tho support of the family.
 "@WfSen it was found that the Ger mans would arrive almost any time she and her three children and hel husband were taken in an army ca nion to the station, where they haC to wait in the dark ten hours befor, they could be loade6 upon the freight trains. She got a bad cold and whel
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