The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1919-01-31

Almost Immediately after the first
battle of the Marine, in 1914, al
Quaker Unit went from England to|
render relief to the war-stricken suf-
ferers in the Marine valley. The
Quaker Unit made Sermaize, al
beautiful but almost totally ruined
town at the eastern edge of the Ger
man drive, headquarters for it's oper-
alton.
The members of the unit set upI
temporary houses to shelter the dis
tressed PEASANTS through the winter.
They organized maternity hospital,
an orphanage, and civilian hos
pital to deal with emergency cases,
and they provided necessary cloth
ing and food supplies for those inI
extreme need, and so aided the in
habitants up and down the valley to
stand the stress of the first winter OF
the war As soon as spring came
they went to work. to organize the
agricultural operations of the deva-
stated region. A large stock Of
farm machinery and implements to-
gether with seeds and grain for
spring planting and sowing was
secured. Tilling operations on a.
large scale were started, bringing ex-
tensive areas once more under culti-
walton. This relief and constructive
work went on very successfully, but
with too few people to man it, until
the time when America entered the
war.
American Friends at once decided
to join their English colleagues in
the overwhelming work of relief.
Through Grason Mallet-Prevost
Murphy, head of the Red Cross Com
mission to France, members of the
Society of Friends were asked to
form a unit for the work of recon
struction in the devastated areas.
A hundred men were chosen and
trained during the summer of 1917
at Haverford College. They sailed
for France in the early autumn and
by joint arrangement they were
merged with the veteran English
unit, and the joint group of workers
was made bureau of civilian relief
under the American Red Cross. Adj
ditional men and number Of train
ed women workers were from time
to time sent over to enlarge the
working force until it became five
hundred strong.
AS soon as it was possible to enter
the Somme region after the famous
withdrawal of Hindenburg's army in
1917, members of the Quaker Unit
took up the work of bringing the
people back to temporary homes and
OF reorganizing agriculture along
the Somme valley, as they had al
ready done along the Marine. A
large outfit of farming machinery,
including tractor engines, gang
plows, the most approved types of
harrows and cultivators, reapers and
binders, moving machines, thresh-I
ers and straw-balers, was sent over
from America. The unit contained
many farmers from the great farm
ing belts of the West, young men
full OF drive and enthusiasm and at
the same time equipped with tech
meal skill and efficiency. They or
ganized the available local workers
and proceeded to produce a great
harvest on the Somme, which had
been laid waste by the retreating
German army.
This task was going forward with
great promise when suddenly, with
out any warning, until the shells
began to fall round the workers. the
disastrous retirement of last March
occurred, bringing ruin a second
time to the rebuilt villages and the
reconstructed farms.
For the members OF the unit there
followed period of natural depres-
sion at the thought that their
months of labor on the fields of the
Somme and all the houses they had
built for the people were thrown
away and that the invading army
would reap the wheat they had
sown. But optimism quickly re-
turned. They had proved that these
helds with their shell holes could be
redeemed; they had restored the
spirits of the French families and
mad turned their thoughts from
their tragedies to interestin0 ,ro,.i,
on the fields. In the crisis they had
acted as shepherds of the flock and
after the catastrophe they built
refugee villages in Eastern France