The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-01-13
Y. C, 4. WORKER
 IS BIC 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.

Ak
 WI han, I am eighteen years l
 old, and I work in a big fac tory in Michigan More than four hundred other girls work there too. I don't aim to tell you about our jobs. You can read about our work in the ! labor department reports. But I do aim to tell you about our Big Sister and of the things she has done for us.
 "To begin with, our factory town isn't a town at all. It's huge barn of buildings stuck down in the country nineteen miles from nowhere. There is a railroad siding, a station the size of dry goods box, seven farinhouSes and one general store and postoffice combined-its 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 1t 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 to eat and sleep. That was trifle that the employment folks hadn't thought of The worknen 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.
 "Iwill say that thosewomen 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 fivegor six in 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 i chance as to sleeping. We fixed it up l with the farm folks that we'd work double shifts and sleep double shifts 1 too.
 "So we planned 1t. Three girls 1 would use room from eight at night i till six the next morning Then they'd hustle over to the factory, and the : three girls who'd been working all i night would take the room and sleep i till afternoon. It wasn't any luxuri- 1 ous sllmber, believe me. The farm i women had so few sheets and pillow cases that most of us went without. ! And towels were scarce as diamonds i on blackberry bushes. As to soap well, the general store kept yellow bar soap, that kind that is so full of roSin i you could use 1t to calk ship. But we made out till the next three car loads of girls came rolling in. Then we went most dist icted. Those poor girls had to sleep tents and in the cars that the workm T had abandoned by this time, and th ' were lucky if they got a straw tic. and a blanket. By this time it had { rned 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 it was
 potatoes and beans and mighty few
 beans at that.
 Along Came Miracle.
 But, right when we were about
 ready to quit our jobs and beat it for
 home, along came a miracle. Two
 quiet, businesslike women climbed
 down from the eastbound train one
 morning. With them came eight work
 nNPn, carload of scantling and tar
 paper, another carload of cots and
 blankets and pillows and sheets and
 tOwels--brand new blankets and beds
 think of the glory of that !-and
 bushels of dishes and rolls of oilcl0th
 and enough burlap to carpet the coun.
 try. You won't believe me when I tell
 you that in ten days their workmen had a scantling-and-tar-pa shack l put up and burlap tackled over the
 walls, and the T. W. c. A. secretary
 and her helper had set up board tables
 and coffee kettles and were serving us the grandest hot lunches every day And back behind the burlap screens were set those rows of clean cots, with enough cover to keep you warm the
 coldest night that ever blew, and 6
 towel apiece for every single girl Dc you wonder that we all felt, as one girl put 1t, I'll wager the Fritz-C Carle ton has nothing on thisr
 "Who were tk7se women? Why X r. W. c. A. secretaries, of course. rG
 think you'd know that without being
 told. All over the country whereve,
 we girls have pitched in to make aero plane cloth or overallS or munitions ol canned goods you'll find Y W. c. A secretary working harder than any body else to make the girls comfort
 able and to keep them happy and well
 Sometimes they haven't money enough
 to get all that we really need But al
 ways they stretch every cent to make it do it's level best for us Do you won
 der that we girl workers have learned
 to call the Y. w. C. A. our Big Sister
 the very best Big Sister of all?