The Devils Lake world and inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, N.D.) 1915-1920, 1919-01-15
v. G 4 .W0RKERI
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.

- w . !" 70 M - $3.50. $500 -
old, and I work In q big fac
tory In Michigan. More than four
hundred other girls work there too
Il don't aim t. 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 a town at ali. 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 a dry goods box. seven farmhOuscs
and one general store and pOstofice
cembined-its pretty near as big as q
hot tama1e stand. And THAT'S all. No
Main street, no banks FOL stores, no
ice-cream parlors, not n solitary
movie show, In all those nineteen
miles. Lonesome? It's the ragged
edge of desolation, that's what It lis.
II was one OF the first carload of
forty girls that was shipped up from
Chicago. The factory was swarmfn"
with woEkmen putting In the machir
cry, and we girls couldn't begin Wort;
for a day or so, so we began huntin:
places to eat and sleep. That was ii
tribe that the employment folks hadn't
thought OF. The wOrkmen were steei!.
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.
go we marched straight to the farmers
wives and asked for board and oom
Farmers Wives Hospitabie.
II will say that those women were Kind
and hospitable. They fixed it up he
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 n 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 us to sleeping. We fixed it up
with the farm folks that we'd work
double shifts and sleep double shifts
itoo.
$50 we planned 1T. Three girls
would use a 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
might would take the room and sleep
tin afternoon. 1t wasn't any *fuxuri-
Ious slumber, believe me- The farm
women had so few sheets and pillow
leases that most ct us went without.
And towels were arc 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 caik a ship. But
We made out till the next three car
|0oads Of girls cam rolling In. Then
i've went most distracted. Those poor
(Kirls had to sleep in tents and In the
{earB that the Gworkmen had abandoned
~ this time, and they we're lucky tf
Fthey got a straw tick and a blanket.
~ this time It had turned raw cold,
lend maybe you know what late au-
itusnn nights IN Michigan feel like. To
teap the climax the farm folks cut
Aeun - faed- and "a q waah 81 uas