Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1919-10-31
RED CROSS HELPS
IN INSTANCES OF
STRESS and NEED
The Romance of Home Ser
vice Is Seen in the Desert
of Damascus as Well as
in America

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difficulties of reaching them. In this
task American Red Cross Home Serv-
ice has been of far-flung usefulness,
the record established by it proving so
gratifying that Home Service, which
has been confined to assistance of the
families of soldiers and sailors, is now
being expanded to be of general use
fulness to the people.
One of the purposes of the Third
Roll Call for members, November 2 to
II, is to enable the Red Cross to carry
out an enlarged program of Home
Service throughout the United States.
The helping hand of Home Service
is strikingly portrayed in scores of in
cidents reported to Red Cross head
quarters. Wherever the families Of
American fighters were, Red Cross
Home Service workers have found
them, ever in the mountain Businesses
CT deserts of distant countries, helping
them communicate with their loved
ones and particularly seeing to it that
funds allotted to them by their boys
actually reached them. In innumera-
BILE instances, too, returned doughboys
have turned to Home Service to help
them in a wide variety of problems.
Whatever the help required, Home
Service men and women, of whom
there are thousands especially trained
for the work, have found a way to
help, often under picturesque, even
romantic, circumstances.
BY Camel Across the Desert.
There was a lonely Syrian mother
living four days by camel across the
desert from Damascus. Her son,
George Hamway, having emigrated to
America, responded to the call to the
colors in 1917 and fell fighting in the
Argonne, leaving only a vague address
of his mother. 1t was found when the
Wal Risk Insurance Bureau under
took to begin payments to her OF his
$1,000 insurance.
In the uncertainty developing, the
matter was placed in the hands of the
American Red Cross Mission to Pal.
estine as a routine Home Service case.
Long searching located the aged moth
er, and she was brought to Damascus
by camel, accompanied by witnesses.
Bedouins in full gala attire of the des-
ert. After much palaver the identity
OF the woman was fully established
and certifcation of it forwarded to
Washington, the old lady returning to
her lowly home to await the remit
tances that will ease her remaining
days.
Antonio and Angela del Ruppo were
eo:-1., -uoJI 20 do FOLDS uyifh q IitfIo form
in Treviso, about three miles from the
Piave. When the war came to that
part of Italy they were driven out of
their home into Austrian territory as
prisoners, while their little farm be-
came a battlefield. They were held
as farm laborers in Austria, knowing
nothing of the real progress of the
Fighting. They never heard that the
United States had entered the war
and that their son in that country.
Antonio, had enlisted and was fighting
for them in France.
Antonio. meantime, had for months
been making frantic efforts to learn
what had become of his father and
mother. Red Cross Home Service
workers in Italy conducted an inves-
tigation, and a few weeks ago were
able to send word to Antonio, who sur
vived the fighting, that his parents
had been found, just released from
captivity in Austria, and that the Red
Cross would assist them until his
allotment money could reach Italy.
In the rush of getting the American
soldiers home from France the dough
boy didn't have much time to wind up
his affairs there. Not long ago Home
Service received from a demobilized
soldier in this country a letter and
affidavit showing he had 5000 francs
on deposit in France and asking the
ID Cross to get it for him. All the
soldier had remembered was the name
of the town, the name of the bank he
had forgotten and his bank book had
been lost in action.
BY the process of elimination Home
Service workers located the bank and
the deposit, the bank officials accept
ing the word of the Red Cross that 1t
had authority to collect the little for
tune, and they turned it over to be
forwarded to the former soldier.
But the romance of Home Service
has not been confined to work that
carried its representatives to remote
spots in the Old World. Here in the
united States Home Service emer-
gency cases called Red Cross workers
to many out-of-the-way places on er-
rands varied and sometimes romantic.
Home Service is substantial neigh
borliness without unwanted intrusion,
providing those who otherwise could
not have it's assistance in meeting
the many problems confronting fam
lilies whose head or supporting son Is
called from them.