The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1920-02-26
LETTER DESCRIBES
RHEIMS HOSPITAL
Attache.' of Hospital a /
Rheims Tells of Ener-
gency Work at Gen
eral Hospital.

Incidental to the recent talk given
before the Kenosha College club by
Miss Jane Hutchins White of Evanston,
in which she praised the action of the
Kenosha County Patriots Fund in
sending 100000 for the endowment Of
a bed in the general hospital at
Rheims, is the letter from hospital at
tache, printed below, and which tells of
1.-The emergency work done. The hos
pital was established as an enduring
memorial to the Americans who gave
their lives in the Great War and as a
final gift to France, the American
Fund for French Wounded, with the
end orsement Of the French Govern
ment, founded at Rheims a permanent
f" American Memorial Hospital for
the benefit of the women and children,
most of whom are tubercular, and all of
whom are suffering the effects of un.
dernourishment and the terrors Of liv-
| ing under gunfire for four years. The
site sixteen acres, has been given by
the French, without cost to the a. f.
F. w.
Description of Hospital.
sFThe work at Rheims has been real
jly extraordinary and in some ways I
think about the very best we (the A. f.
T. W. have done. DR.. LeFort (the
physician in CHARGE and her staff have
put the place in shape in the shortest
time on record.
You have no idea of the astonish-
| ing impression it makes on one to leave
the wrecked and tragic streets and pass
into a sunny green courtyard which al
though surrounded by ruins, is orderly,
with rows of splendid A. F. f. w. cars
standing about; then to pass through
more wreekage into huge open quad
rangle where roses are blooming and
vegetables growing apace between
| clipped box hedges.
! Here ruined buildings have been
repaired in small measure and cover
ed with tarred paper roofs, windows
have been restored, glass replaced, and
curtains, even frilled white muslin ones
have been hung. And the nurses and
aides in their white and blue uniforms
are equally startling contrast to the
sullen faces of the prisoners who have
been helping to bring about this trans
| formation.
| The wards are all as neat and clean
as, water and much elbow grease
can make them. We have done compar-
latively little painting because paint is
horribly expensive and the emergency
work was the principal thing we had in
mind-bits of sky show through the
chinks in the roofs, and through the
holes in the floor one can see the wards
tbelowI
We are to have all of the children
who are i'll in and about Rheims, and
ours is the only maternity ward in the
city as well as the only dental clinic.
Our dispensary is very popular, even
though there is another one in the town
which is run by one Of the French Red
Cross societies. (since this letter was
received, word has come that this
French Red Cross dispensary has been
destroyed BY frey.
The beds are all iron beds, picked
out Of the wreckage of the old hospital
| which used to flourish in these build
ings. These beds have been repaired
and reprinted, and others have been
bought from our dispensary at Nancy
or begged from the American Red Cross
and still others transferred from the
New York Dispensary at LuneviAe.'
Above one of these salvaged beds
hangs bronzed plate, with the words:
This bed is endowed in perpetuity by
|citizens of Kenosha County, Wiscon-
sin, .. S. A., in memory. of their sol
der dead in France. " The income from
the money sent for this purpose pro-
vides for the medical and surgical care
OF the patient who may occupy the bed.
1t does not provide for the upkeep,
which is big expense.