Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1920-01-02
MARRIED HEROES by Frederic j. Haskin

brought from Europe is most curious and in
adequate consisting OF odd boxes and baskets
and even shawls. These may be all right for
New York, but the bride must have something
more modern and less conspicuous to carry
her belongings to her husbands home.
Most OF the brides stop for only few days,
or, at most, a copule OF weeks, at the Hostess
house, on their way to the west, the middle
west, and the south; very few of them re-
naming in New York or the vicinity. Their
husbands are chiefly factory workers, small
tradesmen, and petty clerks of the same type
as their Brides and since jobs are still I'M
certainities of the future, the men have no
resource but to take the girls to the homes
of their parents-n-laW. The desire Of the
bride to make a pleasing impression on her
husbands parents is, therefore, very great.
The desire of the husband is no less so. A
Y. w. C. A. hostess is often confronted by
desperate doughboy, who implores her to
use her influence to make Marie or Yyonne
look more American"
This usually means the frightening of
Yvonne's skirts, and the discarding of long
black veil, which trails to the end of them.
And Yvonne does not always approve of this
part of the Americanization process.
''Your fashions here" declared one re-
Y sentful YVonne the other day, "they ten
Nears too late. Your shoes, they make the
feeN Of the women appear so big" She meas
ured an imaginary yard with her hands, while
She gazed complacently at her own blunt
toed high-heeled, French-shod feet.
THE French women, they have a heart"
she pointed out tactfully. "They wear the
black veil for their dead relative. This one
is for my brother, but over here my husband
say, Take it off, take it off. My people not
understand why you wear a black veil when
we are just married. 1t is also becoming, .
she sighed bitterly.
But, if some of the brides criticise our
fashions, few of them crticise our food. The
Y. w. G. A. runs cafeteria in the Hostess
house, where meals are sold at low cost and
where the war bride sometimes renews her
acquaintance with small luxuries which be-
came extinct in many parts Of Europe with
the war. Among these are several meat
dishes and all desserts, 1t is not unusual to
see war bride staggering to a table with a
tray laden with three different kinds of meat
and five different desserts. A pleasant feat
ure about the cafeteria, also, is the Italian
chef, who not only speaks Italian but four
other languages. He is able to show the
brides how to use cafeteria and to give them
much valuable advice as to American Gus
toms.
During the first six months of the war
bride invasion, according to Mrs. Macdonald,
hostess house cafeteria was pathetic sight,
it was so much appreciated. ''The girls many
of them only fourteen and fifteen she says,
''all showed five years of war in their faces,
The babies accompanying some OF them and
the babies born to others while here in New
York, were sad wizened little creatures We
realized that all we're undernourished. and we
opened two clinics here at the house lone, a
general health clinic, and the other for ba-
bies and prospective mothers.
1.-THE girls and the few babies who are COM
ing over now are in much better shape They
have had the benefit Of last seasons harvest
and a year of reconstruction
Some Of the children now at hostess house
are surprisingly old, so that you wonder about
them, knowing that the American trOODs have
not been in Europe that long. These are the
step-children Of our returning soldiers, who in
acquiring war brides have also acquired their
children. In some Of these cases the father
| and child are the only genial members of the
family, while the bride sits listless1y by pre-
occupied in her thoughts and lingering a
locket.
So many of them wear lockets, and the
lockets always contain the pictures of their
dead husbands. There are few which con-
tain picture of the dead hero on one side,
and a picture of the new one on the other.