The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-11-07
NEAR EAST RELIEF WORKER HERE ID
 TELL OF CONDITIONS
Miss Mary Kifer Spends a Year In Armenia Fighting Typhus and Starvation and Sav-
 ing Children'S Lives

Miss Mary Kifer, one of the field work CTS for the Near East-relief campaign. is in Birmingham. She came to the city yesterday in the interest of the work. fresh from year spent in Armenia.
 For 12 months Miss Kafer was the Potash and Perimutter" of the retail and wholesale trade in Erivan, Armenia. She was bath commissary, too. Each morning Miss Kifer and her corps of na- tive workers bathed and clothed 800 ref ugee women and children. Never for ono day, Miss kifer says. did the stream of ragged and hungry and homeless people grow less
 REAL WORK STARTS
 After thls little aaIly stunt, MASS Kifer and her workers turned to the real drudgery of the day. They began to prepare clothing for the SO who were indefinitely scheduel each coming day. They were also responsible for the mltlai clothing of the new orphans of each day and for the upkeep of the-Old ones. Cloth woven by refugees in the Near East workshops. a heavy. soft White crash, was turned over to them, and thereupon cut and sewed into plain gar xnents. But of course Miss kifer's corps of native taiiors was unable to keep ahead of the demand. They devoured with glee the bales of worn but warm clothing shipped to Armenia from the United States.
 American clothing applied after hot bath was the formula that cut typhus in half in Erivan, according to Miss hlIer
 We could see results immediately in the decline of this terrible disease" she says.
 CLEAN CLOTHES
 The clothes we ireplaced by clean American woolsns were not worth de- lousing. They were in tatters. Yet in the least ragged portion would often be sewed trinket or small piece of money, the last bit of personal property these unfortunate people had been able to save" For A short time Miss Kifer was in charge of orphanase for $50 girls and boys at Davaloo, 45 miles from Erivan The town was beseged by the Turks, and Miss Kifer ordered by them to re- move the orphans immediately. She transported the orphans and as much or the equipment she could take In motor truck, a small automobile and ID OK carts. The older of the orphan boys drove the carts but Miss kifer IS or the opinion that this spectacular episode was the least important and arduous thlns she did in the Near East.
 uh11ND
 .'Thes daily grind to provide complete wardrobes for the refugees and orphans that each day brought in remains the im- portant work l did,, she says. Tt was the most exacting and the most inter esting work l ever did. No matter how fast we made clothing, the demand was always far in excess of our output, ana we were practically on day-to-oAy basis the whole time I was in Erisan. You can imagine the feeling or reueI that spilled over me from our coni- hound into the entire community when a new shipment of clothes, ready-maoe clothes. would arrive from America
 NO. I had never studied the art or tailoring. I went over because l was especially trained in coaching chlldreh games and pageants. l found that nau arrived only to play part in pageant which had run almost to it's close. l saw that these little characters were ho. singing and gamboling on the green , they were sick; they were starving' they were all but naked, crowded lnto one corner of that great stage which the Turks had laid bare-their pageant was nearly Over." =,
 Miss Kifer will speak of the work CT the Near East relief in Armenia during the next few days in the following Ala hama towns: Sulligent. November T Fayette. November g.; Berry, NoVehpci 10. Oaknan, November II; Birmlng nam, November 12, before large group O. chapters of the Eastern Star.