The Connecticut labor news., 1921-09-09

forced to live III cellar before hab1table b1lletS could be found above ground. The war was not to end, however, before Miss Irene was to have her closest call at the hands of the enemy.
 The evening before the armistice she and her sister had been out walking for exercise. Just as they were returning into town the Germans started a heavy bo1nbardment The girls had not pro- ceeded far when they met two soldiers running towards them. The men had been blown out of their mess shack and were running for life. They stopped rather abruptly when they saw the two girls walking slowly and took a more leisurely gait. Seeing the funny side of it they dropped in at the canteen after wards and laughed about it.
 That same evening" after Miss Irene had turned in,' the shellng intensified. Her. quarters were a shell-torn building, with the walls partly blown out and can vas stretched across for shelter It was not long before a shell, falling through the broken walls, landed in the supply room. The explosion hurled the shrap- nel through breaks in the wall between the rooms, showering 1t all around and beside her. This was her last and worst experience in France
 In November and early December of 1918, Miss Irene and her sister continued their welfare work, making fapjacks for the unfortunate young French boys, who sick and undernourished had been worked m the mines as captives by the Germans, and who were delivered, by the terms of the armistice, through Thiaucourt
 Miss Mcintyre and her sister returned home in the spring of 1919, about the same time as the 26th Division, and shortly after their coming they were invited to go to Boston to pa rade with the division. They were given the place of hoonr in line immediately behind General Clarence R. Edwards and his staff and the colors Three or tour weeks later, having been recom- mended for the Distinguished Service Cross, they were presented with cita- tions by General Edwards on Boston Common.
 Not until Armistice Day last fall at Peterboro, N H., did I again meet Lieutenant Walbridge," said Miss Mo lntyre. Wenty-three of the Peterboro boys had been in one of the companies ot the battalion with which I had been connected, and their committee asked me to speak at the Arnistice Day exercises. This was the real beginning of my TO- nance with Lieutenant Wa1bridge."
 But now that you are truly famous and have been the recipient of so many honors, persisted the interviewer, you must have had to choose between an in dependent career and the making of a htane?"
 Tt was not hard to decide" said Miss Mcintyre, her tell-tale dimpe again ex- pressing her feelings, 'I have waited long enough and I have had experiences erough to be sure of myself in choosing the home in preference to a career. Yet l admit that like all who come to the at tention of the public avenues have been opened to me for lucrative work and the development of whatever ability I might have.
 "Flattering offers have come to both my sister and myself. We were offered a motion picture contract which would have paid us $25,O00 each for 14-weeE1s' engagement. We also received an offer to lecture four times a week for sea- scu at a weekly figure of $500 each, and 1 was personally offered a seven-year featuring contract at $2O0 week. Then my sister and l were offered $45,0OO each by well-known publisher to write a book. 1nducement was also given to accept vaudeville contract at $25O0 a week for a season.
 'l was even approached by two com pet1ng manufacturers to carry out high class advertising plans, one of them of ter1ng me S25O a week for a long con- tract. But except for a short featuring tour we did not accept any of these op- ptrtunitieS"
 Miss Mcintyre replied to the evident aston1shment of her interviewer by say ing: We gave them all up for two req sons. First, we could not measure thous- ards of dollars as people do when earn ing their own way. Our service for the troops had destroyed our sense of money value; second, we had the perfectly nat ural feeling that we could not commer- crslize our experience in France.
 We did not go for that!
 We would have spoiled all of our cl erished recol1ections. The boys could net have felt the same toward us as they did in France, and we valued their re- Sdlu dDOVS ally lIld1lCldl gam. Money meant nothing to us over there in the mdst of the grim realities of war.
 We might have been offered mil litn and we could have turned it down just as easily. We had experienced that feeling when sharing the lot of the sol dier. There were times when money could not buy food, because there was no food. Money seemed to have lost its value. Seeing the suferings and hard ships of the boys had elevated a sense of values that were not material.
 We really came back with rather a lofty spiritual feeling. I don't mean 'goody-goody' We had acquired more slang and we were better fellows but certain qualities of human nature had come to mean most to us-courage un- selishness, straight htforwardness drop ping of pretence. Perhaps this explains w " money held no enticement"
 Have your war adventures and pub lie life had a tendency to lessen the at fractions of marrying and settling down?" This was the last question put to Miss Mcintyre.
 No, I feel that they intensity the attractions.
 "I think the biggest argument against tie life I have lived, both overseas and here since my return IS the excitement