Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-01
She Mas q Com
fm7er-a Father
CMfessor, and the
Young Women Of
the Clara Marsh
Home mWorking
Girls Fled to Her
for Sympathy did
and Protection.
Hozv Frederick
BankFoundHab-
biness in Making
1t for Others.

- HE ample bosom of Miss Frederick
Blank was the repository Of woe.
That is, 215 young women of the
Clara Marsh Home for Working;
Girls had learned to lean against
the finely robust and sympathetic figure of this
woman who headed their institution.
For 10 years Frederick Blank, poised, serene,
rather beautiful after dark-haired dark-eyed,
velvet-voiced fashion, had directed the COM
munity of young lives intrusted to her care.
She had the true spirit of the social worker.
Fredericka Blank cared passionately about the
destinies Of the girls who lived in the Clara
Marsh Home. She loved them, mothered them,
advised them, worried over them.
In her 10 years at the head of this insti-
tuition she had seen lives settle themselves
break themselves, adjust and readjust them
selves. She had seen girls stumble their way
into tragedy and evil, and others mount their
way to happiness and well-being. Time after
time she had been able, by the force of her
love and her interest, to jerk back from descent
the feet of a hayward or blinded girl Time
after time it had been her pleasant task to I'M
tangle the skeins Of a troubled love-story, or to
bring together two young people who seemed
destined for one another, yet were separated by
the small impedimenta Of lovers quarrels.
There were dozens of happy children born of
/ these girls who had once dwelt in the Clara
Marsh Home that called Frederick Blank
FAuuLy, or '(IOQ-mOC0er, or NSWeeC0earC.
It could be said of Miss Blank that she stood
at the head Of the procession Of these lives
like mighty general leading, directing. giving
orders, marching to victory.
HER own life was a placid one. Sometimes.
it seemed to Fredericka, terrifyingly placid
No hour Of the day or night was immune from
the inroads Of her girls coming to her for guild
;ance, solace or advice. It was rigid rule in
the Clara Marsh Home that no girl in trouble
whatever hour Of the day or night, should be
denied admission to the private sanctum of
Frederick Blank.
The private Sanctum was pleasant brace
of rooms on the top floor of the ramshackle
iOld building known as the Clara Marsh Home
for Girls 1t was relief from the more dormi-
tory-like aspect Of the lower floors, where the
girls occupied small, clean cell-like rooms that
topened On long corridors. There was old ma
.hogany in Frederick Blanks rooms good etch-
1ngs the pleasant play of freight on old
brasses. comfortable cushions, deep chairs. and
the air OF fine repose and dignity reflected
iby its occupant
The girls loved to come here. 1t inspired
their condolences. They became truthful. Less
:rebellious.
It was room for quiet dreaming, for relaxa-
ton, and for peace.
THE most rebellious, Maynard and difficult
girl Fredericka Blank in all her experience
had ever encountered had wept out her heart
in this room and become docie. The girl was
% little red-haired beauty named Neddie Brown,
who had come to the home from a reform
school and whose road back to normalcy had
been one of the most trying and thorny ever
encountered by Frederick Blank in all her
experience.
Neddie was practically hand-maiden to Fred
ericka now. Served her. Slept at the foot of
her bed like little dog. Was abject, even
pitiful. in her devotion.
Horrible and bitter seene1 had been sobbed
,out by Neddie in these saaer rooms. She had
been en- the brink Of Glsme, degradation pros
tititior, and the calm Frederick, in the quiet