The Key West citizen., 1940-02-23
Mrs. UmStead Tells Of
World War Experiences

the ladder. 7rhen he ran up a,
easiHHas a csttscould climb. Ht
was a long time in the captain.
(of Noordam' s. pilot house, ther
a young Ger rnan lad, who hac
gnuggled on board, was led tt
.4he forward deck. Before they
howered him. into the tugboat, he
took off his cap and waved it
shouting, Clock der Kaiser"
When they lowered him to the
deck of the tugboat and SEM
him down c.ompanionway I saw
the British sailors carry blanket.
and food, with steaming coffee
down to him.
con the third day, Miss Addams
communicated with Ambassador
Page, who was, by the way, re-
sponsible for our entrance into
the World War, but perhaps if we
had not come to the rescue Great
Britain might have been defeat
ed. Through the influence OF
1 our ambassador some British of
ficers came, on board our ship
and told us we were free to &c
] on and the next morning our cap
tain signalled in vain for a pilot
AS there was no response, the
captain said he would go without
one. AS we entered the North
Sea where I expected to encoun-
ter. many ships and danger, all
was calm, except for the huge
warships and a sea gull floating
placidly on the waves-the only
sign of life.
"As we neared the Hook of Hol-
land it was a pitiful sight to see
hundreds of gulls, their wings
helpless to fly to get seafood, just
walking en- the rocks, for ship
loads of oil had been wrecked and
oil covered the waters.
''The first thing we saw, as we
entered the Hook was huge
Standard Oil tank-and as we
looked over the flat-lands of Hol-
land, little brown sail boats SEEM
ed to be. running along the high
ways but they were in the canals
which we could not see.
s "We docked at Rotterdam and
carriages were There waiting to
drive us to The Hagie-der Hoog
as it is called there.
/. GAS we drove through the
streets of The Hague 7 was sur
prised to note that all of the bust
mess streets with stores three and
four storiesg high had window
boxes of beautiful flowers at every
window
Sat the hotel where I stopped
I was given a very large front
room. T wanted to take bath
land went to the bathroom near
my room to do SO, but the ma
i chinery was up at the ceiling and
there were such intricate appli-
ances that before I could get any
water I was baffled and had to
give up.
'When / wanted to go out to
attend our meeting with women
from all countries, I asked how
1 could lock my room door, and
was given a key about eight
inches long and weighing at
least pound and was told that
when I locked my door to hang
the key on a hook outside.
''I will not go into descrip-
ton Of our meeting because it
was so largely written up at the
time but will say there were
three or four Interpreters and as
Miss Addams addressed the huge
assemblage she paused after
every sentence so that these in
terpreters could translate to the
audience in. Dutch, German and
French. laa5
1.-TWO or three Belgian women
who managed to- get through the
lines were there. They had walk
ed for many miles on foot to at
tend the conference.
Holland is a most interesting
little country and later I will ex-
plain some of my experiences
while at Amsterdam for some
weeks.
'It occurred to me that while
I-was so near, I would take a run
over to Sweden to see a girlhood
friend who had married Swed-
ish gentleman who was the son
of the kings chancellor
''I could not get passage on a
steamer hut found that a sailing
vessel was going to, Norway and
/ could get passage on that, so
] with the innocence or audacity of
an Americans who felt safe any
where I sailed out of the Hook.
There was the captain of the ship
and one other Norwegian cap
tain who, had been in, the u S.
/ for twenty years and who was re-
turning to visit his relations. If
/ it had not been for him / don't
know what calamity might have
befallen me.
''The captain of the ship told
me not to remove my clothes,
pin my money safely, for we