Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1919 — SALVATION ARMY LASSIES BRAVE PERILS OF BATTLE [ARTICLE]

SALVATION ARMY LASSIES BRAVE PERILS OF BATTLE

Heroic Women Carry Doughnuts and Pie Where Bombs Are. Smashing. PROMP RECORD OF SERVICE Earn Admiration and Gratitude of -■ Armies They Serve—Day After Day They Stuck to Their Posts, Ministering to the Boys in Front. Paris.—Tales of bravery and extraordinary courage shown by women working with the American and British armies continue to interest us at every turn over here. Day after day and month after month, women stuck to their posts in hospitals. In advanced dressing stations, in work of ministering to the boys behind the lines, without the slightest show of fear or hysteria, while falling shell and bursting bomb tore up the earth about them. These women have earned the admiration and gratitude of the armies they served. Among this big number of courageous women are two young members of the Salvation 4- rm y, Capt. Louise Young and Lieut. Stella Young of New York city. They shared the hardships and dangers of the American doughboy in the battle zones of France And are now continuing their work of sewing on his buttons, mending his clothes, baking pies and doughnuts, writing letters home and being a sister in service with the First American army division, now on -Gewnan-soth'" *’ Their record of work Is a remarkable one not aione for the wonderful assistance they were able to give but because of the opportunity they had by reason of the confidence placed in them by the military authorities for service in the furthest advanced tions permitted to women. Born Into Salvation Army. These two young women were virtually born into Salvation Army work, for their parents for years were working members of this great peace army. They went to prance last February. The following notes of their work, jotted down in diary form, gives in part ’the interesting story of work done by these two plucky American girls: “February —At last we are in France! We have a quaint old house for our canteen, and where do you suppose we sleep? In a dpgout under the house next door. I say sleep, but for several nights after we arrived here we didn’t sleep much. The village is bombed almost every night. “Two days after we arrived we had our first introduction to real warfare. We had Just finished cleaning up the canteen preparatory to opening for business the next 'morning. We used up a scrubbing brush and several pieces of soap and a lot of washing powder, but the place shows It. My arms feel it. “We have gone to our dugout. There Is something about this accommodation reminds one of wild animals encrouched ia hillside holes. This comparison sflggested itself to me as I recalled the thousands of men in the armies in France who live like moles in the earth, in trenches, in dugouts, shell holes and rifle pits. Thankful for Cots.

"But we have army cots and' blankets and a wooden box for a dressing table, with a supply of wax candles. The candies and the cots mark the dividing line between civilisation and the early caveman’s state. “How thankful we are for these cots How tired we are! We feel quite luxurious lying here wrapped In Markets. Hundreds of . soldiers passed through here today. I wonder where they are now and what they are doing? , “What is that dreadful noise. I lever heard anything Hke it in all

my life except once in the thundering crashes of t a tornado out West when I was a girl of ten. I lit the candle and dressed. Perhaps a bomb had killed some of our people. I hurried upstairs, where all was quiet. It is cold and damp outside, but the moon is bright. I walked over to the canteen. I lit the candle in the front room. All was peaceful there, so I went through the next room and Into the kitchen. “I could have cried with the sight I saw. The kitchen was, or had been, covered with glass. A bomb had been dropped on that glass and our kitchen, which we had scrubbed to almost snowy whiteness, was now a mass of broken glass and splintered wood. “The day after we are promised a canvas roof for our kitchen. The debris is cleared away. Two of our men have arrived with a truckload of supplies. At last we are at our real work of baking pies and doughnuts. The men have carried gallons of water from a nearby well and have helped us to prepare the coffee. “I have seen enough things on wheels today to encircle the globe. They all pass through here on their way to the front. Huge, lumbering wagons, carrying tons and tons of ammunition, others carrying tons of food and other supplies; scores of rolling kitchens, ambulances too numerous to count, and several pars carrying both French and American officers. “We are ready to serve. We, too, are now a part of this big program of ■warfare. I am > eager to meet the boys. One feels a queer little thrill of excitement as they come marching up the road, one big picture of moving khakV— —- ——— ' Doughnuts Surprise Boys. - “Our big tank of coffee Is placed on a wooden box outside the canteen. It is, boiling hot. Hundreds of freshly baked doughnuts furnish a surprise to the boys as they tilt their tin hats backwards to get a better view of the refreshment counter—a bit of a curiosity in this place, it seems. “ ‘How did you ever get up here?* one asked. ‘Aren’t you afraid of the Boche bombs? When did you leave the States?’ and dozens of other questions. “The roof of our dugout Is covered with sandbags, but the enemy is determined to wreck the town. Our men have news to that effect. W’e have been told by the authorities that we must leave, as the danger is too great. This has been a busy center for many weeks, and we give it up reluctantly. “Two weeks later: I thought it was

quite an event when I distributed, doughnuts to the boys in the trenches, but here we are in the thick of the battle itself. Traveling since six o’clock in the morning, at two we reached a small town from which the Germans had been driven only a fewhours before. The earth at times seems to tremble with the vibration of the guns' as we stand before the Improvised evacuation hospital. “While our men unload the big supply of oranges, lemons and sugar we, have brought with us, sister and I report to the doctors. A continuous moving line of ambulances is bringing in the wounded—Americans, French and Germans alike. As their wounds are treated and dressed they are placed in other ambulances and sent to the special trains waiting, and thence to the base hospitals. . Doctors Work Like Mad. “The doctors are working like mad. The chief surgeon scarcely looked at .me., ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘get them something cold to drink, and get it quick.’ “ ‘We have lemons and sugar,’ I said, »We ...make lemonade.’- —ig “ ‘Do it quick,’ he snapped. ’And have it cold.’ “While we squeezed lemons into a bucket Billy Hale bustled off in the camion in search of water. It didn’t take him long to find a spring with water clear and cold as Ice. He filled the huge tank and sped back to us.' We soon had gallons of lemonade ready to serve to the boys, hot and feverish from the fight. “They are wonderful, these boys of ours. Being an American, this moment thrills one with pride. Battered and broken in the fight, and surely suffering terribly from the awful wounds that war has inflicted, these boys are marvelously brave. Lying there on blood-stained stretchers, calmly, patiently waiting the doctor's hand, no complaint is uttered. There is no outcry from these young heroes, almost superhuman, it seems to me, in their super self-control.”