Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1920 — WOMEN WAR WORKERS, EAGER TO SERVE, GO TO AID ARMENIANS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WOMEN WAR WORKERS, EAGER TO SERVE, GO TO AID ARMENIANS

Mary Vail Andrees, Only Woman to Receive Distinguished Service Medal, Heads Party. Dissatisfied with uneventful civilian life, after two years’ vivid experience as workers abroad In the world war, a party of young women, led by Miss Mary Vail Andrees, of New York City, have just gone to the Near East,

where nearly a million people are suffering from disease and starvation. Miss Andrees had returned to Uii© country after serving for the Red Cross, but when she read of the sad plight of the Armenians, she at once offered her services to Near East Relief, the former American Committee on Armenian and Syrian Relief, whlcn already has saved thousands of lives in Western Asia. Miss Andrees is the only American woman war worker who was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by Congress. Most of the other members of her party likewise served with honor for the Red Cross and other war service organizations. Among the other members of the group are the Misses Frances and Betty Anderson of New Canaan, Coun., who were decorated with the Croix de Guerre by the French Government; Miss Margaret Milne of Washington, D. C., who was a member of the Hoover Relief Commission for Rumania, and Miss Alex Sidney, an English woman who served for three years with the British Relief Commission In Serbia. Miss Doris Nevin, another member of the party, is a daughter of the late Ethelbert Nevin, the composer. Col. William N. Haskell, commissioner to the Near East for the Faria Peace Commission and official representative of the Near East Relief, has cabled that the relief workers now in the field are overwhelmed by the magnitude of their task. Col. Haskell says 800,000 Armenians will starve before the next harvest unless they are given aid and 120,000 orphan children face death from hunger and exposure. Thousands of refugees are daily being brought to the relief centers from the deserts.

MISS MARY VAIL ANDREES, Distinguished Service Heroine Who Now Goes to Near East.