"Every School a Red Cross Auxiliary and a Centre for
Patriotic Service."
The Junior Red Cross was organized in the school the world
round, not only for active relief work, but to teach the boys
and girls unselfish service, good will, Americanism and the
finer type of citizenship. "By it," say President Wilson,
"they can learn to be the future good citizens of this country
in which we live."
Our school children official became a 100 per cent Junior
Auxiliary on April 16, 1918, by paying twenty-five cents per
pupil into the Red Cross School Fund. The Teacher Officers
were Misses Nellie HALFHEAD, chairman; Laura KARNEY, secretary;
and Mabel LEWIS, treasurer.
Two Junior Red Cross units were organized in the schools,
one in the grades and the other in the high school. In the
grades the work was under the direction of Miss Rita EMERY
and Miss Mabel LEWIS. Each teacher in the grades had her grade
organized as a class and some one line of work was carried on.
In the high school the work was supervised by Miss HALFHEAD
and Miss Lois LATIMER. The only school time
allowed was forty-five minutes a week. The work included
many kinds of war activities. For instance, the girls, who met
twice a week after school, made over old clothes, or they knitted,
or made baby clothes for the Belgian refugees. No surgical dressings
were attempted. The boys made game boards in the Manual Training
school, or worked in war gardens after school. In the spring,
some left school to work on farms or to help in other ways.
The Red Cross Junior have a slogan "I serve," which
was truly characteristic of the Red Cross spirit in the Brodhead
and
surrounding schools.
The money raised in the grades was $58.36, and that in the
high school, $111.85.
The grades made 24 bed socks, 3 quilts, and innumerable gun
wipes, socks, sweaters and game boards.
The high school made 5 infant layettes, 20 pairs of wristlets,
several helmets. They pieced one quilt and made it; made
another quilt that was pieced by Mrs. William CORTELYOU;
clothes out of old garments for the children; and made 15 gray
flannel jackets to help made the Senior Red Cross [huh?].
Miss EMERY, who had charge of the Junior work in the grades,
received the following letter from Mrs. Elizabeth
JOHNSON, Junior Red Cross chairman of the Madison chapter:
"We received from the grades 1 and 2, one pieced quilt and
3,400 gun wipes beautifully made; from the third and fourth grades
7 knitted quilts and 3,700 gun wipes. The knitting is unusually
fine. We have received nothing during the year any better from
third and fourth grades. We received from the fifth grade 23
sleeping caps, 3 knitted quilts, also beautiful work; from the
sixth grade, 102 shot bags, 5 knitted quilts, perfect work also;
from the seventh grade one very pretty pieced quilt, 2 knitted
quilts, 14 comfort pillows, 27 handkerchiefs, 7 pairs of bedsocks
- everything done splendidly. From the eighth grade came one
knitted afghan, 6 helmets, 7 pairs wristlets, 10 pairs socks,
one knitted bath mat, and 5 game boards - all perfect work. When
I took the knitting to the yarn room to be packed, the women
there said they had not received from any seniors more beautiful
work. And the socks were finished perfectly as to toes and heels.
The helmets were very well done, as were the wristlets. the game
boards I am sending to the Y.M.C.A. Cantonment here in Madison.
They themselves may write you about them. I know they will enjoy
them very much. The knitted afghan which I am sending to New
York to be shipped to France to-morrow is also very well done,
and we are proud to forward everything.
"You have shown so much skill and judgment in the planning
of the work in the different grades! It is always interesting
to see how much one school can accomplish when the work is
arranged as skillfully as you have planned it. That the children
have done such good work under your direction expresses to me
the love and sympathy and Red Cross spirit that they had in their
hearts when they were working.
"We thank you most heartily for allowing us to receive
and forward such beautiful work and we thank you also for your
assistance and co-operation in the Junior Red Cross. We are
going to miss you dreadfully next year. Please tell the children
that for us."
Signed, Elizabeth JOHNSON, Chairman, Junior Red Cross, Madison
Chapter.
Under the directions of the efficient teachers, the rural
schools in Decatur and Spring Grove towns also did splendid
work. They made gun wipes, snippings for comfort pillows,
handkerchiefs, washcloths, bed socks, infants' booties and so
forth.
After the signing of the Armistice, a Health Crusade was
carried on in some of the school grades during the last fifteen
weeks of the school year. The children were encouraged to
keep certain "health rules," such as: the care of their
hands, hair, teeth and body; in short trying to keep neat, cheerful
and clean-minded, and to be helpful to others. They received
badges for accomplishing these health chores set for them.
Sixty per cent of the Junior enrollment fees was forwarded
to the National Red Cross to be used exclusively for the
National Children's Fund to relieve distress among the children
in the war-stricken countries of Europe and Asia.