Blue Triangle
Fun for the
Girls Who
Make Gas
Masks

For Gas Mask
Makers
Mrs. Samuel Todd Davis, Jr.,
of Bridgeport, Conn., is lending
her house and estate at Ardsley-
on-the-Hudson, near   Dobbs
Ferry, for week-end use to the
girls of the gas mask factory in
Long Island City for the rest of
the summer. Members of the
Y. W. C. A. War Service Club, 10
Anabel Street, Long Island City,
who need the rest and change, go out
on Saturday afternoons early and stay
till about eight Sunday night.
The need for gas masks is so urgent
that the five thousand women em-
ployed at this factory have given up
their vacations. Instead, they take
turns going up to Ardsley Towers for
week-ends. They are girls from all
kinds of families, and with all sorts of
previous experience; musicians, factory
workers, society girls.
Mrs. Ruth R. Mix, the Y. W. C. A.
secretary in charge of the board and
room registry at the Long Island City
War Service Club, is the week-end host-
ess. She arranges games, music and
out-of-door sports on the grounds of
the estate. Meals are served on the
broad verandas and in the gardens, of
course. The lowest possible rates are
charged.
The house, with the addition of cots
to its previous furnishings, comfort-
ably lodges fifty girls. The beauty
and freedom of such a change from fac-
tory work for these workers is only
another example of the contributions
the Y. W. C. A. is making to the mor-
ale of America at war.
ALLIED WOMEN-OVER HERE
Some American girls working in a
factory got up a vaudeville show with
songs, and playlets. A large audience
came to see and the result was $225.
When Miss Helen B. Barnes, the vol-
unteer Y. W. C. A. welfare worker at
Elmira, N. Y., asked them what they
wished to do with the proceeds, they
enthusiastically voted to send the
money to aid Miss Dingman in her
work with the French girls.

War Work Council
in Portland
Mrs. Henry P. Davison, treasurer of
the War Wmrk Council, wa ppn   ted-
chairman of the campaign committee
at the meeting of the War Work Coun-
cil, in Portland, Me., August 14th.
This business meeting followed an
open meeting on August 13th, which
was attended by prominent women
from all over the country, representa-
tives of all women's patriotic organi-
zations in New England and women
living in and around Portland, to
whom the Y. W. C. A. war work in
all its phases was explained. Cam-
paign workers for the northeastern de-
partment were there in force.
Mrs. John F. Thompson, president
of the local Y. W. C. A. and chairman
of the Maine War Work Council, wel-
comed members of the Council and
guests, after which Mrs. Robert E.
Speer, president of the National Board,
told of the formation of the War Work
Council and Miss Helen Davis, execu-
tive secretary, gave the history of its
development.
Miss Florence Simms told of the
work being done in industrial centers.
Miss Blanche Geary talked on the work
abroad and Mrs. E. M. Townsend on
Hostess House work, Mrs. Endicott
Peabody telling of the hostess house
at Camp Devens, Ayer, Mass. Work
of the social morality committee was
described by Dr. Anna L. Brown.
Mrs. James S. Cushman, who pre-
sided, read a cablegram telling of the

Allied Women's Mass Meeting,
held in Paris, between August
12th and 19th, and the following
message was drawn up and sent
to this meeting:
"The National War Work
Council of the Y. W. C. A. of
America (Canada included) as-
sembled at Portland, Me., and
representatives of women's pa-
triotic organizations all over New
England send the allied women's
mass meeting in Paris sympathetic
greetings. Today we stand united
in a common purpose to win a
righteous war, to bind up the wounds
inflicted by war and to realize the na-
tional ideals for which our men of the
allied nations are making the supreme
sacrifice. We pledge you a comradeship
of loyal service in all your work. We
=:i1 do-ow :utmost to enlist the women
of America in this united effort to es-
tablish liberty and justice throughout
the world."
Members of the Council were enter-
tained at luncheon at the Cape Eliza-
beth Hostess House and had tea at the
Hostess House on Diamond Isle.
On Wednesday members of the War
Work Council visited the plant of the
Cumberland Shipbuilding Company.
Plans for the financial campaign
were explained and the budget an-
nounced at the business meeting.
The success of the Portland meeting
led the members of the executive com-
mittee of the War Work Council to
vote at the meeting at Headquarters,
August 20th, that the Council meet in
Chicago, September 10th, and invite
women of the central department to
the meeting, in order that they might
learn of the work being done and of
the plans of the Y. W. C. A. for its
next year's work.
The War Work Council meetings
are held at different central points all
over the country. The next one will
be at Chicago, September 10th.
Camp Kearney
Camp Kearney, in California, was
placed far from its rightful spot on the
globe when the recent Y. W. C. A.
war work map was issued. Camp
Kearney is really at Linda Vista, Cal.



					
				

					
The Child Goes on the Land with Mother
at the Blue Triangle Polish Farm Unit

They have brought their children along; and while the
mothers work in the fields during the day, the twenty-two
children of their families, ranging from two to fifteen years,
play about the big farmhouse which shelters the unit. Some
of the older girls help their mothers in the fields during a
part of the day, or help in the housework. Miss Ida K.
Apgard, principal of the grammar school at Belford, who
volunteered for the work, looks after the children, reads to
them, and supervises their play. A Polish woman, who
knows how to cook what they like, provides the meals for
the big farm family.
The children are having such a glorious time that one
mother predicts trouble when they return to their city
homes. Their days are filled with story telling by Miss
Apgard, playing under the trees and wading in the brook.
It is a beautiful shady brook, just deep enough to be safe
for thittlestone-,ndwithin justa short walk frorm the
house.
The house has big bedrooms fitted as dormitories, a
family-sized dining room and an airy hall with outside
doors at both ends. These open on roomy verandas. Tents
to supplement t h e
house have been or-
dered.
The owner pro-
vides the house and
the Y. W. C. A. sup-
plies the simple fur-
nishings and the pro-
visioning.
Miss Laura M.
Patterson, supervisor
of the unit, has charge
of business arrange-
ments with the farm-
ers, and all the care
and provisioning of
the house. A system
has been worked out
by which each woman
fills out a blank daily,
showing the number
of hours she has
worked     and the
amount she has
earned. B o t h the
worker and the farm-
er keep a copy of                   104:
this sheet.
This unit is work-        The Polish women who work in
ing out the problems                        along for a c
of the definite needs

THE women of
the new Y. W.
C. A. Polish
farm colony near Red
Bank, New Jersey,
have invented a new
and sensible way to
do farm work for
Uncle Sam.

thi
oun

of foreign women while they are working in the fields, and
how healthful outings for their children during the harvest
season may be provided. It seems like a workable way of
utilizing the patriotic willingness of women who would
otherwise be unable to do this work.
"I have a service flag and a Polish flag in my room,"
said one woman, whose son is in our army. "We stick with
this country just as we do with Poland."
"We do it to beat the Kaiser, and not for the money,"
said another
"Isn't it hard work?" someone asked.
"Yes. But we stand it. Yesterday two horses were
overcome in the field, but we women stand it."
But all the time the children are playing in the brook!
New work for the Blue Triangle, but real Y. W. C. A.
work. The morale of women is our job, and if a woman's
children are happy and well, she can do her work better.
This is why the Y. W. C. A. is helping to run a family
of twenty-two children.
A City Hostess House Moves
The New York Hostess House has moved from 12
West 51st Street to 30 East 52d Street, and will be ready
for visitors again the first week in September.
Since its opening on Lincoln's Birthday, over nine hun-
dred different women, girls and children have used the
rooms. Over thirteen hundred enlisted men have been
there, with their women relatives, or for their Sunday night
suppers. Among the soldiers, they have entertained Bel-
gians, French soldiers
and sailors, English
marines and sailors,
soldiers from Aus-
tralia and New Zea-
land.
Relatives of the sick
and  wounded   men
now coming b a c k
from the front are be-
ginning to use the
house. Besides these
people, the Hostess
House is also for
girls engaged in war
work who are in the
city temporarily, Red
Cross nurses, Persh-
ing's  stenographers,
who were recruited
by the National Board
of the Y. W. C. A.,
college reconstruction
units, Y. M. C. A. can-
teen workers, tele-
phone and telegraph
girls of the Signal
Corps.
s farm unit bring their children    This Hostess House
try vacation                      has been the scene of
eleven weddings.