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Show Government Locales Citizens Lost Abroad OPERATING unknown to the general public is a small office insignificantly tucked away on the first floor of the State Department Building in Washington, with' a door marked simply "Where-abouts." "Where-abouts." Behind this door there is carried on the work of slight, grey-haired, efficient Mrs. Madge Blessing, whose job for the past twenty-two years has been to track down American I citizens lost, strayed, or stolen abroad. In the September Good Housekeeping, Mona Gardner tells the story of Mrs. Blessing's human lost-and-found department. In peacetime, Mrs. Blessing is concerned con-cerned mainly with Americans missing miss-ing in China. Spain, or quake-racked Chile, but since the outbreak of war her desk has been piled high with inquiries of anxious citizens with relatives caught in Europe who cannot can-not be located through ordinary channels. To begin the search, all Mrs. Blessing requires is the last known address of the individual sought, and with only this informa-i informa-i tion she contacts the office of the nearest American consul who will immediately go through his file and pick up the trail. Sometimes the search is short; but often it means writing dozens of letters to other consuls, and occasionally a long trip into remote districts is necessary. All this work costs citizens nothing. Right now 95 percent of the strays are located, but normally the Eureau finds 98 percent. The week Paris fell more than two thousand inquiries poured in, and this was in addition to the follow up on the hundreds which had accumulated in the previous weeks. Although Mrs. Blessing's work doesn't entail the duties of an international sleuth, it is long and exacting, and seldom brought to the attention of the public. |