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Show Kathleen Nprris Says: 1 Just What Ate You Doing? Ball Syndicate. WNU Featuraa, - "Nothing but soup, crackers and cookies, but how those iired man and women flock to the counter after work hours!" GET A JOB! Get into some useful war work, Kathleen Norris advises all women who are alone because be-cause their husbands or sorts are away in service. Even , women who have a little spare time can do something useful and at the same time occupy their minds, and calm their nerves. There is no cure for war jitters jit-ters like hard work plenty of work. People who come home too tired to do anything but drop into bed don't worry much they're too exhausted. Jobs are everywhere not only in factories but in restaurants, hospitals, Red Cross canteens even your own home! One married woman with two children cares for two or more children of war workers. Another runs a "soup bar" near an airplane factory. Many . women are making a tidy income in-come serving in some useful way. The money can go intb war bonds, or a savings, account for the time when HE comes home. By KATHLEEN NORRIS A WOMAN asked me the other day if the letters I quote in these columns are genuine letters. I could answer her truthfully that every one is a real true human hu-man problem, but that I generally gen-erally shift about the exact details, change the locale, and substitute for the real names other names that aren't particularly identifi-' able, like Brown, Baker, Davis, Smith. In the fifteen years during which I have been answering letters in this weekly article, I have never betrayed a confidence or been accused of publicizing what was meant to be private information. in-formation. So when' today I quote the letters of several women you may be sure, they are real, live American women wom-en who have handled the difficulties of war times, each in her own way. In every case, they are wornen who have discovered that the only cure for nerves and sleeplessness and bitter bit-ter anxieties, In these days, is work, hard work, and plenty of It. There is a job for every one of us now, and the only happy women, in the world today are the women who are busy. Get absorbed in sdme helDful activity, get yourself so tired Into apartments, lilving space is at a premium in that city and her old-fashioned old-fashioned 12-room house made seven fine flats. In one of which she lives. Soup Bar Makes Money Another smart woman is Mrs. Baker of Houston Texas. Mrs. Baker lives near a big plane factory; she had opened a soup bar. Nothing but soup, crackers and cookies, but how the tired men and women flock to the counter after work -hours!. . She. has.., "rush . hours'.' 'of course, but also she has a steady trickle of customers from 10 o'clock in the morning until she closes the bar at nine at night. She has two girls helping her; serves two soups daily. One a cream vegetable soup, the other a regular meal, like Italian minestrone. Beans, peas, onions, noodles, macaroni, tomatoes, soup bones everything goes into it. She charges 25 cents a service and i free helpings are taken for granted, i that a smooth bed, a reading light and a book look like heaven to you every night and you'll get through this crisis successfully. To be Idle, reading the papers, listening to the radio, brooding over world-madness, lis the shortest way to a breakdown. Mrs. Brown Boards Children. , Well, then, here's Mrs. Brown of Kansas City, aged 29, with two young children. Mrs. Brown boards children at one dollar a day, keeps ; them overnight for two dollars a night. She has four regular little customers, whose moihers are warl workers and find the- comfortable' Brown home and garden a miracu-lous miracu-lous help. They call for their children chil-dren every afternoon.. Other young -mothers, who need a day in town, or a day weekly for tho Red Cross, gladly avail themselves., of the Brown nursery. Two little brothers have stayed day and night for a month; Mrs. Brown gets $65 per month each for this care. - Does she get tired? Oh, yes, too tired to do anything but drop Into bed after small boots have been - cleaned and small : clothes laid out after dinner." And what does Mr.-Brown Mr.-Brown think of it? He likes it. His salary hasn't gone up in the last years; other expenses have. It was Mr. Brown who recently said to his wife that her nursery activities had removed the last gnawing worry that he had, in making him feel that should anything happen to him the spectre that haunts all " husbands and fathers! she could take care of the children. Then there is Mrs. Davis of Oakland, Oak-land, Calif. Mrs. Davis' husband and , both sons are away to the services; . she meditated opening a boarding house; changed her house instead Not the least contribution to the safety and order of postwar America comes from these women who are proving their independence, who have struck out in simple, well-worh well-worh grooves to . establish themselves them-selves financially. Perhaps the mil-. mil-. lions of magnificent nurses and Red Cross workers, the women who are giving their whole livesin the army or navy services, are showing a higher type of patriotism, because of a completer sacrificed But there is many a man out on the battle fronts now who would be glad to receive a certain type of letter from the moping, self-pitying little woman wom-an he left at home. A letter saying that she has waked up and is busy and absorbed and that when he gets home there will be a neat little nest-egg ready for a ' celebration. Help in a Rad Cross canteen . . . , . . i ! UK , .. |
