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Show By L. L. STEVENSON The Junior Emergency Relief society so-ciety recently completed 30 years of continuous service. Founded by Mrs. Walter Eyre Lambert in 1914, it differs from similar organizations in many ways. For instance, it has passed through one war and is in another. For three decades, from 200 to 300 women have met every Tuesday, six months each year, to make surgical dressings of various kinds, also layettes for wives of servicemen. Not only that, but members actually pay for the privilege privi-lege of operating sewing machines and .using needles for the benefit of the armed forces. No contributions are solicited. The Hotel Biltmore donates the large assembly room in which meetings are held and attends at-tends to the assembling of sewing machines and other equipment. A department store provides trucks and another, warehouse space. All. other expenses, including materials, are borne by members who pay an initiation fee and make a stated contribution each year. Membership Member-ship is by invitation. During the year just closed, 150,000 articles were turned out by the members, almost all of whom are listed in the social register. Since its inception" cat first it was the Junior War Relief society), the organization has made 6,000,000 such articles. One-fourth goes to the United States army, one-fourth to the navy, one-fourth to England and one-fourth to home charities. A large beneficiary is Halloran General Gen-eral hospital, on. Staten Island, where patients are wounded men brought back from overseas. At the beginning of the 30th season, Mrs. Lambert was too ill to make plans or attend the opening sessions. A group of officers took over and the work continued. Never before in Broadway's history his-tory has ballet enjoyed such popularity as it does at present. In the past, Broadway looked on ballet bal-let as strictly "long hair" or "arty." But a change came and now every hit show along the street has ballet in one form or another. Even Billy Hose, who is said to know a good show when he sees one, has signed the classical ballerina Markova for a musical next fall. So, the man in the street knows something about ballet. That brings me up to a story told the other evening by Edwina Seaver who is the dancing Venus in the prologue of "Helen ' Went to Troy," in addition to her stint as ballet dancer throughout the show. During rehearsals of the musical, getting a taxi to and from the theater thea-ter was a task that taxed the intestinal in-testinal fortitude of even experienced experi-enced troupers. Hence when Miss Seaver, one rainy evening, stepped out of her home in the East Sixties and hailed a cab, she did so listlessly, list-lessly, thinking it and many others would merely pass by. To her vasl surprise, the cab drew up to the curb. No sooner had the elated Miss Seaver seated herself than the driver driv-er looked back and inquired: "Yoi: a ballet dancer?" Miss Seaver, nc end puzzled, replied that she was and was bound tor the theater. With her answer, the driver swung into high and passed through two red lights with all the ease of the daring young man on the you know what. All the way downtown, the driver, who informed her that he was a ballet fan, kept plying Miss Seaver with questions about dancing where she studied, did she follow the classical clas-sical or modern, etc. When they reached the theater, he got out, opened an umbrella with a flourish and convoyed his fare to the stage door. Then the question that had been burning within Miss Seaver's shy self finally burst forth. "How on earth did you know I was a ballet dancer?" she asked. "That was easy," answered the driver. "Nobody but a ballet dancer would hail a cab on tip-toe when she's holding an open umbrella." Yes, Broadway has come to know ballet! , Fatherhood: John Kieran and Lowell Thomas were reminiscing about the time when they became fathers ... "I was in such a daze," said Kieran, "that I went around asking people how old was our baby when it was born . . "That's nothing," returned Thomas, "I was so excited that when I first saw the nurse, I asked her if the baby was a boy or a man." Bell Syndicate. WNU Featurei. |