Sunday, March 20, 2016

Red Cross activities in Munith during World War I



I recently ran across this column entitled "Red Cross News and Notes" in the Jackson Citizen Patriot on May 8, 1918.  It includes a short report on the activities of the Munith Branch, which states that Annie Carley's three daughter had pieced together three quilts for the Red Cross.  While the article don't get their names correct--Ida Pearl (should be Ila Pearl), and Eva May (should be Iva May), and Clara Bell...it helps me confirm some of the stories my grandmother shared concerning community involvement during the war effort.  Sometime about 1992, I interviewed grandma about this subject and she told of how the women and girls would collect rags, clean them, and bring them to the Munith church where they would cut them into strips for bandages.  What she didn't tell me was about the quilts that she and her sisters made!  Can you image a 11, 10, and 9 year old sewing something for wounded military personnel today?  Not sure I can.


Two things this brings to the mind--How even a small community like Munith was empowered to contribute to national wartime efforts and secondly, the great traditions of Munith women coming together to make at difference in the world, whether it was their activities in the Red Cross, the 4-H, the Henrietta Helping Hands or the Waterloo Needlework Club...well done!

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