Olga Casassa, was very active in the group and held the position of secretary. Charles Greenman of Hampton was treasurer of the group, and donated storage space for its use in his warehouse on High Street.
Hamilton said that Greenman was "always willing to help with civic minded ventures such as this. Hamilton said that Mrs. Wiere Rowell was also very active in the group. To get funds for the bundles, the group held events such as concerts, and sold pins and pendants. Hamilton said that concerts were held in Rye, on Little Boar's Head, and wasn't quite sure whether high school students or New Hampshire musicians played in the concerts; but remembered that they were "very successful, as lots of tickets were sold.
Pins and other items sold by the group were purchased from a central agency of the organization. Hamilton said that there were no frills to the group, and the money acquired was used for materials and supplies.
Hamilton said that the organization gave the people involved a "peace of mind. Still, whatever the members could do was worthwhile, said Hamilton, and he is quite sure that the bundles were appreciated. He also added that the group was well thought of at the time, and that anyone was welcome to join. He also remembered that a trucking company no longer in existence also donated their services to help the group, and "just tried to help make things go.
Hamilton said that Bundles for Britain was not independent, and status reports had to be filed every month with a central office in New York. He said that the government was more involved with organizations like this back then, because of the wartime economy with shipping regulations amd restrictions. Still, he was sure that the packages did reach their destinations, although distribution of the bundles was done solely by the New York Center.
Although he is not quite sure, Hamilton suspects that the group did receive some type of recognition for its efforts. As an appreciative Englishman I think it is my duty to tell you about this, and the best way I can do that is to take an example of which I have personal knowledge. In the state of Massachussetts there is a little town.
It has a big white church at one end of it with a spire which might have been designed by our own Christopher Wren: and a revoltingly ugly building at the other, of liver-colored granite with a green copper roof, which is probably the town hall. There is a green in front of this with a statue of somebody or other and a rusty gun, and between the two runs the usual indeterminate American street, with a lot of untidy-looking cars and untidy shops where you can buy mackinaws and frigidaires and red ankle socks and oil stoves and auto tires.
In winter, when the wind whips down from the north and there is snow in the streets under an icy sun, the friendliness is mostly indoors. There are, I suppose, about ten thousand people living in this place, and most of them, apart from the ones who are skipping about in their mackinaws and red ankle socks, seem to have seamed and kindly faces. The seaming may be due to life in this vast, strenuous American climate with its high winds and its angry changes of temperature, which may drop from ninety degrees to no degrees in a few short days, and climb to sixty again in a few short hours.
The kindliness shines out through good blue eyes, in the way of the ancient American tradition of neighborliness, from the American soul. I do know that the spirit of this is deeply ingrained in the American. XJOWHERE in the world will you find so much good nature, so much warmheartedness, so much cheerful and downright desire to be of help, as you will in this limitless American scene with the broad roads and the vast perspectives, the bustling cities and the lonely farmsteads the small towns and all the ramshackle, tatterdemalion panorama in between.
I can speak of this, because all this friendship and this generosity is now directed toward Britain, the neighbor across the sea whose house is afire, whose wife is about to have a baby, and who has sent out a call for help. As an obvious Englishman I find that I am stopped in the street, buttonholed in shops, even flagged as I drive through in my little English car.
Everybody wants to know how things are going over there, whether I have news from home, and to say how anxious they are to do everything they can to help Britain along. They mean it, too. In that little town which I have described they told me how they were trying to raise subscriptions toward the cost of one of the rolling kitchens which the British War Relief Society were hoping to send across the Atlantic to be ready on the spot when people were bombed out of their homes, with a word of American cheer and hot soup and tea.
For a week I heard nothing in that town but news of how the subscriptions were going. When I went to the furniture shop to buy a kitchen table the old gentleman who worked there told me, with tears in his eyes, that his parents were born in Greenwich, that he was proud to think himself an Englishman, that he had already subscribed twice, and sold me the table cheap.
It was the same whether I bought a couple of screws, filled up the car, or stopjxxi to pick up a Boston evening paper. Everybody in that town seemed to have given his dollar, or his half dollar, or his pocketful of pennies, and to want to wring the hand of any Englishman who happened along.
It would be the easiest thing in the world to make fun of that little meeting, and the most ungracious. There was a big barn-like room at the back of the hotel.
A raised platform had been put at one end, with six chairs, a table and a glass of water, backed by Old Glory and the Union Jack. About two hundred simple, honest folk sat there in. A Unitarian minister presided. Then a speaker from the war-relief people in Boston rose to his feet and began to harrow everyone with a description of London life under an air raid. As his description unfolded the people began to smile behind their hands. When he passed to a direct appeal for funds toward the purchase of a rolling kitchen they faced him with broad grins.
Those people had already, before he opened his mouth, bought and paid for two rolling kitchens. Four thousand dollars! When I left England a little more than six months ago, most people felt that the attitude of the U. Most Englishmen, especially after the fall of France, cherished a feeling in their bones that the great republic of the West, because it had the same sort of ideas as we had and worshipped the same ideals, could never, if things ever came to that point, stand on one side and see England go down into dissolution and defeat.
Several of the many projects are outlined below. Most of the clippings are undated, but dated letters help to determine the chronology. Philadelphia St.
Shipment of thousands of donated garments from across the county began almost immediately. The national office soon expressed gratitude that the entire county was working together, and asked for names of towns and women in charge, to list as united under the York Branch. Closed by a drawstring to loop over cots in air-raid shelters or hospitals, they could hold the few personal belongings victims might salvage as they fled the bombing raids.
Hospitals, as well as homes, were bombed. York BFB also immediately responded to pleas for surgical instruments, as well as cots and blankets. Although it was a women-run organization, men were welcome to help any way they could. By the beginning of December , local doctors were giving extra surgical implements to a committee headed by Dr.
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