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entertaining visitors at the Mission. Quite
as many calls have been received as have
been made. People come to have supplied
all sorts of needs. We have fed hungry men
and given them warm clothing. Employment
has been secured for numbers of women.
Troubles in the family life have been talked
over. Sometimes when the mother knew we
were at home little social visits have been
made, which have drawn us nearer to each
other. When one mother came with her
boy to talk over some peculiar temptation
that had overtaken him and after earnest
conversation and a prayer together we
arose from our knees, with even the boy’s
eyes suffused with tears, I felt as if no visit
I had made was so profitable as this when
the poor, perplexed, mother came to the one
place where she felt she could get sympathy
in controlling her boy.
Our relation to the Sunday-School and
Church with which we are connected is
delightful. To us this work of the Church
Extension Society and that of the Board of
City Missions is one. So much so that when
services have been announced and no one
came to preach I have felt the obligation
on me to conduct the meeting. For three
months after Conference we were without
a pastor but I felt it my duty to hold things
together until our needs were recognized.
During these three months we never missed
a service. Only once at the prayer-meeting
time hour was a leader provided for the
service, but every Wednesday night we had
a delightful meeting. On several occasions
the preacher was not present for our Sunday
evening service, but the occasion has always
been improved by the resident workers. The
church has no janitor but the room is always
lighted and warmed for the services. The
Sunday-School has taken on new life and
has so outgrown its quarters that every room
upstairs has to be used for class-rooms. The
arranging and heating of these has been
attended to by the resident workers, since it
never has occurred to anyone else that such
a thing was necessary, but this extra Sunday
work has been a delight to both the Matron
and Deaconess because we both feel that
it is as much our work as is the care of the
Nursery and of the other departments of the
Women’s Board.
To the faithful officers and members of this
Board, their sympathy and encouragement; to
the helpful companionship of the Matron and
City Missionary; and to the friendship of our
people I am indebted for the happiest year of
my life.
18
Mattie Wright’s comments about the
early years of the Sloan Mission Boys’
Club suggest that problems and issues in
urban environments are not constrained
within a particular era:
[the club boys are]…thirty-six champions.
They now speak of ‘our’mission, and plan
for the time when ‘we’ shall put up ‘our’ new
building.
The ‘gangs’ in a city are always a
menace to their respective neighborhoods
and woe to the gang that chances to
trespass upon another’s territory. After
night it is really dangerous for one boy to
be caught alone in a strange neighborhood.
When I first came to the Mission it was
impossible for me to induce the boys from
a few blocks away to attend our Sunday
School because the gang that had pre-
empted our corner gave every outsider to
understand ‘what would be done to him’ if
he set foot on its territory. Gradually the
boundary line between several gangs has
been effaced and a Club spirit developed
which is delightful. Only today one of the
C
hapter
O
ne
:
B
eginnings
(1902-1927)
11
P
hoto
:
A:
1031 South 8th Street,
where the nursery and girls’
activities were held from
1909 until 1927
A