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city dwellers, tried to cope and minister
to these new neighbors:
A serious health problem, resulting from
the influx of transient families into the city
from rural areas of Missouri, Oklahoma
and Texas, in the area served by Kingdom
House, a United Charities agency, at 1102
Morrison avenue, was reported yesterday by
Miss Pearle Edwards, head of the agency.
There are no homes or flats available in
the area at present and in one instance an
agency nurse reported 28 children and 14
adults living in one rooming house, while in
another instance it was found two families
were occupying the basement of a house on
Morrison avenue, with four dogs and a half
a dozen chickens, Miss Edwards asserted.
Many of the children, numbering from
six to eight in a large number of scores
of new families in the area, show signs of
malnutrition and the majority have never
been immunized against communicable
diseases, the agency head declared.
Since the newcomers are not eligible for
hospitalization at City Hospital, because
of the fact they have not lived here a year,
their health needs are taxing to capacity the
facilities at Kingdom House clinic, and it
is anticipated the number of cases handled
there in the next few months will equal the
number of all last year, Miss Edwards said.
The incoming families, mostly from the
country, have a common answer to questions
as to why they came to the city, Miss
Edwards continued. The answer is, ‘Well,
we were starving where we were and figured
we couldn’t do any worse coming up here
to look for jobs. We’ll work, all we want is a
chance.’
29
It should be noted that this article
was written in September of 1941,
almost three months before the bombing
of Pearl Harbor and the nation-wide
gearing up to fight that finally took
43
C
hapter
T
wo
:
‘F
orgetting
O
ne
’
s
S
elf
in
S
ervice
to
H
umanity
’ (1928 – 1955)
E
F
P
hotos
:
E/F:
Alley adjoining
Kingdom House play yard
…
it was
found
two
families were
occupying
the
basement of
a house
on
M
orrison
avenue
,
with
four
dogs
and
a
half
a
dozen
chickens
,
…