Published: July 18, 2008 07:37 pm         

Fatherless children of France

During World War I, Marshal Jaffe, the president of France, realized that there were hundreds of thousands of children who were orphans or at least had lost their fathers and the mothers were unable to care for them.

He appealed to the citizens of America to assist in their care. He suggested that 10 cents a day would buy enough food to provide for one child to survive. A person could send $36.50 at one time for the child.

Marshall Jaffe reported that each child would be required to write thank you letters to the person who had become his or her benefactor. By the end of World War I, over 200,000 French children had found their “marraine or parraine” in America.

In 1917, Miss Margaret Magee was solicited directly from the “Chicago Committee for saving the orphans of France” to become the chairman for Cass County. She immediately secured nine pledges in Cass County. It appears that Margaret took on the responsibility by herself.

In 1918, Miss Louise Elliott was appointed to chair the drive. She recruited several other ladies to assist in the program. They soon had 40 more subscriptions with a number of persons thinking about it.

Louise realized that she needed a lot more help in this project. She organized every township in the county and appointed a chairwoman to organize the area assigned.

By the fall of 1918, through very hard work, more than 70 more children were subscribed. One of the projects used to raise money for the program was selling French Christmas cards. Mrs. H. E. Newcomet sold 5,000 cards to the railroad employees at 10 cents each. They had received 6,300 cards to sell and they were soon sold out.

By the Armistice in 1919, the Logansport-Cass County Committee had managed to secure 185 benefactors for the French orphans.

Richard B. Copeland is president of the Cass County Historical Society and can be reached at ptnews@pharostribune.com. The material for this article came from the Cass County History of World War I.