100 years ago: Salvation Army delivers baskets of food to Lawrence families

From the Lawrence Daily World for Dec. 26, 1910:

  • “There were big baskets, little baskets, and medium sized baskets arranged in neat rows at the Salvation Army headquarters Christmas eve. On Christmas morning the same baskets were to be found in a hundred Lawrence homes, where they brought the only cheer of gladsome Yule-tide to weary-bodied parents, and sad-eyed pinched-face children. At one house the father has been too ill to work for several weeks and the mother has been trying to keep enough food in the squalid house for her brood, by taking in washing. The struggle against healthy appetites and the bitter cold of the last week had been almost too much for her when the big basket of good-cheer arrived. To the Army workers it was worth all the weary hours of watching the big kettle in the midst of surging throngs of shoppers, to see the joyful little faces and the signs of renewed hope steal over the tired mother.”
  • “The Elks decided this year to play the role of Big Brothers to the little folks of Lawrence who Santa Claus chanced to overlook. At two o’clock yesterday the Elk club house was thrown open to their little guests, and for three hours the troupes of children poured through the rooms in an unceasing stream. W. A. Hinsley acted as old Santa and always knew just what the children wanted. Roller skates, sleds, toy engines, dolls, real oak furniture – anything could be found in his inexhaustible store.”