The Daily Times-News from Burlington, North Carolina • Page 70

THE DAILY TIMES NEWS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1975 SECTION 12 PAGES WOMEN'S NEWS FEATURES Washington Feedback Wives Letters May Be In Print Some Day Churchill and LeGrand Charles DeGauIle to Communist heads of state. ject: "The Public Interest Law Firm" and not get sidetracked by too many questions about her husband. She now works for a private, highly lucrative law firm here but spent more than a year working for a public Interest group right after she passed the bar exam. Meanwhile, it was learned that Elizabeth Black, widow of (he late Justice Hugo Black, has written a memoir of his life, tentatively titled "The Magnificent Rebel" which her agent is circulating to publishers in New York City now. In these times of inflation, $100 a head is the standard price of admission to a party staged to help a senator get reelected to the world's most exclusive club.

Unless you are Ted in which case you can get $250 a head and slanding room only. Some 200 friends of Maine's Sen. Ed Muskie turned out recently at SZ00 a couple to lift their glasses and eat finger food at the Federal City Club to plump his campaign kitty for his re election race in Maine next year. Of course, there were some freeloading colleagues on hand to wish him well too George McGovern of South Dakota and Lloyd Bentsen of Texas who would like to leave the senate for the Whiie House next year. Now invitations are out for a cocktail buffet at Ted Kennedy's McLean, home where Teddy and wife Joan will host a fund raiser for Ills Massachusetts senate race.

Aides said he expects to net $10 lo (15,000 on the party. By DOROTHY MARKS Women's News Service WASHINGTON Historians may be the loser when George Bush returns to Washington to leave bis past as head of the U.S. Mission in Peking and become head of the CIA. Bush's wife, Barbara, and Lorraine Cooper, wlh of our Ambassador to Bast Germany, have been unburdening themselves in their isolation by writing long chatty and extremely candid letters to each other about their experiences representing this country in Communist China and East Germany. They have been doing it, of course, by diplomatic pouch, to preserve their confidentiality.

Historian Arthur Schlesinger, for one, was hoping some day to see those letters in print or used to help historians in their chronicling of the world today. He had urged both women to the correspondence. The existence of the letters was revealed recently by author Susan Mary Alsop at a Washington Press Club luncheon where she was publicizing her own book, "Letters to Marietta from Paris, 1945 60." This book is a lively compilation of her letters to her old school chum Marietta Tree during the period she and her foreign service husband William Patton got to know everyone from Winston Rudy Vatlee, the 73 year old singer who likes to bill himself as "the gentleman songster" was anything but a gentleman at an anniversary appearance at the Sboreham Americana Hotel here last week. Vallee, who opened the Shoreham Blue Room 45 years ago to the date, was booked in to entertain at a CARE MEDICO benefit which also brought the new owners of the hotel here from Chicago to help publicize the event. The Shoreham Hotel's resident comic, Mark Russell, had been asked by the owners to introduce Vallee, hut the aging singer felt Russell was getting too much applause of his own In the process.

So in mid joke he seized the mike from Russell and went into his own song and patter routine. Rudy confided he had really come to D.C. mostly to publicize his new book "Let the Chips Fall." The crowd sat on their hands even when he sang "The Whiffenpoof Song" he'd made famous 50 years ago. That night the chips fell on Rudy, Friends of Sargent Shrlver, hosting a $25 a head birthday party for their favorite Democratic presidential candidate on November 9, distributed a Shriver for President Committee list sporting lots of glamorous names. There is the Kennedy family, of course, all except brother in law Ted.

There are Mrs. Joseph Kennedy, Ethel and Joan, Pat Law ford and Jackie Ouassis, Former Watergafc prosecutor Jill Volner is a co chairman of the Shriver for President group along with William McCormick Blair, a ambassadur and Adlai Stevenson's campaign chairman in 1952 and 1956. Other supporters in a list of 200 are Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Kurt Vonnegut Arthur Ashe, Carol Channing, Topper Carew, Roosevelt Grier, Ara Parseghlan and William Manchester. Cathy Douglas, the wife of ailing Supreme Court Justice Bill Douglas, is sold out as the scheduled luncheon speaker at the Woman's National Democratic Club here on November to stick pretty much tc ber sub Despite the Economy It's Good Cheer for Goodwill By Ellie Grossman NEW YORK (NEA) All things considered, it should be a dismal holiday season far the handicapped. It should be, but to hear the president of Goodwill Industries tell it, it won't be, "People have been wonderfully responsive lo us," Dean Phillips says.

"They seem to realize that during a lime of recession, handicapped people have special needs and "When we've had difficulty getting used clothing or small appliances for our workers to repair for resale in our Goodwill thrift stores, community appeals have been universally responded to." Even in areas such as Dclroif, he says, "where in iluslry was cut back and we had to lay off 300 handicapped people, we managed to relocate them in other work situations." It certainly sounds good, doesn't it? And for those receiving Goodwill's services, it is. But of the nation's three million handicapped capable of work, Goodwill Industries deals with only 25,090 at a time, or 75,000 a year. "Wc have 157 Goodwill plants across the country," Phillips says, "in addition lo 150 branches, where we provide rehabilitation counseling and sheltered workshop experience. But there are still thousands and thousands of people in every community who could benefit from our program. We're just now beginning to get the retarded kids out of the closets and the wheelchairs out of the bedroom." learn via Goodwill handmade dolls that will be one of the featured items in the shop.

Mrs. Victor who is arranging the display in the foreground, is special projects chairman. Thev, shop will feature items priced for $1 to $7 and will be open December 1 6.Times News Photo' by Jack Sink) STOCKING STUFFERS A sample of the unique gifts that will available at the Memorial Hospital Auxiliary's Stocking Sluffer Shop is shown above. Mrs. Vincent Farono, auxiliary president, fastens a bird nest decoration to the Christmas tree in the background, while Mrs.

James McCormick, center, gift shop chairman, cuddles one of the only one work the have special needs. Bui, Phillips contends, the rest of Ihe community doesn't realty have to do all that much lo fill them. "Take tlie building industry. It doesn't cost any more to design a building with ramps and without stairs, or to place a wall plug three feet higher than it is now. We have lo educate builders and architects to that, and overcome a great deal of inertia on their part." Any community that wants a Goodwill rehabilitation cenler can get it, Phillips says, by contacting Goodwill handicapped Industries.

But Cathy says she Intends A handicapped person, according to Phillips, is "someone who can't reach his potential. That means we work with all kinds of people Including paroled prisoners, as well as ihe mentally retarded who eunstitulu the largest number of our handicapped. They're followed by the mentally disturbed and those with physical disabilities." The first slep in Goodwill's program is a period of evaluation. "We run an infinite number or tests on the individual from three weeks to three months lo see what he can do. You see, wc train people for all kinds of work; assembly line, computer programming, garment repairing.

Even secretarial skills and custodial work in public buildings." Once lie's trained by volunteer nurses, speech therapists, doctors and anyone else who wants to donate his time and skill Goodwill puis the person to work in one of their workshops, with the hope of eventually placing him in Ihe communily. "We try lo teach people In live independently and to train lliem for a productive job, for which they earn anywhere from 50 cents to $5 an hour, depending on their skills. We've found that' once an employer takes a chance on one handicapped worker, he's usually back for more. "I remember one girl in Colorado Springs," he continues, "who was packaging parts for a manufacturer. You should have seen her.

She was deaf, blind and physically handicapped in other ways, but she was thrilled to be doing the late Victorian era joined the clubs in her "History of the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs, 1901 1925." "Everywhere woman, while absorbed by the duties of motherhood and homemaklng, felt, without understanding, the inner stirrings of undeveloped powers." She foresaw early signs of an Improved status of women as citizens, which she termed a "revolution," with worldwide implications: "The restricted conventions of her isolated individuality gave to the woman of the past what would now be called an 'inferiority which was simply the habit of sex submission from which she will ultimately be emancipated," Mrs. Cotten had lived to see two significant obstacles overcome by activist women, A special committee of the Federation had studied the legal status of women in North Carolina and reported in 1912 that women had few definite legal rights. One of the areas in which women were powerless particularly rankled in the hearts of club members: women were not permitted to sit on local school boards. Christmas Shop Planned By Hospital Auxiliary provements. The major aux inary project mis year nas Deen turnishing a pediatric playroom for the benefit of cminren wno are patients in the hospital.

Sallie Southall Cotten: Voice of Women REPAIRING OF TOYS is segment of productive her part and she never slipped once." But life for the handicapped is no more restricted to nine to five than it is for anyone else. "Can the handicapped worker get to his job easily? Is there an apartment for him lo live in where he won't be hampered by not being able lo lit a wheelchair through the elevator doors? What about recreation and religious facilities? We're concerned with alt these things. Hie whole quality of life." Certainly the handicapped When the Federation's next state convention took place, Mrs. Cotten assumed the presidency and joined in the general elation among delegates that progress had been made. A mass lobbying effort by women had moved the General Assembly to pass a new law which allowed women to serve on school boards.

The second victory, more far reaching than the first, came in 1920 with the passage of the Equal Suffrage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Mrs. Cotten, like other women suffragists, optimistically believed that with the right to vote, other inequ Ities suffered by women would rapidly vanish, automatically open up new opportunities In business, the professions, politics and government, education and other phases of public life. This early belief has been proved overly hopeful.

Widespread sex discrimination and what Sallie Cotton called "the habit of sex submission" on the part of women themselves continue to bar women from achieving their actual potential in society. Another prominent eastern North Carolina suffragist, Johnetta Webb spltman, Industries in Washington. D.C. "We like lo have $100,000 before we lease a building and hire someone to run it, so we ask (lie local community to raise about 525,000 which we match. And we hope Id gel at least as much from (he state rehabilitation department.

"But basically," he says, "it takes a group of people who see ihe need (or us in their community, and who are willing to take on the responsibility of getting us started." And once they've begun, there's almost no stopping them. them visit her at home. "She was very feminine," said Mrs. Spilman. The traditional harsh stereotype ol the crusader for women's rights seems hardly to fit Mrs.

Cotten. One evidence of this is the colorful Victorian "crazy quilt" she worked which is now on display in Cotten Hall. Each velvet, satin or silk patch in the quilt has been bordered and ornamented wilh Intricate embroidery. An original four stanza poem, worked in gold silk outline stitches covers the crimson plush tpiill backing. There can be little doubt that were she a live today, the remarkable Sallie Southall Cotten would be using her talent to organize and lead large groups toward the channeling of women's "undeveloped powers" which she perceived 50 years ago.

But ihe thousands of East Carolina women students who have lived in Cotten Hall during the past decades while they worked toward college degrees have already fulfilled one of her most cherished dreams opportunities for women to receive educations and develop their potential abilities. The Auxiliary of Memorial Hospital of Alamance is sponsoring a unique "Stocking Sniffer Shop" in the lobby of the hospital December M. Hours for the shop will be from 10 a. m. to 8:30 p.

and it will be staffed by volunteers from the auxiliary. The shop1 will feature un usual items, priced from $1 to $7 purchased by Mrs. James L. McCormick, gift shop chairman, In New York, in addition to a variety of handmade Items and unusual toys purchased locally. Featured articles will Include tea caddies from England, Imported candles, miniature wooden toys and puzzles and tree decorations.

Among the tree decorations is a miniature bird and nest emphasizing the Swedish legend that happiness reigns in a home that contains a bird. There will also be knitted pocketbooks, unusual story books from England end a variety of friction and wind up toys that will appeal to the younger child. A specialty of the shop will be a collection of stuffed dolls, handmade by Mrs. Vincent Farone, auxiliary chairman. Mrs.

Farone has also made a huge stuffed teddy bear that will be given as a door prize after the shop Is closed. Tickets for the teddy bear will cost 50 cents and will be available at the shop. Proceeds from the shop will be used for hospital Im By FRAMCEINE PERRY ECU Newt Bureau GREENVILLE Nearly 300 blue jeaned residents of East Carolina University's Cotton Hall dormitory pass through the dorm lobby every day, with barely a glance at the oil portrait on the wall, showing a white haired elderly lady In old fashioned clothes cradling a bouquet of pink carnations. Most of them are unaware that Sallie Southall Cotten (1846 1929) was one of North Carolina's outstanding, proponents of women's rights long before women were even allowed to vote. In 186S Sallie Southall married Robert Randolph Cotten of Pitt County and became interested In women's club activities.

Women' clubs or the period were not mere frivolous social gatherings as might be assumed; they provided the only opportunity for women to organize and speak their views on current issues. Possessing unusual charm, intelligence and leadership ability, Mrs. Cotton played a prominent role in women's clubs on the local and state levels. At the sge of AO, Mrs. Cotton described the social climate in which women of recalls that one of Mrs.

Cotton's mast intense interests was vocational education for young people of both sexes. "I had a small business school in my home then," said Mrs. Spilman, "and Mrs. Cotten often expressed pleasure that these young people are being trained for work. She believed that women should have marketable skills and be able to survive independently." Few women in the early 1900s received training for gainful employment, and Mrs.

Cotten deplored the fact that many widows were left penniless upon the death of their husbands, usually with children to support, Mrs. Spllrnan said. This practical aspect of limited education for women distressed Mrs. Gotten as much as her realization that women's abilities were often unused. The Federation of Women's Clubs has honored Mrs.

Cotten's ardent desire that young women be prepared for vocations by naming its fund for women students the Sallie Southall Cotten Loan Fund. Spilman also remembers Sallie Cotten's. "warm personality" and that she was especially fond of children and enjoyed having TEDDY BEAR This teddy bear, handmade by Mrs. Vincent Farone, auxiliary president, will be given as a door priie at the conclusion of the Slocking Stuffer Shop at Memorial Hospital of Alamance..