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Updated: May 25, 2025
The Salvation Army was not permitted to erect any additional buildings as it was feared they would attract the fire of the Germans, for Ansauville was well within the range of the German guns. After deciding that the General's garage was the only logical place for them the Salvation Army representative called upon the General, who asked him where he would propose establishing a hut.
The work was extended to other camps in the Gondrecourt area and finally the time came for the troops to move up to the front to occupy part of a sector. The Toul Sector Headquarters of the First Division were established at Menil-la-Tour and that of the First Brigade at Ansauville.
Through her great motherly heart and her willingness to serve the boys at all times, under all circumstances, she won their confidence and love. One soldier said he would walk five miles any day to look into "Ma's" gray eyes. From Bonnet they were transferred to command a hut at Ansauville, but "Ma" could never rest so long as there was a soldier to be served in any way.
They were not permitted to repair the roof because the German airplane observers would notice it and know that some activity was going on there which would call for renewed shell fire. However, the top of one of the circus tents was easily run up in the barn so as to form a ceiling. Ansauville was between Mandres and Menil-la-Tour, not far from advanced positions in the Toul Sector.
Plucky little girls! The Salvation Army Staff-Captain of that zone went back in the morning to Ansauville to get the girls' personal belongings, and when he entered the canteen he stood still and looked about him with horror and thankfulness as he realized the narrow escape those girls had had. The windows and roof were full of shell holes. Shrapnel had penetrated everywhere.
The Salvation Army was told that Ansauville was too far front for any women to be allowed to go. They felt, however, that it was advisable for women to be there and determined to bring it about if possible. On scouting the town there was found no suitable place in any of the buildings except one that was occupied as the General's garage.
In the little town of Bonnet where the rest room was located in an old barn connected with a Catholic convent, one Salvation Army Envoy and his wife from Texas began their work. They soon became known to the soldiers familiarly as "Pa" and "Ma." It was in this old barn that the tent top, later made famous at Ansauville, was first used.
They had marched for hours and had been without any warm meal for a long time. Detachments of them reached Ansauville at night, wet and cold, too late to secure supper that night, and hearing they were coming, the lassies put on great boilers of coffee and cocoa, and as the men arrived they were given to them freely. A hut was established at Mandres.
After this they kept men in Ansauville instead of girls. The next day the girls opened up the canteen at Menilla-Tour as calmly as if nothing had happened the day before. The boys were going down to Nevillers to rest, and while they rested the girls cooked good things for them and used that sweet God-given influence that makes a little piece of home and heaven wherever it is found.
Ansauville was a point of peculiar importance in that all the troops passing into or out from the sector stopped there. It was here that cocoa and coffee were first provided for the troops. Afterwards it came to be the habit to serve them with the doughnuts and pie. It was when the Twenty-sixth Division came into the line.
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