girls. Meyer is the son of Mr. and Mrs. George [Laura] Meyer of this city.
On the very day The Daily Bulletin told Meyer’s story, Rae Wilson’s health broke once more.
Daily Bulletin | March 14, 1942 Gloom shrouded the North Platte soldier’s Canteen yesterday afternoon when Miss Rae Wilson, commander since its inception, collapsed from overwork and was carried to her home where she will be confined for several weeks. … “I have been put to bed by my doctor and shall have to remain for some time,” [she wrote]. “This means that I shall have to give up my du- ties at the Canteen. “I am leaving everything in charge of Miss Edwina Barraclough to be assisted by Mrs. A.M. [Helen] Christ. “I want to thank all of the good people of North Platte and surrounding community for their help, and I do pray and hope that these people shall continue to aid our Canteen as I should hate to see it go under now when our boys are expecting us to be there.” … Never strong, Rae Wilson did not mention that it was her own endless work that laid her low. At the Canteen there is a sadness and a shade of panic because she is not there, but thru all there is evident a note of grim resolve. The Canteen will go on. The girls and women of North Platte and other communities who followed
Canteen volunteers bringing in donated items in 1942 include Rae Wilson, far left; Rose Loncar, behind Wilson; and Helen Christ, back, third from right.
Telegraph | July 2, 1985 To keep [the] ambitious commitment going, Mrs. Sleight worked at the Canteen day and night, sometimes catching a nap on the long, wooden benches in the old railroad depot used for the proj- ect. Other times, she’d get a few hours of sleep at home before a phone call summoned her and other core workers back to the Canteen to meet a train arriving in the middle of the night. …
her thru snow and blizzard and bitter cold will carry on until that day when Rae can return to the ideal she built out of a desire to help others. They pray that it will be soon. In her 1985 Telegraph interview, Rae Wilson Sleight revealed how hard she had driven herself and what she saw one awful night — probably the late January evening when wounded Pearl Harbor survivors had come through.
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