A wonderful work was done by “Y” secretaries among the illiterates.  Its fruits are already apparent and will continue to multiply.  They found men who hardly knew their right hand from their left.  Others who could not write their names are said to have wept with joy when taught to master the simple accomplishment.  Many a poor illiterate was given the rudiments of an education and started on the way to higher attainments.

Headquarters of the overseas work was at Paris, France, and was in charge of E.C.  Carter, formerly Senior Student secretary in America, and when war was declared, held the position of National Secretary of India.  Much of the credit for the splendid performance of the “Y” workers abroad belonged to him and to his able aid, Dr. John Hope, president of Morehouse college, Atlanta, Ga.  The latter went over in August, 1918, as a special overseer of the Negro Y.M.C.A.

Three distinguished Negro women were sent over as “Y” hostesses, with a secretarial rating, during the war.  Their work was so successful that twenty additional women to serve in the same capacities were sent over after the close of hostilities.  They were to serve as hostesses, social secretaries and general welfare workers among the thousands of Negro soldiers who had been retained there with the Army of Occupation and the Service of Supply.

The first Negro woman to go abroad in the Y.M.C.A. service was Mrs. Helen Curtis of 208 134th Street, New York, in May, 1918.  For a number of years she had been a member of the committee of management of the Colored Women’s Branch of the Y.M.C.A., and had assisted at the Camp Upton hostess house.  Her late husband, James L. Curtis, was minister resident and consul general for the United States to Liberia.  Mrs. Curtis lived in Monrovia, Liberia, until her husband’s death there.  She had also lived in France, where she studied domestic art for two years.  Being a fluent speaker of the French language, her appointment was highly appropriate.

So successful was the appointment of Mrs. Curtis that another Negro secretary in the person of Mrs. Addie Hunton of 575 Greene Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y., followed the next month.  Her husband was for many years senior secretary of the International Committee of the Y.M.C.A.  Negro Men’s Department, and her own work had always been with the organization.

A short time later Miss Catherine Johnson of Greenville, Ohio, followed in the wake of Mrs. Curtis and Mrs. Hunton.  She is a sister of Dr. Johnson of Columbus, Ohio, appointed early in 1919 minister to Liberia.

No less successful at home than abroad was the work of the Y.M.C.A. among the Negroes in cantonments and training camps.  It is known that the services rendered by the Association to the officers’ training camp at Fort Des Moines had much to do with making that institution such a remarkable success.  From that time on comment was frequent that the best work being done by the Association in many of the camps was done by Negro secretaries.