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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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couldn't imagine what they would do. I had a hard time selling it to him. Finally he became the greatest user of the “After-Care” Service of anybody. They took the problem cases off us individually.

They managed to do the most amazing things just by the right kind of advice and the right kind of connecting these people with the right kind of agencies. They'd connect them sometimes with their church. They'd find their long lost son or daughter. They'd reunite families. If an old fellow wanted to go home and proved that he would be better off if he got home to Italy, they'd make up the case for him, make an investigation into the general background. We even had correspondence with the International Social Work Service that Joseph P. Chamberlain was the head of for years and the YWCA was in on. We'd get them to make us reports on the conditions in this town in Italy, whether the old man's sisters were still alive, whether they really wanted him to come home and would take care of him if he did. It was a very satisfying thing to know that you just weren't making an award into the blue and the old fellow might lose by it.

They did a very amazing job and I don't think anybody would be without it. But it was a new adventure and very highly regarded in social work circles. Though nobody would have thought of it, it was very highly regarded by the





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