Ilion High School - Class of 1894

Ilion Citizen - October 8, 1949

Ilion Woman Continues Lifetime of Service

Article 6

Ilion Woman Continues Lifetime of Service

Ilion - At an age when most women rarely venture outside their homes, Miss Blanche Ringwood, who for more than four decades has treated the misfortunes of Ilionites as her own, still spends most of her time and energy in the service of others.

Although reluctant to reveal her exact age. Miss Ringwood is old enough to have seen Ilion through two World Wars and a violent depression as an active member of the local Red Cross chapter, a onetime Travelers Aid representative and private welfare administrator. Now, still extremely active, she travels daily from her home on Armory Hill to Ilion Hospital, where she is a member of the staff.

Nominally, Miss Ringwood is employed as a seamstress, charged with caring for hospital linen. Actually, however, mending is only a small part of her daily routine, and she spends whatever time she has left in helping with the dozens of small tasks which make the hospital run more smoothly.

Ilion - At an age when most women rarely venture outside their homes, Miss Blanche Ringwood, who for more than four decades has treated the misfortunes of Ilionites as her own, still spends most of her time and energy in the service of others.

Service Began in 1916

Miss Ringwood's active service with the Red Cross began in 1916, shortly after the formation of the Ilion Chapter, and supposedly ended a year ago, when she was made an honorary member for life. However, in accepting honorary status, she insisted that she be allowed to continue as chairman of the important Home Service Committee, which provides a link between servicemen and their families and administers supplemental relief to veterans and their dependents.

During Miss Ringwood's period of active membership, the Ilion Red Cross chapter liberally supported well-to-do local families, established a more than respectable record of service knitting, sewing and making surgical dressings in wartime, and, in normal times, giving prompt aid to many fire victims --- but the organization probably was most useful during the depression of the early 1930's, when Ilion, because of its industrial character, suffered more than most communities of its size.

Distributed Flour

At that time, Miss Ringwood recalls, the chapter purchased and distributed 11 carloads of flour and other staple foods, as well as tons of used clothing and yard goods. In addition to her Red Cross work, Miss Ringwood had charge of the $100 a month Marcellus Hartley Dodge fund, established by a former president of Remington Arms in memory of a son killed accidentally several years before. Although this fund was earmarked for the relief of Arms workers, she was allowed complete discretion and allocated the money wherever it was most needed.

It was during the depression that the Travelers Aid Society broadcast an appeal for a representative in the valley to help keep track of the vast numbers of men wandering about the country in search of work. Miss Ringwood volunteered for the job and during the next few years acted as an unofficial missing persons bureau, locating many a wanderer sought by his family.

The veteran welfare worker comes honestly by her affection for Ilion, having lived here all her life. She is the last surviving child of Thomas Ringwood, who migrated here from Connecticut in 1866 to work in the E. Remington plant. Later, as an employee of Remington Typewriter, Ringwood imported the first automatic screw machine into the valley from New England, paying for the machine himself because his employers believed it impractical.

On his arrival in Ilion, Thomas Ringwood set up housekeeping at 8 Armory St., in a house then owned by the Remington company. There his six children were born, and there members of his family lived until two years ago, when Miss Ringwood sold the house. Unwilling to leave the pleasant hilltop, the last of Thomas Ringwood's children now lives with Mr. and Mrs. Asa Cole, less than 100 yards from the home which her family occupied for more than 80 years.