Locust Valley Starts Movement To Adopt Needy Towns in Europe

Wealthy Long Island Community Will Send Aid to French Village of Ste. Mere-Eglise
Hopes Plan Becomes Nation-Wide

LOCUST VALLEY, L. I., Dec. 1 � This community in Oyster Bay Township, one of the richest in the United States, has started a movement to have American towns, cities and villages adopt devastated communities in Europe. The committee announced today it hoped to see the project become nationwide.

Locust Valley, with a population of 5,000 persons, among them some of the most wealthy in the country, has chosen to adopt the village of Ste. Mere-Eglise in Normandy, the first spot liberated by Allied troops after the D-Day landings in June, 1944. It already has been in touch with M. Renaud, Mayor of the French town, to ask what his people need most.

There were special reasons for Locust Valley choosing Ste. Mere-Eglise, which, incidentally, has only 1,200 souls. Col. Augustin Hart Jr., a Locust Valley man, landed there with American airborne troops to pave the way for Gen. Omar Bradley's infantry in the beginning of the heroic struggle for the Cherbourg Peninsula. Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. is buried in Ste. Mere-Eglise Cemetery, and earth from his grave has been mingled with earth on his father's grave in Oyster Bay.

The movement is to be called �Operation Democracy.� Its sponsors feel that it can do more good, at least in terms of human relations, than the Marshall plan, which it would supplement. The inspiration for the idea came to Mrs. Charles Breasted of Factory Pond Road after she had talked with Colonel Hart some months ago and after General Roosevelt's widow had visited her husband's grave and had seen how tenderly the people of Ste. Mere-Eglise looked after the United States military cemetery there.

The �Operation Democracy� Committee will send household goods, clothing, food, medical instruments and medicines, even such things as musical instruments and toys needed for a full life. Children in the Locust Grove School are to correspond with school children in the adopted village. The plans for this are in the hands of Dr. Leon Westfall, school principal here.

Mrs. Breasted, wife of the former executive secretary of the Oriental Institute of Chicago and daughter of Isabella Greenway King, former Arizona Representative, heads the committee. Stuart H. Johnson, a business man, is secretary. Other members include Dr. Albert D. B. Deyo of the Reformed Church, Millward W. Martin, Pepsi-Cola executive; Miss Edith Hay, Newton Milham, a member of the Locust Valley Board of Education; Mrs. William G. N. Crossland, president of the local women's club, and Mrs. John M. Wansor.

The committee meets in the Matinecock Neighborhood House, the community center. It elected the committee membership last night. Tentative plans call for the organization, when it has raised sufficient funds, to buy directly from manufacturers, at lower than retail prices, the things which the adopted village may need. School children will collect contributed items. The gifts will be crated and stored in the schoolhouse until they are ready for shipment.

Secretary of State Marshall and Mrs. Marshall lived in Locust Valley during the General Assembly sessions on Long Island. They were guests at Candle-Light, the estate owned by Robert Lovett, Under-Secretary of State. Locust Valley is the home of the famous Piping Rock Club. Its residents include the families of F. Trubee Davison, Mrs. George Baker and others high in banking and industry.

2 December 1947
New York Times