Red Cross Volunteers

This photograph is of Red Cross volunteers in 1944, including Julia Valchok Klick Repaich who lived on Avenue F on the East Side. Born in 1880, Julia was a Moravian from the Silesia region of Bohemia, Czechoslovakia in Central Europe who emigrated to the United States in 1905. Many European immigrants to Southeast Chicago were affected by World War I and World War II, not only as Americans, but also because of the profound impacts of the wars on their communities of origin. During World War II, millions of Red Cross volunteers aided the war effort by providing assistance to families affected by the war, serving in hospitals with staff shortages, providing first aid and water safety training, conducting scrap drives, organizing victory gardens, initiating educational programs in home nutrition, and producing emergency supplies for victims of war. The Red Cross also recruited thousands of nurses to serve in the U.S. Army and Navy Nurses Corps. In nearly every household in the United States, someone had some connection with the Red Cross, whether as a volunteer, donor, blood donor, or recipient of Red Cross services. This image was donated by Julia’s daughter, Victoria Beauley.