"Executive Director Mrs."
Homemaker Service Recruiting Women for Work in This Area
Dennis-Yarmouth Register, September 17, 1965
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Cape Cod Homemaker Service Is an experimental project which seems to be gaining momentum.
Mrs. Elizabeth Cole, who pioneered the service on the lower Cape, has moved to the Mid-Cape as senior superviser and is searching for 10 more homemakers to beef up the service in Harwich, Dennis, Brewster, Yarmouth and Barnstable.
The idea of the Homemaker Service is to recruit women, who have already proven able family managers, to help families who are in trouble because the mother is sick or some other catastrophe has disrupted the routine.
According to Mrs. Cole, new recruits will receive $1.30 per hour plus transportation to and from their Jobs at 10 cents per mile, an increase over the wage given when the agency began last winter.
In announcing the Increase,
Executive Director Mrs. Harriet Cameron
said that while many homemakers are more interested in the job as an avocation, others need to earn every penny they can.
"We expect everyone will be pleased about even a small increase in the hourly rate."
Already a number of women are working in Homemaker Service in this area. They are
Mrs. Charlotte Sears of East Dennis,
Miss Katherine Nugent of West Yarmouth,
Mrs. Amy D. Manley of West Yarmouth,
Miss Ruth Mac-Donald ol Bass River as well as three Harwich ladies and three from the town of Barnstable.
Ten more are needed to keep pace with the demand.
The job of Cape Cod Homemaker is for mature, healthy women who have been good managers of their own homes, who are sympathetic toward people in difficulties, yet who keep calm due to their own experience of the ups and downs of family life.
"There is no age limit,'' Mrs. Cole says, "but we have actively working homemakers ranging in age from early 30's to late 60's."
"One question frequently asked," Mrs. Cole says; "is whether Homemakers have a choice of working hours.
The answer is that every case is different.'*
Training for Mid-Cape candidates is planned for this fall.
Those Interested should call Mrs. Cole or Mrs. Cameron (775-8181) at the headquarters office in the Jones building on Rt. 132, Hyannis.
The Homemaker Service aim is to shore up the family system when it is threatened by any of a variety of disasters.
It is sponsored by the Barnstable County Public Health Association and Is one of several pilot projects supervised by the division of adult health of the Department of Public Health.
It can receive payment for services from welfare and veterans sources under certain circumstances.
Its services are offered, however, without regard to the ability of clients to pay.
Some persons in need, she continues, are elderly men or women who require only a few hours of help a day in order to remain in their own homes.
Others are motherless children who need full time service.
There are cases of hospitalized mothers where a temporary homemaker, working along with the older children and other members of the family, is the answer.
Each Homemaker has special abilities and preferences.
It Is the job of the Homemaker Supervisor to match the homemaker's talents and preferences to the cases that come along.
"The best of Homemaker Service," Mrs. Cole said, "is that it offers to many capable and spirited women the kind of challenge 'they've been hoping for."
Homemaker applicants accepted for the training course, and who complete the eight of 10 sessions, will earn a certificate and be assigned cases.
Mrs. Cole will accompany each homemaker to her first day of work.