Etta B. Agee was a volunteer hostess at the Y.W.C.A. hostess house set up across from Fort Armstrong, where Hawaii’s National Guard was being mobilized in 1918.
Mary Dillingham Frear, president of the Y. W. C. A., explained how the inspiration for the hostess houses came from a visit to Fort Armstrong, “Scores of Filipino women, distracted and disconsolate over the departure of their men, crouched with their babies and paper bags of provisions in the tall weeds, peering through the cracks in the fence, awaiting the leisure of their new-made soldiers.”
The hostess houses and volunteers like Etta Agee comforted and supported the families dealing with the departures of their sons and husbands.
About the Author
