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Guest column/Red Cross has served our area for 100 years

It has been 100 years since the American Red Cross first became a presence and exerted a significant impact upon the lives of Jefferson County residents.

April marks the centennial anniversary of local volunteers banding together to initiate a Red Cross chapter.

Their first efforts were to perform what is one of the basic Red Cross functions, which is to aid military personnel and their families.

Mrs. H.C. (Emma Carter) Zeis was the organizer and leader of a group of women who provided aid and support to area young men leaving for military duty during World War I. The women routinely gathered at the Steubenville train depot on North Sixth Street, providing personal supplies as well as coffee and doughnuts for the departing servicemen.

Since the founding of the national organization by Clara Barton in 1881, the Red Cross basic services have been its aid to military, along with disaster relief and providing a national blood supply.

The local blood program and routine collections in Jefferson County began in 1976. High schools, colleges, chess clubs, community organizations, businesses and industries have continuously been supportive of this program.

Trained volunteers in disaster relief have responded with food, clothing and shelter needs from major area flooding crises to individual home fires.

Additional services provided throughout the years have included first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation and water safety training.

Throughout the years, some of the community’s most outstanding leaders have served the chapter in executive capacities, while the volunteers, ranging from teenagers to octogenarians have come from all walks of life.

Dating back to the late 1940s, chapter executive directors have been Josephine Downer, Letitia Johnson, Julia Cusack, Mary Filler and Kathy Musso.

After housing headquarters in the First National Bank Building for a time in the late 1940s, the chapter next moved into the former Work home on North Fourth Street and remained in that location for nearly 40 years. The next move was into the former chamber of commerce building on Market Street in Steubenville, and later into a former church site on Talbott Drive in Wintersville.

A major event in the chapter’s history occurred on Oct. 24, 1984, when Richard Shubert, national president of the American Red Cross, addressed more than 150 local volunteers and supporters at the chapter’s annual recognition dinner meeting in the Masonic Temple.

As a result or major reorganization of Red Cross operations in 2014, the Jefferson County chapter is no longer a separate entity, but has become part of the Red Cross Lake to River Chapter headquartered in Youngstown.

Since the most recent chapter headquarters building on Talbott Drive is currently for sale, the former on-site blood drives are being held the first Monday of every month in the Cross Roads Christian Church at 110 Springdale Ave. in Wintersville. Off-site drives can be scheduled by contacting Phyllis Riccadonna, representative of the Greater Alleghenies Blood Region, at (304) 989-9929.

According to Karen Conklin, executive director of the Lake to River Chapter, Red Cross continues to have a presence in Jefferson County and fulfill its 100-year-long commitments to Jefferson County residents.

(Bedortha, a resident of Steubenville, is a member emeritus of the Jefferson County chapter. She has been a volunteer for 46 years, served on the board of directors for more than 25 years and served as public information director.)

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