Ruth Gilbert Hanley - Neosho, MO Lady Cabby

HANLEY, GILBERT, NORRIS, CUNNINGHAM

Posted By: Marilyn Norris Holmes
Date: 1/16/2015 at 11:33:17

The Neosho (MO) Daily News
Nov. 4, 1943

NEOSHO'S LADY CABBY RECEIVES
WRITEUP IN MINNESOTA PAPER

Virginia Safford, columnist on the Minneapolis, Minn. Star-Journal, a large newspaper, had the following very readable comment in her column a short time ago:

"We hear a lot about war jobs for women, but here's something about one of the most unusual jobs to come out of the war--being the only woman taxi driver in a southern army camp. The job belongs to a Minneapolis woman, Mrs. Ruth Cunningham Hanley, attractive, young looking mother of five children.

"She has three little girls and her two sons are in the armed service.

"About 14 months ago Mrs. Hanley left here to visit her husband, a sergeant at Camp Crowder, Missouri. She drove to Neosho, a pretty little town of about 5,000, about four and a half miles from the camp. It didn't take her long to see that the number one problem around there was transportation.

"So Ruth Hanley elected herself to her own war job. She got herself a taxi license, designed her own snappy uniform (dark brown slacks and cap, lighter brown coat), and business poured in--mostly in the form of carloads of boys returning at all hours to their barracks. Often on pay nights, she has as many as 32 trips back and forth to camp. However, Ruth feels she is doing the greatest service when a soldier takes her into his confidence, has her meet the train bringing his wife or sweetheart. Maybe she tends the babies, or arranges for weddings in the nearby town of Joplin. Anyhow, she feels very close to the war and says--'The boys down there are the grandest you'll ever run across.' "
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NOTE: Ruth Gilbert Hanley is my Grandmother.
Marilyn Norris Holmes