The Irene Dunne Site
Irene Dunne Describes Charity as Key to Women's Services
More Direct Approach Advised
BY BESS M. WILSON
Club Editor
" I think we will have to learn that charity begins at home."
As my typewriter taps those words onto the paper they seem very commopnplace. But to me, who heard Irene Dunne say them this week, they were anything but that. Miss Dunne's earnestness made them living, vital, inpired.
Here is the earnestness which sees all the women helping all people who need help. With that comes the consciousness that within the boundaries of the United States are many problems which need solution. With other women of her country, Miss Dunne would see these problems on the way to solution - and now.
Charity Is Key
For this woman, whose chief qualification for the citizenshipshe treasures is her womanliness, believes that in charity - in the broadest sense - will women find their chief service to the world which lies outside and around their homes.
There was a worried little pucker in Miss Dunne's brow when she said: "I wish women would be more direct. So often they remind me of the poorly trained boxer who hits out aimlessly, expending all his force before her delivers his final punch."
Hoover Cited
Miss Dunne believes in women. I once heard Alice Ames Winter say of President Hoover, "No person cares so much as he does for human beings, and for that reason, no one is more critical."
I thought of that statement when I heard Irene Dunne tell of her recent experience when she and another women earned $100.000 for a local hospital - all women, of all races and religious beliefs, working together on one great neighborhood need.
Results Praised
"I was amazed," she said, "when some quiet little mouse of a woman was given a job which seemed to me out of all proportion to her capabilities. Then I saw the drive with which she undertook that job and put it through to a great finish. It was both inspiring and surprising.
"I want women to be individuals. They should not lean on their husbands' opinions and be merely echoes of the men of the family. My hope is that they will study until they have the necessary knowledge and then form opinions on that foundation.
Satisfaction Afforded
"My experience and observations tell me that out of such development for citizenship comes a satisfaction which can never be found in pretty clothes and canasta alone. These latter things are frosting on the cake. It is right that women should have them. But below then must be the cake itself - build of good, nutririous ingredients."
Perhaps of all the qualities women may possess Miss Dunne values most of all that of directness. "I hope I can help my young daughter to see the need of directness and its value all through life," she said.
Credit Deserved
She is a bit amused as well as gratified at the things she learned while she was working with other women on the benefit mentioned. "Before that a big group of wome just sent me scurrying," she said. "But I have learned that in every group there is a good round handful of women who are giving themselves, heart and soul, to the objective. To them is due the credit for a job well done, although they so seldom get that credit.
"But it is a wonderful experience to watch them work. And this devotion of women to a great aim draws them closer than any amount of merely social contact could draw them. Of course, back at every group of eager and earnest volunteers we have to have a well-trained bookkeeper. But the enthusiasm of the volunteers is greatly needed."
Perhaps, says this woman who has been a student all her life - perhaps there has been some time when the world was more confused and fearful than now, but she does not know where to go in history to look for a more troubled period. For that reason she would have women serious in their thinking, giving heart, hade and hand to the problems of today.
"It seems to me women have to have an awful nerve not to think of things in a direct line with what is going on all about us. We must be alerted all the time; we must be aware of the needs of the people about us rather than of our own desire for entertainment," she said.
Questions Omitted
Funny thing! It was not until I had left Miss Dunne's pleasant home that I remembered I had not asked her which was her favorite picture, which character she had most enjoyed impersonating and what she thought her next picture would be.
Somehow, when a little pucker comes between smooth eyebrows, the reporter is most interested in finding what causes that pucker. I think I know. Miss Dunne wants more serious and more thoughtful work from women - and she doesn't quite see how that is to be obtained.
(Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1951)