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■BL fAiSO I1EEALD-POST, Monday, January 17, 1972CV Potomac PatterBy Wauhfllau La Hay WASHINGTON — J y n « Baker Spain, vice chairman of the Civil Service Commission, remembers every word President Richard M. Nixon said to her .when she was sworn in last June,“You’ve got to open 'the; doors of o p p o r t'u n i t yfor women,” the President told his newest appointee. They have i been discriminated against for : thousands of years and it’s morally -wrong. We cannot, as. a nation,1 afford to. relegate women’s, brain power and talents to a backseatTm gdlhg to count on you.’.’.Mrs. - Spain, the-sole woman ; on • the three-member commis-; sion, took .those‘ words to heart/“I m ake about two' spee ches' ■ a week- and. no; matter what... topic I’m given, I always get around - to'equal-: rights for women,” ; said: blonde, blueeyed Mrs. Spain.; Last Marchshe.was. the first woman asked to address the. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. ..Her. topic:;; “A Woman Could: Be Your Com'-; mander-la-CfcM.,,:“WOW!. What - a topic' they: gave me,”, she said. “I1;1 watched. the faces as I talked- • and I must-say the: cadets wer-■: eh’t half so shocked as the .. Colonels.’*Her views on the. Women’s: .. Lib movement are entirely. . personal. “The phrase means many things to many people,” she said, “I think the extre* mists made a great contribution by getting it all on the table. But I think the only way we’ll make progress is to be constructive, to hit hard constantly and in a businesslike way.” 'In -1951, Mrs. Spain became •president of. the family business in her home town, Cintin-... nati, Ohio,; the' Alyey-Fergu-son Co.,'manufacturers'-of. con~;'yeyor and- unit handling equipment.', She 'continued .as. the company’s chief executive cffi- . cer even after 1968 when it was merged with Litton Industries and served on Litton’s board of d i r e e t o r s. ,She resigned last March to take her federal post,BECAUSE she had spent a1-' great deal of her life helping ■ the handicapped become, productive citizens,' President Lyndon B. Johnson named her vice chairman of the President’s Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, President Nixon reappointed her in 1969. ..Mrs. Spain's first brush with the handicapped came when she was.:going; to the Uniyersif ty of California at Berkeley, She was asked to help out at a children's- rehabilitation center.■ “I was indoctrinated that first night,” she said, “A little boy of 10 with no arms and only stumps for legs, asked me ,.if he could,have a can of film .had . left' across ; the -:room... Thoughtlessly,’ I told 'him to ' get'it. Then I watched him hop across'the room on his stumps, grab the can with his chin and hop back. -‘.‘He looked at me and said, ‘Lady, you’re the first person who ever told me I could do something and believed I could. I can. Of course I can.”’ ,« 1 •' • ^SHE WAS so impressed by his courage that she promised herself . to devote her life to helping the handicapped , and she has. And by helping,Mrs. Jayne-Baker Spainshe has established the “most important words in life.”. First are; the little boy’s six words: “f can. Of course.!.can.Next , come;' five words: '“There’s n 0t h .i n g to cry about.” She explains:I 'had- left across the room.. “I was visitiD-g .a. school for the blind in Greece. Although it was summertime, there blind kids - orphans - who had no . place to go for summer vacation. The smallest child had a severely handicapped body.-1 went' over to'talk to him and he. asked if he could ‘see* me. He felt my. face and kissed me and I ‘couldn't hold back the- . tears. Here was a blind, - physically handicapped orphan in' - Greece. He . could-feel my tears and he said:. •There's nothing to cry; about.’ ”his blindness was a gift of. love. I asked him tn explain.”. The priest- told her that during World War. II, Nazi invaders of his village had ordered-all boys aged 8 to 15 to be shot.. The ;boys ran.for the woods,' but, .machine gunners mowed them down. Two, an older boy pulling along a younger, handicapped lad, made it to- the. woods edge, but' were shot. At that monent, a blow on his. ''head blinded the priest for ife.:“THE LAST thing I saw was an act of love,” the priest told Jayne.”Jayne’s husband. John A. Spain, is a Cincinnati lawyer.1 She tries to spend every weekend. with him and their son Kim .18, Who is a junior in high school. Son Jeffry, 18, is a freshman at Yale University.■ -Advice to women? Says Mrs, Spain: “If you don’t want a career, don’t stand in the way of -those who do. If you’ve got a queen , bee complex, get rid of it and open the door for others.FOUR important words in • Mrs, Spain’s life are these:“You are my brother.” She was attending 'a trade and investment .mission in India for the Department of Commerce when she first heardthose words.'We were’invited to'a Maharajah's for dinner,” she said. , . “As we went into'his magnifi- '')nn j'HnTPn cent estate, dozens. of hungry iy» IUlCU little children were crowded •around the gate. After the f-rfinCPfeast, and it was a sumptuous on®, we saw them as we drove out so 1 asked-the chauffeur, tostop. ' : '■ ;;. “He didn't want, to,-- but he1did and I got out. The children were starving — bloated bellies, staring eyes. And one little girl- touched me and asked 'Are you my brother?Dear ORW: I have 8 books of Gold Bond stamps to trade for ■ $ and H Green Stamps. Call 533-0524. Mrs. XRR.New Device Dials NumberTofor^hnno«IF YOU please” are Mrs. Spain’s three most important words. In Algeria,. she was. training, a group of blind persons. to. assemble -complex wheel conveyor sections. ..In French,she asked the people to “please sit down.”“They didn’t. Finally, one old man- said that it was the first time a non-Arab had ever used the word please to him.”“Thank you” is the two-word phrase. “A young- Quaker nurse in Algeria asked me to help give injections at a clinic,” said Mrs, Spain. “You wouldn’t believe How blunt those needles were, yet the people I in:ected invariably-said 'May Allah bless your ■ ancestors. Thank you.’ ”“L0V2” is the single word in her list of words to live by: I was visiting a. school for the blind in Yugoslavia ana was escorted by a blind Greek Orthodox' priest who told me- CHICAGO (UPI) — The idea of--' canning food originated in France, and came-about.' because of a contest.In'1795, according to Encyclopedia B r i t a n n i c a, the French government was having a revolution at home and a war with several European nations. Consequently, there was an acute need of food supplies for the military.The government offered a prize of. 12,000 francs for the discovery of a practical method of food preservation. The' prize was'not won until 18D9 when Nicholas Appert, a Parisian confectioner, displayed an assortment of food preserved in glass bottles;Appertfs method was to put the bottled food in boiling water forvarying', lengths -of time. The same principle underlies food preservation today; the prevention of con: ditions. within a food that are favorable for' the growth of spoilage organisms. 'KNITS SHOULD ftDry cleaned knits v I If ^ and look ne KNIT SPECLORETTO C4532 MontanaWAYAHEAD
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