Mrs. Suad Salman Visits The Woman's Voice

... From Venezuela Mrs. Suad Salman came to spend the summer in her homeland, Lebanon, and she visited the office of The Woman's Voice at the invitation of its editor-in-chief.

It was a delightful sitting, in which the gracious visitor spoke of the Lebanese colony in Venezuela: "It is large, wealthy, and influential. We used to feel that this spiritual bond between us and the mother country was growing weaker year by year. The Lebanese there are melting, as the days pass, into the great Venezuelan nation... It is a sweeping current which, unhappily, we cannot stand against or resist for long..."

Mrs. Salman is a face that does honor to the Mahjar. Twenty years ago she married the well-known merchant Mr. Aref Salman. She has proved on more than one occasion that in times of trial she is a woman of spirit and quick generosity, with a long arm in works of charity: she sprang up the day His Beatitude Patriarch Alexandros Tahhan came to them collecting contributions to build a school between Balamand and Tripoli — she sprang up in gatherings and elsewhere, spurring on open hands and generous spirits, far removed from any sectarian bent and from every shadow of suspicion — so it is no wonder that His Beatitude, in Damascus in the summer of 1954, invested her with the sash and Order of Saints Peter and Paul, in acknowledgment of her merit in the building of "Nader College," which stands today... And it is honor enough for Mrs. Salman that, as His Beatitude assured her that day, she is the first lady to receive this distinction.

The recent earthquake catastrophe in Lebanon was the greatest touchstone of Mrs. Salman's zeal. The moment the news was broadcast she set about rallying the ladies, striving hard to collect clothing from the factories and the houses, and firing them all with enthusiasm — and they showed surpassing ardor... Then she approached the two companies "Pan American" and "Air France" and succeeded in bringing them to carry, by air, all the freight that could be got together to be sent from Venezuela to Lebanon for this humane purpose...

What was sent by her hand, through the First Lady of Lebanon, Madame Chamoun, to be distributed by way of the Lebanese Red Cross, came to some 2,200 kilos... And these two companies remain fully prepared to carry any shipments free of charge! It is beyond doubt a great humane service that is set down to her credit with much acknowledgment of her merit...