Julia Hogan looks you right in the eye when she talks to you. It is, for the most part, a kind and understanding look. However, at the same time, it is a look which in many instances tells her whether or not the person she is looking at is lying to her.

Her eyes, of a light hazel color, often are one of her major tools in her job as executive secretary of Catholic Social Services.

The position which she acquired eight weeks ago, coming here from Boston where she was district director of the Greater Boston Family Service Association, asks her to provide counseling and social guidance to Catholic families. Sometimes in this job it becomes necessary for her to provide her clients with cash or other necessities vital to every day existence.

To the question, “have you ever been conned?” she smiled her smile and said, “Very seldom, I have pretty good eyes and through giving the person a good looking over and by adding what I see to what I hear, no, I am not very often fooled.” This is not all to say that Miss Hogan spends all her working hours as a human lie detector. On the contrary, this is just one of the many little ways in which she performs a big job.

Her interest in social work goes back some years.

“When I first realized that I was interested in making my life’s work in the area of social services, the ‘New Deal’ was at its heights in America.”

“We were immersed in sociology in our college class work. I saw that I was extremely interested in the subject and aimed at it for a goal in life.” Miss Hogan is native of Ohio and is a graduate of Saint Mary of the Springs College, Columbus, Ohio.

She was awarded her master’s degree by the school of social work, University of Pittsburgh.

This strong faced woman has served as assistant director of Social Services at the Guadalupe, Kansas City, Mo.

She also served as a child welfare consultant and staff supervisor, Kansas Child Welfare Division, Topeka, Kansas.

The understanding face of this woman has grown accustomed to the fact that her each working day will, nine times out of ten, begin with looking into the eyes of a person who is in trouble.

The problems are many. They can be brought on because of improper handling of family finance. They can also stem from alcoholism or center on the failure of an individual to be able to cope with problems which for one reason or another have beset him.

One of the most frequent heard pleas from a person in trouble visiting Miss Hogan involves finances.

“One of the main problems is over-spending,” she explained, “And one of the main causes of over-spending is advertising.” “It all sounds so easy, the advertising, to our young people. We have found in other cities where firms make couples believe buying is so easy, when the fact of the matter is, buying for these couples is improbable if not impossible.”

The new executive secretary explained that young couples fall prey to the overpowering burdens of credit because somewhere in their past life they knew great deprivation.

“They hear the advertising on radio and television, read it in the newspaper, and somehow they can only think about today,” she said. “It is only after they have gotten in debt so deep that they realize the impossibleness of their situation and that’s when they come to us.” She added that often, gambling when added to the debts proves a contributing factor to the downfall and resulting marital turbulence in the lives of young married couples.

This work that got its start when Miss Hogan while studying sociology has proved time and again very gratifying. She related a story which actually happened to her several years ago in which such gratification was spawned.

“A woman obviously in great distress visited my office,” Miss Hogan said, “Tears were streaming down her cheeks, she was wringing her hands. She said she and her husband were not getting along and that she had been thinking of killing herself. I talked to her for a length of time until her tears subsided and she was able to control herself.”

“The lady explained to me her source of sorrow. Her 25th wedding anniversary was soon approaching. She told me that her son had been born six weeks after she was married. She felt that celebrating the anniversary as her husband wanted to do to observe their marriage date would reveal to the son that he had been conceived out of the bonds of holy matrimony.” “Through some rather delicate maneuvering I was able to get her husband, a prominent businessman in the city, to accompany her to my office for talks and counseling.”

Miss Hogan said that after a few of these visits the couple began to enjoy a practical dialogue.

The key insignia when removed from context, was a simple remark which reopened the door of happiness for the man and his troubled wife.

Miss Hogan said, “We were just sitting in my office having a rather formal chat when all of a sudden the man looked his wife in the eyes and while holding her trembling hand, told her ‘You know, you are a very fine woman’.” It was from that moment on that the lives of this woman and man began to smooth out.

Miss Hogan elaborated that it was not solely because of the wedding anniversary that the woman was so distressed, but rather this incident was the straw which had nearly broken the proverbial camel’s back.

The story had a pleasing epilogue. Several months after the pair had returned to normal life, the lady visited Miss Hogan. It was then that she told the social worker that her mention of suicide had been no idle threat, for the day that she first visited Miss Hogan’s office, she had spent the early morning walking along a bridge looking into the river beneath it in a plan of self-destruction.

The woman told her, “I want you to know that it was a serious business with me and I will be eternally grateful for it was you who saved my life.”

Not all of Miss Hogan’s work has the drama of this instance. There are many hours spent in the solving of what many would consider commonplace problems and situations. Miss Hogan devotes the same sincerity of effort and untiring devotion to these chores as she would to the more pressing.

In addition to the other positions mentioned, Miss Hogan has also served as a supervisor of Catholic Family Counseling, Boston, Mass.

In her work here at the Catholic Social Services office at 133 Carnegie Way, N.E., she is aided by Mrs. Patricia Flack, and Mrs. Constance McIntyre.

Director of the Social Services is the Rev. Walter Donovan.

Thirty prominent Catholic laymen are on the Organizational Board.

The locally controlled office is financed by the United Appeal and the archdiocese.

Miss Hogan has two brothers, Dr. Daniel F. Hogan, attached to the Student Health Center at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas and John Hogan, a salesman in Philadelphia, Pa.