IN AMERICA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 4, 29 July 1946, Page 5

IN AMERICA

WHAKATANE BRIDE’S IMPRESSION MRS J. D. GROUNDS INTER- ' VIEWED In a newspaper interview Mrs J. D. Grounds (formerly Miss Joyce Thompson of Whakatane) gives her; impressions of her new hometown. Millersview in California, U.S.A.Mrs Grounds who will be well remembered by many folk in Whakatane has apparently settled down happily in her new surroundings. Her interview reads thus:—

An orgy of shopping and attempts to see everything from San Francisco to San Angela have occupied a petite, bright-eyed girl from the heart of New Zealand’s dairyland for the last week.

Mrs J. D. Grounds, Jr., with 800 other war brides from New Zealand and Australia, reached the States aboard' the Luling April 7 to join her Marine husband.

At present they are visiting his parents, Mr and Mrs J. D. Grouilds, of Millersview, and they will make their home in Corpus Christi where Lt. Grounds is stationed.

Answering that eternal question of “what do you think of America?”’ Mrs Grounds’ rippling English voice replied in bewilderment, “Why it’s all so big, I can’t quite know what to make ,of it yet—but it’s fun!” Her hometown of Whakatane, centre of a large dairy farming area, Mrs Grounds described as “about the size of Ballinger, but quite different. The people at home are friendly, of course, but they’re much, harder to get acquainted with than those here.” The New Zealander was a bookkeeper with a large firm in Auckland, a city of 300,000, when she met Lt. Grounds in 1943 while he was stationed there. They were introduced by mutual friends at a party.

Shortly later he was transferred, and the romance continued by correspondence for almost two years. They were married in Auckland August 4 of last year when Lt. Grounds flew to New Zealand on leave.

After her marriage Mrs Grounds went back to Whakatane to live with her mother until transportation to the States was available.

“The only thing I disliked about coming over was leaving mother,” she remarked quietly. “I just can’t think about it yet.”

Freed from the strict clothes rationing of her homeland, Mrs Grounds has spent a great deal of her time in dress shops the last week. , -

“She just kept dragging me into stores in San Francisco,” Lt. Grounds complained in mock irritation. Mrs Grounds was particularly impressed with the variety of clothes here. She was wearing a brand new spring print and ecstasticly describing other additions to her wardrobe, including nylon stockings. “We could only get two pairs of stockings a year at home,” she explained, “so I don’t mind at all standing in a line for them here.” Availability of canned foods also is a novelty to the young lady from Down Under.

“Cooking will be simple over here,” she remarked. “At home we might get some tinned food about once evei'y six months, and there was almost a riot every time it arrived.”

Rationing has not been discontinued in New Zealand. On the contrary, an additional cut in allotments of some food items was made only recently. In addition to a general attempt to “Americanise” herself, Mrs Grounds is enthusiastically studying the whys and wherefores of a military wife’s way of life. Her husband, a veteran of 12 years service with the Marine Corps, will continue to make the service his career.

He served in the Pacific 34 months during the war and was stationed on Guam three years before that time.