FOUNDER OF RED CROSS HONOURED AT WHAKATANE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 45, 17 May 1950, Page 5

FOUNDER OF RED CROSS HONOURED AT WHAKATANE

Red cross members took charge of the Whakatane Lyceum Club social evening last week for tne 122nd anniversary of the birth of I.enri Dunant, founder of International Red Cross. In the absence of the president, Mrs S. C. Spence presided. Items were given by Mrs T. W. James, a favourite local artist, whose singing of “Vilanelle” (Eva Del-Aqua) (a song requiring considerable technique) “She is far from the Land” (Lambert) and the old favourite “Beloved it is Morn” (F. Aylward) were enjoyed by her audience. 1 A newcomer to Whakatane musical circles, Mr J. Snodgrass, played pianoforte solos with great ability and sensitive feeling. Such diverse scores as the first two movemsnts of the Moonlight Sonata (Beethoven), Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude • in C Sharp Minor,” the delicate and charming “Night in May” by the modern composer Selim Palmgren, and “Polonaise No. 1” by Xaxer Charwanka were superbly played. Mrs A. W. Winstone spoke on Red Cross, stressing in particular the spiritual side. She told of Henri Dunant, obsessed with the vision of charity between nations, and spent his youth,, his health and wealth pressing to this goal. He won the Geneva -'Convention for harrassed humanity but paid for it with wealth and health, dying a sick and poor man. Mrs Winstone mentioned the tragic conditions under which many were living in Europe today, as seen by Miss Crooke, New Zealand Red Cross delegate to the International Red Cross Conference, and appealed for the moral support of her listeners.