LOVER OF HOUSEWORK

Shannon News, 17 July 1928, Page 4

LOVER OF HOUSEWORK

POLITICIAN’S'HELPFUL WIFE.

MES. J. T. LANG’S ACTIVITIES,

What woman would do her own housework, washing and ironing, if her husband were to receive $lO a week in salary for two years, or even £l7 a week permanently? Yet Mrs. J. T. Lang, wife, of the Leader of the Oppsition in the Legislative Assembly of New 7 South Wales, , does, and even during the two and a half years her hus- s band was - Premier of the State she was at the washtub at seven o’clock every Monday morning. Mrs. Lang is Australian born, .and she does housework simply because she loves doing it. “I hate being idle, and I love my housework and my garden,” she declared. In addition she cooks for the Lang menage, and as many Auburn people and most Labour politicians can certify she knows quite a lot about cookingA kindly-faced, short, motherly-look-ing woman, with bobbed. hair, Mrs. Lang believes that the. main job of a woman is rearing a family and bringing it up herself, says a recent writer. “It is done properly, or at least to our satisfaction then, ” she says. When she is not doing housework, attending to her garden or organising for St. Joseph’s Hospital at Auburn, Mrs. Lang is quietly doing good among those in distress in the. district. She has helped scores of poor families in the district, and even the most bitter political enemies of her husband pay tribute to the ; generosity of his-wife. Her garden is a thing of beauty, and up *till last year, when her two daughters were married, no one was allowed, to touch it except herself. ' Now, however, the job is usually clone under’her direction, as she has loss time. Housework suffers at election time, for Mrs. Lang does the work of half a dozen canvassers. Last election more than one irato Nationalist whom she endeavoured to convert ordered her; off the premises.' There is nothing she enjoys better "than to watch the discomfiture of a resident who, after • he has. roundly abused the former Premier is politely informed that she is the wife of the abused one.

The past year was an eventful one for the Lang family, for, in addition to Labour being defeated at the Polls, two daughters and a son of. Mn, and Mrs. Lang were married,-their first grandchild was born, and they suffered the great loss of their eldest son; Mrs. Lang says that she never suffers from nerves—she has not time. Her husband, who is popularly supposed to be lacking in nerve, does’ really get nervous. But only for a few days every two or three years. That is just before he delivers his policy speech. that is over he says, 'Thank God that's over!’. and he gets into the fight; and that’s when I love him most. For he is a born fighter,” Mrs Lang says.