Women’s Work in Many Spheres

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 182, 22 October 1927, Page 8

Women’s Work in Many Spheres

No. 8: The Mayoress

T OYALTY to home and family hold chief place with the Mayoress, Mrs. A. D. Campbell. Though duty calls and the big municipal job must be seen through, two children have their claims, and one gathers that Saturday is an “extra special’’ day in the Campbell family. The round of civic duties, innumerable presidencies, functions, attendances at the Town Hall, all make for hard work, but Mrs. Campbell agrees eagerly that It is a wonderful experience even though it is a severe burden to one of a retiring disposition. Two conflicting loyalties to her home and to the city have encroached on Mrs. Campbell’s great enthusiasm —music. No longer has she those hours to spare that were once spent at the piano. A woman whose lot lay happily cast in the trimming of her own home-fire, the duties of Mayoress devolved on Mrs. Campbell under sad circumstances. As only daughter of the Mayor, Mr. George Baildon, she had j to undertake the work when the late Mrs. Baildon died after her husband I had been only a few months in office. I So Mrs. Campbell now lives at her father’s home and has shared two terms of office with him. And to her office she has brought a quiet efficiency and a wide sympathy.

Of all the organisations of which Mrs. Campbell Is Madame President, i,he Mayoress’s War Memorial Library League Is perhaps most peculiarly her own. Founded in Lady Gunson’s term as Mayoress, it has for years supplied books and magazines to those who have not the freedom of the city libraries or who live far from the city and its amenities. To the brown children of Pacific Isles the League sends bright wools and scrap books. To the lonely lighthousekeepers of our own coasts, to our hospitals and infirmaries, and to isolated backblocks children tlie league sends the companionship of the folk in books. “It is a work that the public knows only too little about,” said Mrs. Campbell. “We get very short of magazines to send out though we cobble up everything we can.” With the progress of the Hospital Auxiliary, of which she is president, Mrs. Campbell is delighted. “It will lift a big burden from the shoulders of other social workers,” she said, “and of course they need the assistance.” Unemployment and distress have added to the trials of office. So many people down on their luck call at the Mayor’s residence hoping to obtain help from the fountain head. “I try to assist them as far as I can. but for soine of them I am unable to do anything, and I am not able to turn them away. I’m afraid I’m not much good at that kind of thing. I feel that something permanent will have to be done for a problem that probably will be permanent.” And with those words the Mayoress hurried off to another appointment. Mrs. Campbell gives one the impression that though the job is there, and must be done, she would rather be a successful mother of her two children than the Mayoress of a city of 200,000 inhabitants.