LEAGUE OF MOTHERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 March 1941, Page 7

LEAGUE OF MOTHERS

DOMINION PRESIDENT VISITS MASTERTON ADDRESS AT YESTERDAY’S MEETING. ORGANISATION BUILT ON SPIRITUAL LINES. The League of Mothers held its first meeting of 1941 in the Parish Hall yesterday. There was a large attendance of members and friends and a very cordial welcome was extended by the president, Mrs L. B. Maunsell to Mrs S. O. English, Dominion president.

On behalf of the members Mrs E. J. Rich presented Mrs English with a shoulder spray. Mrs English thanked those present for the warm welcome and opened hexaddress by saying that she considered it a great honour to be called upon to be Dominion president. She had just had the privilege of visiting all thf; branches of the league as far south as Otago and Southland and found right throughout the Dominion a wonderful fellowship of mothers founded on human helpfulness, and the ideals laid down by the Lady Alice Fergusson. In the immediate future, she said, the women of New Zealand would be confronted with sorrow, suffering and possibly bereavement and to be of any help to its members the league must hold on to faith.

Mrs English explained that the League of Mother’s was a unique organisation, built upon spiritual lines under no special denomination and welcomed amongst its members women who belong to any or no church but who need help, comfort and fellowship. She likened it to an organism, a living thing, and pointed out that each branch member can be a living member. If all women in the Dominion were members of the League of Mothers, they would be better members of other organisations. It aimed at uniting all women fox - the making of bettei - wives and mothers and was a society of homemakers, a means to an end.

One of her wishes as Dominion president, she said, was that all branches used the members’ prayer and that the aims, objects and rules be kept always before them and read at every meeting. She also expressed the wish that they should keep their meetings simple and take their full share in the spiritual education of the world. Musical items by the choir and solos by Mrs Chapman, of Christchurch, were enjoyed. The tea was provided by the president and vice-presidents.