Aunt Daisy's Trip To America (4)

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 281, 10 November 1944, Page 28

Aunt Daisy's Trip To America (4)

N an earlier instalment I told you how I was met at the ship and bustled through the Immigration Department and_ the Customs to keep the appointment which had been made for me to address a press conference. Any jidea of presenting a smart appearance had to be given up, for we had only half-an-hour to get off the ship, and into the hotel and then to the conference. I would have liked to get a hair-do, after the hot and crowded sea-trip; and the very thought of making an important speech, without any preparation, which would be reported by all those newspapers, ahd without first fortifying myself with a cup of tea, was sufficiently appalling. On top of all this was the discomfort of knowing that one certainly did not look one’s best. I did timidly suggest that a cup of tea would be nice-not knowing that the wonderful "room service’ of American hotels has been badly hit by war conditions, and that the old days of practically immediate attention were no more. However, Lieutenant-Colonel Halliwell entered into the spirit of things, and we each put a good pinch of tea (of course, Aunt Daisy never travels without a pound of tea in her suitcase!) into a tooth-glass and filled up with water out of the hot tap in the bathroom! It tasted a little bit like tea, anyhow! Even after the conference we couldn’t have ‘proper tea, for we had .to drive straight to the Hotel St. Francis for a_ broadcast luncheon! A fashionable photographer holds this session every week, and very popular it is too. Interest in New Zealand You have a real luncheon first-with the sponsor and the four guests, and the two announcers, a woman and a man, from one of the radio stations. Then the microphones are put on the table, and you go on the air. The woman was from the San Francisco Chronicle, and was exquisitely dressed in Bod grey, with the most ridiculous | Francisco is ion te Sere \ women.) She did ‘(continued on next page)?

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radio interviewing of the guests, though everybody chipped in a little and it was all delightfully informal and very interesting. Another guest was the president of one of the Services Clubs,- and she gave a very interesting account of their activities, and of the soldiers whom they entertained. The two men were a circus artist and a local politician, and our interviewer drew them out very cleverly and with considerable humour. The circus man was a bear-trainer, but was just about to join the Army, and was very sad at having to part with his bearfriend, Laura: She had even been televised with him, and.I hope she will be waiting to work for him again after the war. The Lady in Grey was my main questioner, but all the others wanted to know things, too, and I really had a wonderful time. (I’d had some good, strong, stimulating coffee for lunch!) Wherever I broadcast there was always more excitement over the New Zealand part than any other-just mention New Zealand in the United States and everyone takes notice-though many people still seem to think we are part of Australia! Anyway there was enough interest in our country to warrant putting me on the air within two hours of my landing! After that, we drove to the office of the San Francisco Chronicle to be interviewed by their Chief Lady Editor, Zilfa Estcourt. This woman has interviewed Madame Chiang-Kai-Shek and George Bernard Shaw, and all the most prominent people, for San Francisco has become a very much bigger international centre since the war began; so I felt honoured and was glad to tell her all I could of New Zealand, A Nursery School On another occasion Zilfa Estcourt drove me out to see a very interesting nursery school, where both white and coloured babies are minded all day while their mothers do war work. This organisation is a good example of co-operation and does show how possible it is for the races to work side by side. Fifty per cent of the children are white, and the others ate Negro, Chinese, or Filipino. The school has always been run by a colouted president, Mrs. Jewel, who started it in 1933 for the babies of poor parents, and who struggled against great difficulties until after the Americans came into (continued on next page)

AUNT DAISY

(continued from. previous page) the war, when the Women’s Voluntary Setvices joined in with her, and helped her to run it for the babies of all working mothers. The school has always been free, even though Mrs. Jewel often had to spend her own money in maintaining it; but now, of course, the W.V.S. find the money, although’ Mrs. Jewel, and I believe her assistants, work for nothing. It is a big affair now; a doctor comes once a week to examine everybody and a qualified nurse comes every morning for an hour or two. "Jewel House" Mrs. Jewel is a most delightful person, the typical large, kindly, Southern "mammy," with a city business-woman’s brain; immaculate in freshly-starched cotton dress and white apron, and in full control of her four teachers, her cook and her janitress. "Jewel House" is a large old-fashioned three or four-storied place; the floors and stairs are beautifully kept; the bedrooms are divided into cubicles, and the children all have their own cots, with a pretty patchwork quilt. They rest for 20 minutes before their mid-day dinner, and for two hours in the afternoon, with teachers on duty all the time, so that each baby can have a little love and ‘comfort if it wakes up in a fright. They all have their daily codliver oil in the morning, something sensible at 10 o’clock, and a properly balanced hot dinner at noon. They have plenty of free play in the big old: garden; nurseries with every kind of toy, musical games and songs, with their teachers; and fruit juices or hot chocolate before going home, according to the time of year. As Zilfa Estcourt and I sat chatting with Mrs. Jewel, a little negro boy came slowly marching through the room, followed by about a dozen other children of all sizes. He had dressed himself as a prince with trailing bright-coloured silk, and a gold crown, from the play cupboard; and he led his retinue proudly past the visitors. Mrs. Jewel said "That’s Adam-he’s a born leader-the other children make an idol of himthey cluster round him all day, and he does nothing-he just sits!" She finds that watching the development of character in the children never loses its fascination. She keeps them only until they are four years and nine months old. Meals for Mothers A further service given by the W.V.S. to the mothers of these children is the supplying of the evening meal. This is cooked in the kitchen of one of the leading hotels, and put up in pfoper cartons for the mothers to take home. The price is really less than cost, and the meal is a properly-balanced one. What a boon to the tired mother after her day’s work to collect a clean, happy, well-fed baby, and also the evening’s meal, all ready to eat, except perhaps for a little heating up! The biggest and most complete nursery school I saw in America was at the Kaiser shipyards, which is run on exactly the same lines by the Maritime Council — a_ specially-constructed, beautiful building, and which takes about 800 children, between the ages of two years and five and a-half youre. ‘The nurseries