MOTHERS' UNION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 59, 10 March 1932, Page 13

MOTHERS' UNION.

The first council meeting of the year was held in Bishopscourt library on Monday afternoon, which was presided over by Mrs. Averill. A letter was read from the Farmers' Freezing Company again offering to send Home, free of charges, wreaths in ice for the cenotaph in London for Anzac Day and for the Unknown Warrior's grave. A cordial vote of thanks was unanimously passed. A wreath will also be placed by the Mothers' Union on the Cenotaph here on Anzac Day. As Good Friday falls on Lady Day, March 25, the usual celebration of the Holy Communion will be held in the Cathedral Church at 10.30 on April 5 instead.

Mrs. Watkin, of Cliristclnircli, addressed the meeting, speaking of the cordial reception she had met with at Sumner House, the headquarters of the Mothers' Union in London. As a delegate from Auckland, she had attended a very impressive service in Westminster Abbey, when a cross of poppies presented by the Mothers' Union here had been carried in the procession; also, with other New Zealand mothers, she had assisted at the unveiling of wreaths at a touching ceremony at the Unknown Warrior's grave, one beautiful wreath of rata remaining quite fresh even after the ice melted. Mrs. Watkin had found that the members of the Mothers' Union in England greatly appreciated the links formed between branches at Home and those in New Zealand, feeling that they were drawn more closely together, and that a stronger feeling of fellowship and communion was in this way developed among mothers so widely separated, but with one special object, for which all were working, the welfare of the mother and the child. Great interest had been shown in everything connected with New Zealand, though in some places the ideas of life and ways out here were quaint and very amusing, surprise being expressed that the English spoken was the same as that at Home, and that Maori boys were not employed in households as Kaffir boys were in South Africa. After the meeting Mrs. Averill entertained the council to afternoon tea, the members meeting and discussing matters o'f mutual interest.