VISITOR SEES ALBATROSS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29273, 3 August 1960, Page 2

VISITOR SEES ALBATROSS

Long Interest In Bird

Mrs Norma Djerassi of Palo Alto (California) always wanted to see an albatross. As a child She had recited the “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” times without number. Somehow the idea of the big bird and its significance in the poem fascinated her. Yesterday, when seeing the sights of Christchurch as a visitor, she called. at the Canterbury Museum. There, in the bird section, was an albatross. “Though it was only a Stuffed one, I know now what an , albatross looks like and I'm satisfied,” she said last evening.

Mrs Djerassi is spending two weeks in New Zealand with her husband, Professor Carl Djerassi, of Stanford University (California) before going to Australia. There Professor Djerassi will, attend the International Symposium on Chemistry of Natural products, to be held in Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney. "I am just going along for the ride,” Mrs Djerassi said. Until recently the Djerassi family lived in Mexico City and moved to Palo Alto shortly before coming to New Zealand. ThOir absence from the United States in Mexico will preVent them from voting in this year’s presidential elections. While in Mexico they were classed as American foreign residents and because they will not have spent six months back in the United States by November they will have to be content to watch, she said.

“I am naturally very anxious to see who will be our next President. My choice would have been Adlai Stevenson, but as he is not a candidate I guess the next best is Kennedy,” she said. Mrs Djerassi, who has two young children, describes herself

as a “family cook and chauffeur” with no time for outeide interests. “But life is never dull when your husband is associated with a university,” Mrs Djerassi said.