Interest In Gemstones

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32217, 9 February 1970, Page 2

Interest In Gemstones

A young mother in Huntsville, Alabama, who collects gemstones as a hobby, should be in for a pleasant surprise when her parents return to the United States from their holiday in New Zealand.

Her parents, Mr and Mrs Raoul Blumberg, of Bethesda, Maryland, spent an afternoon “rock-hunting” at Birdlings Flat recently hoping to find a few samples to take home. After a morning browsing round Christchurch souvenir shops, Mrs Blumberg bought her daughter a collection of polished stones. Looking for brightly

coloured stones is a pleasure to Mrs Blumberg. “I would rather pick up a stone than buy one—just for the fun of it,” she said yesterday. “I’m a bit like a magpie.” Her daughter, Mrs Elizabeth Hubbarth, is even more attracted to “rocks.” She took jewellery-making as a subject at school, though her father thought it was “an awful waste of time.” Then she did geology at university. But early marriage and the birth of four children put gemstones well to the back of Mrs Hubbarth’s mind until her youngest child went to school end left her with enough time to take up an all-absorbing hobby. For Christmas her husband

gave her the money to buy a tumbler and Mrs Blumberg hopes a few New Zealand stones will be among the first to roll in it.

Mr Blumberg recently retired as assistant to the publisher of the “Washington Post” and is taking his wife on a tour of Australia and New Zealand.

“My husband calls on newspapers whenever he can in most of the cities we visit," Mrs Blumberg said. “Once a newspaperman always a newspaperman, and like most of them he just can’t get the ink out of his blood.” For Mrs Blumberg the birds flowers and gardens of the countries she visits are much more interesting than newspaper production.