Work link in romance

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32525, 8 February 1971, Page 6

Work link in romance

“The Press’' Special Service AUCKLAND, Feb. 5. Husbands often meet their future wives on the common ground of thenchosen professions. For two women accompanying their husbands to the fourth Asia and Oceania Congress of Endocrinology in Auckland, this week, it happened that way.

Mrs Peggy Dorfman, of Los Altos Hills, California, United States, met her husband, Professor R. I. Dorfman, when they worked on the same programme committee of an International Congress of Endocrinology in London. Mrs Dorfman, a Canadian, trained as a chemist and then took up library and editorial work. She edited the proceedings of medical meetings. Professor Dorfman is the vice-president of the Syntex Company, which is based in Mexico. It was one of the first companies to instigate the contraceptive pill. He is also a visiting professor at Stanford University, and has a small publishing company for medical material where Mrs Dorfman still works occasionally. “I travel with my husband on most of his long trips," Mrs Dorfman said, “because he says he doesn’t like to travel alone.” The longest period she and her husband spent travelling in one year, she said, was nearly onethird of that year. RUSHED TRIPS

Last year they visited Brazil, Europe and Japan, but Mrs Dorfman said although the travel was interesting, the trips were always rushed. Mrs Dorfman is studying Spanish and hopes to begin studying Mexican archaeology. She and her husband also enjoy visiting game reserves and they are keen photographers. Since coming to New Zealand, Mrs Dorfman has seen, for the first time since 1945 in Canada, a friend, Mrs

Colin Wood, with whom she attended high school and university in Saskatoon, Canada. Mrs Wood is now living with her New Zealand husband in Putaruru. It was as an interpreter and translator for the Sandoz pharmaceutical firm based in Basle, Switzerland, that Mrs Marie-Antoinette Berde, met her husband, medical and biological reD. 8., who is head of the firm. Mrs Berde has a language degree from the University of Geneva in English, French and Italian. German is her mother-tongue.

“When I started my work, it was rather special, but today there are many interpreters employed by firms,” Mrs) I Berde said. Her main interest now is to read a lot and to keep up her knowledge of the languages. Mrs Berde used to play the violin and was a member of an amateur quartet, ■ but she gave it up reecntly. | She has started taking ' lessons in Spanish. Her husband, she said.) often travelled by private jet! plane and was likely to visit! two or three different coun tries in one day.,