LIFE IN SWEDEN

Evening Post, Issue 13, 16 January 1936, Page 18

LIFE IN SWEDEN

A LUNCHEON PARTY

MRS. R. MCVILLY ENTERTAINS

Mrs. J. Sigfrid Edstrom, of Sweden, who accompanied her husband, the noted engineer, on his visit to the Dominion, is an American by birth, but has spent most of her life in Sweden, where she is associated with a number of women's organisations. She has been the president for the past eight years of the American Women's Club in Sweden, and for 32 years she has been the leader of the Robert Browning Club in Vesteros, Sweden, and so she had much to tell that was of interest .to the number of well-known Wellington women who met her at a cheery luncheon party given in her honour by .Mrs. R. W. McVilly in the T. and G. Buildings yesterday.

Mrs.'McVilly, who is the wife of the president of the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association, presented Mrs. Edstrom with a box containing grapes and a bouquet of beautiful cornflowers and pink carnations and sweet peas, and also, on behalf of the other ladies present, (Mesdames H. Amos, Bruce Rennie, Ernest Hunt, H. O'Leary, W. Perry, E. P. Norman, McCormick,1 B.

E. Austin, Bayfeild, A. Stevens, and 'Limberg), with a book of photographs of New Zealand. Pink and mauve sweet peas were • attractively arranged on the luncheon table, and afterwards the party adjourned to another room (which was decorated with lovely bowls of gladioli) for coffee, and Mrs. Edstrom gave a short address on Sweden which she prefaced with a few appreciative and enthusiastic remarks about New Zealand. "THE BEST OF MANY THINGS." "New Zealand," Mrs. Edstrom said, "has the best of so many things, but New Zealanders don't seem to realise it. No country in the world possesses scenic beauty which New Zealand cannot also claim." Mount Egmont had > appeared to her to be very like Mount Fujiyama, and a friend had remarked on the similarity, saying that New, Zealanders did not make enough of their mountain. "If you travelled you would appreciate your own country more," she said, and quoted an old Japanese adage, "If you love your child let him travel." What she had seen of New Zealand, she said, she could only describe as magnificent.

Sweden had seemed very strange to her, when she arrived there from Chicago at the end of 1900. In spite of its wonderful culture and art it had not even the most ordinary conveniences in the way of plumbing. But today Sweden had the best of everything, and she could not praise it enough. . The city hall' in Stockholm was the finest ■ modern building in the world, and < Swedish standards of art and music were of the highest. Even the opera in Milan was no better than that in Stockholm, and lately old Grecian plays had been given in the new music hall with outstanding success.' Sophocles' "Agamemnon," ■ translated into Swedish by a Finn, had been played without a curtain, and the scenery and dressing Mrs. Edstrom described as "breath-taking" and the "last word" in artistry. It was a very long play, but the hall was crowded for each performance. The idea iof putting on these "heavy" plays was to educate the public taste.

In the homes a great effort was being I made.to have beautiful, furnishings, and for the last 20 years really good furniture had been made to-be . sold

at very low prices so that all might have lovely things in their homes. Model farms were to be seen at the outdoor museum in Stockholm, which were faithful replicas, even to the clothes of the attendants and of farm life back through the centuries. An effort was also being made to bring back national dress to the provinces. OUR WEATHER COULD BE WORSE.

After the weather, we have been experiencing in Wellington lately it was some comfort to hear that in other parts of the world it is much worse. After all we do have a lovely day now and then. Mrs. Edstrom said she would not care to.live anywhere but in Sweden. "But no one," she said, "would choose to live there for the climate—it's beastly! Recent letters from home said that it rained all December!" On Christmas Eve, which Mr. and Mrs. Edstrom spent in Sydney, they had been amazed by the number of people who left their homes to make merry- The hotel they were staying at had been full of merrymakers—a fact which would shock the people in Sweden, who all spent Christmas in their homes with their children, and where lighted candles-were placed in every window and it was a time Jevoted to the Church and the children. All children in Sweden. could swim and ski as soon as they could In conclusion she thanked the gathering for their welcome and promised that if any New Zealanders ever went to Sweden it would be reciprocated. "We feel," she1 said, "that the New Zealand people are one of the happiest people we have seen in our travels, and we only wish some of the unhappy people of the world could come here to live." Mrs. McVilly thanked Mrs. Edstrom for her interesting "address and dispensed tea.