PIONEER WOMEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 17, 20 January 1940, Page 19

PIONEER WOMEN

"Looking back upon the lives of pioneer women in Australia and New Zealand I think that the sharpest impression we get is one of extreme loneliness," writes Mrs. E. Marie Irvine in "Certain Worthy Women." "They were so far away—so isolated from one another. ... In other countries like America, India, and Africa, it is true that there was much more personal danger from massacre and attack from both native population and from wild beasts. Australia and New Zealand were comparatively less dangerous, though in Australia the venomous snakes were an ever-present horror, and there were uprisings of the Maori tribes in New Zealand; but I think that such things affected the pioneer women less than the 14,000 miles which separated them from all they had left behind" in Great Britain —the amenities of society, social and family intercourse, and the well-order-ed life of creature comforts." She goes on to remind us that though it was also very hard for the men they at least were occuiDied by action and the necessity for constant vigilance. Nevertheless, many of these women found their salvation in action,, too, and some, either from choice or necessity, found themselves compelled sooner or later to play a' man's part.