Attractive N.Z. Bride Heading Back Home

Northern Advocate, 10 January 1948, Page 3

Attractive N.Z. Bride Heading Back Home

BOSTON, Fri. (11 a.m.) —A blonde, attractive New Zealand war bride, Mrs Aileen Lewis, is en route for home today, via Pan American World Airways. She is leaving her G.I. husband behind in Vermont, where she said the residents “are as cold as the snow they live in.” The comely bride said: “New Zealand is a beautiful place. “The people there are as warm as New Zealand weather, and I hope to be there early next week.”

Mrs Lewis, wife of Mr Benjamin Lewis, of Woodstock, Vermont, had no criticism of her husband, but scored Vermonters generally at zero. She related that she went to Vermont in July, 1946, “determined to like it. “At first they were friendly to me, but after they got over the novelty of the way I talked they passed me by.” She liked the scenery in Vermont and also found the native maple syrup “delicious” if poured on snow, but she considered the prices of some foods fantastic, such as butter at 87 cents a

lb compared with 18 in New Zealand. “Of course,” she added, “a lot of my trouble might have been me. “I want to make that clear. “I was homesick. “My husband knows what homesickness is. He fought a long time in the Pacific. A Vermont official, commenting on the case, said: “The average Vermonter tries to be friendly to strangers, but if that friendliness is not returned a Vermonter can be cold.” He diagnosed the girl’s unhappiness as "pure and simple homesickness.”