FEMININE INTERESTS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 18764, 31 December 1930, Page 3

FEMININE INTERESTS

PERSONAL AND FASHION NOTES Notable Woman: When I first met Congressman Ruth Bryan Owen, states a writer in a London daily, she was speaking to her countrywomen on women in public life. Her dynamic, magnetic personality gripped me. It was difficult to decide whether it was her eyes, flashing under arched, dark eyebrows (in contrast to her iron-grey shingled hair); her beautiful and expressive mouth; or the magnetism of her voice, so full of character, which attracted me most. Then she spoke of motherhood. I realised then that it was her wonderful motherlove shining through everything she said which constituted her arresting personality. Congressman Ruth Bryan Owen (to give her official title), was one of the delegates to the International Parliamentary Union Conference, recently concluded. She represents, in the Democratic interest in the United States, House of Representatives, the 4th District of Florida, and she has been re-elected recently (by a 4 to 1 vote on her nomination) for a further period of two years. The widow of Major Reginald Owen. Royal Engineers, she is warmly attached to England and the English. My second meeting with her was in one of those delightful old rooms in the Temple which appeal so much to the artistic of this brilliant woman. We spoke of motherhood. Although she is most anxious that the fact that she is a woman should not be considered in her public life, yet, behind all the efficiency which enables her to keep in close touch with a constituency which is 550 miles long, she is essentially a mother.

“I have 600,000 constituents, and I look upon them all as just one big family, and I am their mother,” she told me, with a smile. “I consider myself a better mother to my own children by extending the four walls of my home. I have four children and two grandchildren. One of my children is only four years older than my oldest grandchild! Therefore there is no break from one generation to another. They are all growing up together; before one is conscious of it they are grown up! Mothers are the most precious possession of any nation. The services which a good mother can render to her country cannot be emphasised too strongly, but. I would add. these are rendered chiefly by extending the four walls of her home. It seems to me only logical that mothers should interest themselves in those things which affect children—their own children, other women’s children—and in those subjects which intimately concern her own welfare and happiness and prosperity, which so many laws and Government regulations do. “Many of the laws concern the home and the child. Take the Pure Food Law. which is simply a part of the mother’s housekeeping, because impure food can make her children ill. The the laws which take care of the child in the city, safeguarding the child on the way to school, all those laws are connected with motherhood. I consider in these respects that law-making is really housekeeping on a grand scale,” said Mrs Owen. “I have always regarded the making of laws concerning the home as the most human thing about law-making. Laws can have such far-reaching effect to the mother and her children.

“If a mother extends the four walls of her home, her sound judgment is wanted in the framing of such regulations concerning the home. Women — mothers, naturally know more about children than men. I see no reason why the entrance of women into public life should make them any the less capable mothers. On the contrary that is my reply to the contention which is made by men sometimes—that a mother’s place is inside the four walls of her home. If she remains shut up in her home she cannot be such an intelligent human being as if she interests herself in outside affairs. Again, I say that children do not stay young always. The wise mother grows up with her children, she develops with them, and she keeps ypung, for youth is mental rather than physical. She shares her children’s interests, her vision becomes wider, her mentality more alert, all on account of motherhood, and the fact that she is extending the four walls of her home to include those outside interests. “Women’s clubs in America concern themselves with civic and social problems considerably, and in those clubs you find the mothers of to-day, who occupy their leisure (when it is not needed by husband or children) in studying social questions for the betterment of the community instead of knitting at home. And what is more extraordinary (judged from the viewpoint of an earlier generation), is that the young grandmothers which are a 20th century product, owing to earlier marriages, are to be found in these clubs also, giving the benefit of their ripe wisdom and experience to the cause of humanity.” The late Major Reginald Owen was a member of Lord Allenby’s staff in Egypt during the war. His wife did three year’s nursing in that country, and helped to establish the American Women’s Hospital in London. Her husband was invalided after the war, and died later in Florida, where they settled on account of his health. The House of Representatives appointed Mrs Owen as a member of one of the most important committees of the House—the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Her knowledge of international affairs should be a great asset to this committee. Dignity and Decorum in the ’Nineties: Mr E. F. Benson, in his book of reminiscences that has just been published, gives an interesting description of the “great lady” of the ’eighties and ’nineties, writes a Londoner. He refers to the things that she did not do:— “Autumns in London, lip-sticking in public, winters on the Riviera, the kippering of her legs and arms, bosom and back on the sands of the Lido, and the inability to remain in one place for more than a week, were not the habits of the great lady. Above all,

she was possessed of that queer old quality, dignity. Indeed, it is far easier to get near the definition of her by excluding of what she was. She was not in a blazing hurry all the time, she did not run a hat shop or sit in the House of Commons, she had no push because there was nowhere to push, for as regards position she was there already by birth or marriage or both, and the craving that everybody should know how much she was there could not exist in her. for none could doubt it. She did not want to be advertised or her doings daily to be mirrored. With the disappearance of such women there vanished every nucleus of social power, the very idea of which is today anti-diluvian notion. ‘Society’ has so broadened out that, becoming flat in the process, there is no semblance of a peak left.” Mr Benson quotes Lady Dorothy Nevill: “Look at the girls nowadays,” she would say, “playing golf in their thumpin’ boots, with never a veil or a pair of gloves till their skins look like a bit of mahogany veneer. I should think the young man would as soon kiss a kipper. And to make it worse they are beginning to daub themselves with lip salve and muck. I never saw such a mess.”

“Entertaining, reading, and true in spots,” continues the writer, “but only in spots, for. notwithstanding her many faults. I personally think the modern girl as ‘great a lady’ as her ancestors in the ’eighties and ’nineties.

Recent London Weddings: Social celebrites and politicians crowded St. Margaret’s for the wedding of Miss Elizabeth Barlow, daughter of Sir John and the Hon. Lady Barlow, to Mr Davie. Among them was Miss Megan Lloyd George. M.P., who came in her powder-blue House of Commons dress with little velvet cap to match and a grey squirrel coat. She was accompanied by Dame Margaret Lloyd George. Miss Barlow wore a traditional wedding gown of ivory satin, with gold embroidery at the neck and wrists, and over her immensely long train hung cascades of old Brussels lace. Her wreath of orange blossom was mixed j with shell flowers, and she carried a ; bouquet of gardenias and lilies of the 1 valley. A page in a cerise velvet suit, i four little girls in gold lace frocks with | cerise velvet coatees and bouquets of palest golden roses, and seven grownup maids in long frocks of cerise velvet, with gold wreaths on their hair, carrying bouquets of cerise-coloured carnations. followed the bride. Coral rink and ivory was the colour scheme chosen by Miss Sadie Stewart for her marriage to the Rev. J. G. G. Firming. Over her lovely cream satin dress hung a Carrickmacross lace veil, j ’’be bride’s father is member of ’ Parliament for South Belfast. Four j bridesmaids in dresses of coral pink georgette and coatees to match formed :

_ .-w.wue. a novel feature of the reception was that no intoxicating liquor of any kind was supplied and the guests drank the health of the bride and bridegroom in tea.

Ivory satin and lace made Miss Ruth Jackson’s gown for her wedding to the Hon. Christopher F. -mantle. She had chosen an original colour scheme of amber and bronze, the former carried out in the long satin frocks, necklaces of huge amber beads and coronet leaf head-dresses of amber glass; and the latter in the bronze chrysanthemums which made the bridesmaids’ bouquets and decorated the church. Miss Ruth Jackson is a member of the famous “Monkey" Club for girls, and it was there that the wedding reception took place. The "Monkey" Club is an organisation of 50 young girls, led by the Hon. Griselda Joynson-Hicks. They write, act, produce plays, paint, sing, study Greek philosophy and politics, cook, wash and sew.

Fashionable Black and Whiter Black and white continues to be the most exciting concoction of autumn styles, remarks a fashion writer from Paris. The chic of the mighty is written down in these two shades. Never has the black costume with white details been so supremely smart as it is this autumn, and while Paris offers more shades than the rainbow ever conceived, the smartest clothes wherever you go are black and white. Black tailor suits in the morning, black frocks in the afternoon, and black white, or one or the other, at nigw. Now, there’s nothing fervidly stirring about black and white in itself. it’s what the black and white have to say, like in a newspaper or a cinema.’ Black and white clothes leave your mind free to be thrilled by what they impart. No other colours impart the same crisp clarity, and this is one colossal reason why the present vogue is what it is. Paris fashions are being made famous now. at the top of the season, and it is in black and white that the illustrious mode is more clearly and beautifully written. Go to the Jockey Club, lunch or dine at the Cercle des Inter-Allies, dance at the Michodiere, and if you pay attention to black and white fashions you will have the story of autumn styles packed down in your mind for ready reference.

The Queen’s Ivory Harp: The King and Queen lent many examples of the miniaturists’ art to the loan exhibition of period models which was opened at Dudley House, Park Lane,, w., recently, states the “Daily Mail. The Queen lent some lovely pieces of period cabinetmaking and more than 200 little objects to fill them. There was a tiny harp in tor-toise-shell, mother-of-pearl, and ivory; a Sedan chair containing seals and toys in precious metals, and a Louis XVI. writing-table in which were shown a number of Battersea enamel patch-boxes. In the section devoted to models of ships was shown one from the King—a scale model of the battleship Albion, which was launched in 1898 by the Queen when she was Duchess of York. The King also lent a little cabinet containing a minute pistol in steel, inlaid with gold and with an ivory stock, and a rifle of the same description. With these was displayed a lovely vinaigrette with a view of Windsor Castle. There was also shown an Anglo-Saxon girls’ glass bowl made 1500 years ago, a model of Cromwell's carriage, and a large collection of dolls and dolls’ houses of every period. The Queen of Bulgaria's Trousseau: Princess Giovanna, now the Queen of Bulgaria, was allowed by her mother to choose all her gowns, hats and furs, and a friend who saw the trousseau in Rome states that beige and brown are the predominating colours for the day gowns while nearly all the evening gowns are white, with the exception of one exquisite frock of palest pink tulle shading to deepest rose, with rose velvet cloak to match. All the day gowns have pochettes of the same material, and all the tweed sports ensembles have turbans or berets to match.