A SPARTAN LIFE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 659, 12 January 1933, Page 5

A SPARTAN LIFE.

“ I Don’t Want to ba Mr, President.” MRS ROOSEVELT’S TASTES. NEW YORK, November 29. Mrs Franklin D. Roosevelt, wife of the President-Elect of the United States, declared in tfn interview to-day: “ I never wanted to be a President’s wife, and I don’t want it now.” “ For my husband, of course, I’m glad—sincerely,” she added. " Being a Democrat, I believe that this change is for the better. But there isn’t going to be any ‘ first lady of the land.’ There is going to be plain, ordinary Mrs Roosevelt—and that’s all. “ I shall have to work out my own salvation. I am afraid it may be a little difficult. I know what Washington is like. I’ve lived there. I shall very likely be criticised. But I can’t help it. “ Sometimes I daresay I shall feel a little like one of my boys felt after I had lectured him on the responsibilities incumbent on the sons of a man in public life. He said: 4 Wouldn’t it be fun to do things just because you wanted to do them?’ ” The next mistress of the White House has two salaried jobs at present, but she is going to give up the one she likes the better. On March 1 she will discontinue her teaching in the private school for girls of which she is the assistant principal and part owner. 44 I hate to do it,” she said. “I’ve liked it more than anything else I’ve ever done. But it’s got to go. . T realise that the job in the White House will probably make much heavier demands than the job in the New York Governor’s mansion made.” She will retain her post as editor of the magazine 44 Babies—Just Babies,’* for which she is under contract. English School Liberty. Mrs Roosevelt was an orphan at the age of ten, and was brought up by a 4 ‘ strict and extremely conventional ** grandmother. She was sent to a school in England when she was fifteen. There, she declares, she was given more liberty than she would have dreamed of giving her own daughter. She made her debut the winter before she was married, and acquired 44 a lasting distaste for formal society.” For a woman in her position, Mrs Roosevelt lives a truly Spartan life. Money spent on herself she seems to regard as wasted. She dresses simply and economically. She sometimes lunche* at a “ drug store ” soda fountain, and often travels to and from her school by bus.