SHE WAS EXCUSED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 5, 7 January 1944, Page 2

SHE WAS EXCUSED

One of the delegates to a CountryWomen’s Association conference in Bundaberg, Queensland, arrived a day late. She told the delegates: “We left home in a utility truck to go to the station. It rained heavily, and several miles from home, near the dam, the truck got into a bog. We tried to get it out, and then one of the children shouted that the dam had burst. My husband and I went to repair it. You’ve heard about the little boy in Holland who plugged, a dam with his finger. I used my body to plug a hole in this one. It was dark before we finished the repairs, and the rain was still pouring down. It was hopeless to try to get the truck out, so we walked home. For several miles all I had on was my singlet and scanties. We had to wade through several creeks over waist deep. The next morning they got me a horse. I rode for several hours over boggy roads. Then I got a train to Rockhampton (118 milesi. and another to Bundaberg (150 miles). I hope the conference will excuse me.” The conference did more—it cheered her. and. through her, “the brave women of the west.”