Finds Norwood Fills Her Dream Of Typical New England Village
Norwood is a quaint and pretty town and dressed in its green summer foliage, completely lives up to the picture she has long held of a New England community. Miss Ruth Jeffery of Auckland, New Zealand, who has come to the United States to make her permanent home, had been in Norwood just two nights when she heard the carillon concert at the Tilton Memorial Singing Tower — “and that was one of the loveliest things of all.”
Her introduction to this town could hardly be less than thrilling, for arriving here from New York last Monday night, she saw her sister. Mrs. Charles Flood of 180 Railroad avenue for the first time in over two years. She met her neice, 18 month-old Donna Flood who in turn introduced her to a menagerie of stuffed dolls and animals — a sign that Miss Jeffery was immediately accepted into the family as a very nice new aunt The family reunion will be complete at the end of this month when another sister of Miss Jeffery and Mrs. Flood. Mrs. H. B Ridgeway of Manning, South Carolina will arrive with her husband to visit. Like Mrs. Flood, Mrs. Ridgeway married an American soldier and has been in this country for two years.
/ Although Miss Jeffery has found New England very similar in appearance to her own native land it h; different both in pace and in spirit. “Everything here is so fast — not just the -traffic, but the American spirit. In New Zealand, we live a slow, comfortable life. I once heard a New Yorker in New Zealand say that in the United States, if a person has an idea, it must be carried out immediately If it isn’t — someone else has the same idea the very next day „and gets the credit for it. In New Zealand, we don’t do that. We have an idea and think about it for a long time and then put it aside for future use.”
This easy pace, Miss Jeffery says, gives New Zealanders a much longer life expectancy — in fact the longest life expectancy rate in the entire world Thus her first few days in America left her with a sense of confusion — everyone was in a hurry and the traffic speed was overwhelming to one coming from a country where ‘the pedestrians amble along and the motorists do not rule the roads.”
American cities too safe and confusing and leave her with a choking sensation. “They are so compact and the buildings are so crowded together.
“Auckland, the Queen City of New Zealand, has a small population of 50,000. But it is spread over a very large area and the spaciousness is one of its chief beauties. Only five percent of that population lives in apartment buildings, which seem very popular here. Although the people are city dwellers, they still rent or own their own homes in the city limits.”
American people are extravagant compared to the New Zealanders. “We wouldn’t dream of opening a tin of fruit every night as you do here. Its a luxury, and we d save it. Here, if you have a picnic, you burn valuable pieces of wood that would never be burned in New Zealand The people there are thrifty. They’d keep it forever, waiting for a much better use for it.”
Inflation Greater There
Miss Jeffery finds that while United States is suffering from the inflation, the New Zealand inflation is still greater in comparison to pre-war days. Butter, sugar and meats are still rationed — not because they are scarce, but to save for Great Britain. On such rationed articles, prices are much lower in her native country, with meat one quarter of its high cost in the United States. Luxury items, despite the fact that taxes have been lifted from New Zealand luxuries are very expensive Such necessities as food and clothing are still taxed.
Nevertheless, many American G. Is are returning to the land of which they were so fond during their wartime stays overseas.
“Meeting a returned American soldier is a common experience.” Miss Jeffery says. In Auckland she was the manager of a large grocery store, one of a chain called “Self Help” which has 200 branches and is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. One of her first assistants was an American, a former G. I., who worked there for a while and then started out in his own business. Although there are not the same opportunities in New Zealand that an Horatio Alger might find in the United States and one cannot jump from rags immediately into riches, she thinks that New Zealand offers a splendid opportunity for one who wants “an easier and longer life.”
Big Decision
And the salesman might find New Zealanders more of a challenge. “The ‘Self Help* chain was started over 20 years ago and was revolutionary. It was like your large, self-service markets. But they soon found that the people there had to be sold Unlike Amer-7 Jeans, they came into. the store and looked around and didn’t buy They had to be talked Into making a purchase. So the chain reverted to the former method of personal service for each customer and we were all much happier ”
Coming to the United States to become, a citizen was a big decision, Miss Jeffery found, for it meant leaving her parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. N. Jeffery, her little sister .Elizabeth and three younger brothers, whose home is in Pukekohe, 30 miles outside of Auckland, She, Mrs. Flood and Mrs. Ridgeway had “flatted” in Auckland and shortly after her sisters left to come to the United States, Ruth began saving and planning for her own trip. Here she hopes to get into work similar to that.
(All articles originally appeared in the Norwood Messenger unless otherwise noted)