Life on Midway Island

Lone Woman

IVJIDWAY ISLAND, a five-miles-wide I*-*- atoll in the North Pacific, has come into prominence in recent months as a calling station on the Pan American Air ways’ route from California to the Philip pines.

Once occupied by only eight employees of the American cable station, the tiny island has now assumed great strategic importance. It now has a naval and cable station, weather bureau, lighthouse, quarters and workshop for the P.A. Air ways men, as well as a hostel for passen gers, should the large amphibians stay overnight at the island.

Mrs. George B. Perry, wife of the cable station manager, who is the only woman on the island among the present personnel of 35, was interviewed recently at Midway and gave some interesting glimpses of life there.

“While I have little housework and no cooking, I look after my two small chil dren, the only ones on the island, and the diversions of life fully occupy me,” she said.

“I play tennis or golf every day, swim in summer, and walk in the winter, when the water is too cold. A library at Honolulu sends us 100 books a month, together with all the latest reviews, magazines, and periodicals. Besides, I have my hand work.

“Our garden contains 24 vegetables,” continued Mrs. Perry. “That is, besides bananas, papaya and limes. Fish is plentiful. Our farmyard has chickens, ducks, pigeons, turkeys, cows and pigs.

“When we wish to prove our independ ence of cold-storage, we can produce a dinner of papaya cocktail, cream of fresh spinach soup, lettuce and egg salad, ulua (an Islands whiteflsh), chop suey, contain ing string beans, celery, and carrot, cot tage fried potatoes, with radishes and little green onions for garnish.

“Anywhere else but at Midway, it would seem rather ludicrous to run barefooted on the beach in a trailing dinner-dress, or to wear shorts to see the Clipper planes land and take off,” she added.

“But we are governed by our own con ditions of life. Behold me, then, on ‘movie night,’ with skirts held high, trudg ing through the sand for a quarter of a mile to Pan-Air’s supply-room, dumping my shoes on arrival, and sitting on a wooden bench.

“The motion picture is operated to the accompaniment of ‘wisecracks’ from the audience, and run backward to add variety to the programme!”

Mr. R. N. Wayne, manager of the Meth odist Mission’s plantation at Ulu, in the Duke of York Group, New Guinea, sailed from Sydney with his wife and small daughter by the Montoro on July 29. He has been in the Territory for 12 years.

Mr. Norman E. Toder, of Hanmer Springs, N.Z., where he was on the staff of the Queen Mary Hospital, recently was the recipient of a presentation, prior to his departure for Apia, Western Samoa.

Mr. C. F. R. Gilbert, late of the Witu Group, New Guinea, where he has been a plantation overseer for some years, arrived in Sydney by the Malaita from Rabaul on July 31. He has been in the Mandated Territory for 17 years. Mr.

Gilbert sailed for England to spend six months’ holiday by the Orsova on August