Gold Medal Mother

Rumanians learned last week who is the very best mother in all Rumania. They were told by the Dowager Queen Marie--herself the mother of three Rumanian princesses, Princess Ileana, ex-Queen Elizabeth of Greece and Queen Marie of Jugoslavia. So modest is Dowager Queen Marie that she did not proclaim herself "Best Mother" as some catty enemies thought she would. Instead a painstaking search has been carried on by Her Majesty for some weeks, with a view to bestowing a large gold medal on Rumania's very best mother. Last week the 32-year-old mother of a bonny boy of seven received from Queen Marie the supreme award.

Naturally defeated Rumanian mothers were quick to scrutinize the winner. Mothers of many noted that she is the mother of one. Mothers with good eyesight were sorry that hers is poor. Mothers who have kept the love of their husbands sympathized with the winner because she has been deserted, many times deceived and is now divorced. Mothers who have never had one elder brother banished from his native land, and another killed by a monkey bite recalled that the Gold Medal Mother has endured these blows of Fate.

Of course only one woman fits this description. She is Dowager Queen Marie's daughter-in-law, Princess Helen of Greece and Rumania, mother of Boy King Mihai of Rumania.

Princess Helen's eyesight is happily improving under the care of specialists. Her elder brother, the late King Alexander of Greece, died of a monkey bite. Her eldest brother, George II of Greece, lives in cheerful banishment from his onetime kingdom, in England. Finally Princess Helen's divorced husband is M. Carol Caramain, the abdicated onetime Crown Prince of Rumania. Had he only been a faithful, proper husband the "Best Mother" would be today no princess but Queen of Rumania. Perhaps the enormity of that privation, which she has cheerfully borne, entitles Princess Helen to her big gold medal.