Soper, Eileen Louise (1900–1989)

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Soper, Eileen Louise (1900–1989)

New Zealand journalist, writer, and Girl Guide commissioner. Name variations: Eileen Louise Service, Phillida. Born Dec 14, 1900, in Sydney, NSW, Australia; died Oct 24, 1989, at Otago, New Zealand; dau. of Edwin Curwen Service (chemist's assistant) and Olga Louise (Varcoe) Service; University of Otago, BA, early 1920s; m. Frederick George Soper (professor), 1938 (died 1982).

Worked as women's editor of Otago Daily Times and Witness (1924–32); under pseudonym Phillida, penned column "Notes for Women"; was Otago's provincial commissioner of Girl Guides Association (1941–54); published: The Otago of Our Mothers (1948), children's novel, Young Jane (c. 1948), and memoirs The Green Years (1968) and The Leaves Turn (1973).

See also Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (Vol. 4).