Public Address | Cafe | Access: Lest we forget: the influenza pandemic November 1918

Hilary Stace

Mon, 03 Dec 2018 15:30:02 +1300

Thanks Mark. Great documentary.

mark taslov

Mon, 03 Dec 2018 13:59:12 +1300

On that note thank you for sharing all this Hilary – so much forgotten/erased history. I found this documentary pertaining to how Samoa was directly impacted by this contamination incredibly moving and educational, as you mentioned:

Grief and anger towards New Zealand and its neglectful governance fostered the growth of…

Hilary Stace

Mon, 03 Dec 2018 08:38:30 +1300

This is a mystery to me. A failed overseas war versus a massive tragedy at home? Perhaps we needed Peter Jackson to dramatise the epidemic before we recognise it as valid history. I would be interested whether any museum around the country has featured it. History is gendered and this…

Craig Young

Sun, 02 Dec 2018 11:06:48 +1300

So where was the commemoration on our national media? Nothing on TVNZ, not even on Radio New Zealand, where one would expect it to be a focus of public broadcasting archival references.

TracyMac

Fri, 30 Nov 2018 13:15:47 +1300

Interesting piece of history, thanks.

Regarding the "miasma" stuff, I know if people in my grandparents' generation who muttered about "bad air" and so on. They certainly knew and believed in germ theory – scrubbing everything with boiling hot water and strong disinfectants was a feature of any illness.

But…

Hilary Stace

Thu, 29 Nov 2018 17:50:33 +1300

Yes, that's right, hardly any coverage.

That play was good but was only on for a few days. Volunteer Wellington has put out a booklet and a team of volunteers has had two days of tours of the flu deaths in Karori Cemetery. There was a public talk to launch…

Bob Williams

Thu, 29 Nov 2018 16:16:06 +1300

I've been very frustrated by the poor coverage of the flu epidemic of 1918. It was such a seminal event in many ways that it deserves much better coverage – as well as a timely reminder of what overuse of antibiotics could result in. There has been one play put…

Andre

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 23:47:55 +1300

Volunteers like firefighters and Community Support members form much of the civil defence strategy around dealing with pandemics in NZ, but you wonder how this would work over a period of months instead of days or weeks when they would still have to pay the rent while looking after events…

Hilary Stace

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 21:15:46 +1300

The baby on the Talune was at one time my mother-in-law, who died in 2000. She was a wonderful story teller. After they arrived in Wellington they lived in the Nairn Street Cottage museum with her father's family. Two adults and babies lived in that small front room.

Hilary Stace

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 21:12:36 +1300

Thanks for this. Yes I'm sure there are letters and diaries all over the place. But the flu hasn't had a fraction of the recent attention that the war has had so people might not realise the significance. 9000 deaths in a couple of months is pretty dramatic. InWellington they…

Ewan Morris

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 20:39:44 +1300

Thanks for this piece, Hilary. But did I miss what your connection was to the Samoan flu story?

Bevan Shortridge

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 19:14:54 +1300

A few years ago my sister transcribed my great aunt’s diary for 1918. Aunty Rosa was 21 and staying with her parents in rural Northland while her husband was away at the war (they married in 1917 and he went overseas shortly after). As part of the diary she records…

Hilary Stace

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 17:55:26 +1300

Volunteer Wellington has just published a booklet about the Wellington volunteer response. Link to pdf on this page (scroll down) https://volunteerwellington.nz/index.php/resources.

There has also been a project to find the stories of flu victims buried in Karori Cemetery

Public Address

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 17:55:26 +1300

Discussion from blog post.