PEOPLE REMEMBER THE PANDEMIC

extracts from the

Wairarapa Archive

oral history collection

Ella Smith was in Pahiatua when the end of the war was announced. She joined others at the commemorations but her celebrations were cut short when she became ill.

Ivan Gray was a young trainee truck driver when he was called upon to do an unpleasant job, taking coffins to the Featherston Military Camp

As the influenza spread the populace was encourages to use the inhalations chambers set up in most towns. Marjorie Tully did not recall the inhalation chamber fondly.

Doreen Jamieson's father, who worked at Masterton Railway Station, took a special preventative measure to defeat influenza..

Naki Savage's father died at Dannevirke, and then her grandmother became ill too at Te Ore Ore.  Although she was only a child, Naki ended up acting as a nurse.

The influenza pandemic had many strange effects—it even induced Vi Watson's father to take up smoking.

Clementina McLeish's brother died of influenza from celebrating in the rain in Gore...… then her mother became ill too.

Eileen Cragg remembers what it was like in Masterton

“It was a dreadful epidemic.”