Celebrations turn deadly Part 2

The long-awaited end of World War I saw Taranaki residents celebrate like never before.

After four  years of tension at home, it  was finally all over and the  young men who had survived could  return home. But there was more  horror to come as families worldwide  were struck down in the influenza  epidemic, killing half as many New Zealanders in one year as World War I  had in four. As the illness spread  around Taranaki, farmers kept an eye  on their neighbours and would help  milk if needed. The local dairy factory  was the gathering place for news and  the manager there would report on the  non-appearance of a  supplier to the chairman of  the district, who would  organise some support for  the family.

The communities once again pulled together in this new war effort. With approximately one in five people ill, volunteer nurses helped cover the duties of regular nurses and donations of lemons, blankets and hot water bottles were distributed to those who needed them. Women cooked for those unable to and even the shopkeepers lent a hand at milking time.

Walter Nash, a New Plymouth shopkeeper who was later to become prime minister of New Zealand, suggested that to help the community at this dire time, shop hours should be reduced. People were encouraged not to gather, even in private homes.

Despite rising alarm, there was still hope that the flu would abate and the authorities tried to reassure people the crisis was in hand. The New Plymouth Borough Tramways explained to worried passengers that staff regularly sprayed the seats and walls and scrubbed the floors with disinfectant.

The disease was widely believed to have been brought into Auckland by sick soldiers aboard the ship Niagara, which had sailed from North America. But a later commission of inquiry found there was no evidence of this. While it probably aggravated the epidemic, there had been influenza sufferers in Auckland before the Niagara had arrived.

Concerns were raised by the New Plymouth watersiders about the passenger ship Rawara, which regularly travelled between Onehunga and New Plymouth, but they were reassured that the passengers would be put through an inhalation chamber at the port as well as sprayed with disinfectant when they arrived. The same treatment was given to rail passengers from Auckland. Inhalation chambers, where people were given a dose of zinc sulphate, were set up around the country. Like many supposed cures for the flu, it proved to do more harm than good, according to nzhistory.net.nz, quoting the Ministry of Culture.

In New Plymouth, streets were patrolled in order to find those who were seriously sick and transfer them to the struggling Barrett Street hospital, where staff numbers were down owing to the illness. If a card stating "All well" had been removed from a home's gatepost, the patrol organised for help. Those not so serious were washed and had their homes cleaned and food delivered by volunteers sent from the hospital board's main office in St Aubyn Street. The Good Templar Hall was set up by Plunket nurses to care for the babies of mothers too sick to look after them. Temporary hospitals were set up around the district to cope with the masses of ill. Halls, nursing homes and schools were all put to use.

It had only been in August, just before the outbreak took hold, that a Dr E.A. Walker reported a record of 125 patients at the New Plymouth hospital. In the height of the epidemic, that number hit 230 in one day. By December, there had been between 2600 and 2700 cases of influenza in New Plymouth alone. Medical staff suffered, too, with the death of four nurses at New Plymouth: Sister Agnes Taylor, Nurse Florence Austin, Nurse Phoebe Waite and Voluntary Aid Detachment Beatrix Mead.

"All contracted the disease in the discharge of a sacred duty and all have given their lives in the greatest of all causes, in their effort for their fellow beings," Dr Walker said.

Stratford GP Doris Gordon herself lay sick in bed as the truce with Germany was announced, signalling a much-anticipated reunion with her husband, Bill, who had been posted overseas soon after their marriage.

"For years I'd lived and prayed for this moment and now it found me pickled in toxins, aspirins, and quinine," she wrote.

A key factor in surviving the flu seemed to be taking to bed to rest as soon as the effects were felt. Dr Gordon writes how it was unfortunate that many moderate cases got out of bed on Armistice Day, "for youth in full flush of adolescent enthusiasm could not remain in bed for an ache and a cough when Stratford's Broadway was en fait."

As a result of this, mild cases developed complications and as the disease spread, its virulence grew, so that new infections were often lethal from the start, turning people from a dusky blue to a petechial (spotted) purple before they succumbed.

In New Plymouth, medical staff were hailed as heroes by the townspeople and the newspaper, which wrote in a November editorial, "The hospital is the heart of the whole force organised to combat the epidemic and a breakdown there would have deplorable results. Perhaps the people of North Taranaki will never really know how much it owes to the efforts of its staff, but the crisis we are passing through will help the people to realise it."

For part of that time, Dr Walker had carried the responsibilities at the hospital alone, as he was the only member of the medical staff not in bed.

One call for urgent help at the hospital had been in the laundry department. The newspaper reported that local Chinese men who were commandeered to assist, on being shown the laundry, "exclaimed in chorus, 'We washee shirtee, washee collar, no washee sheetee.' "

But the community did all they could. A draper manned an ambulance and rode on the step of the vehicle for 120 miles, with drivers being at the wheel 18 out of 24 hours at a time. A dentist organised volunteers to go to farms to milk and to factories to make cheese and butter. A printer had washed patients in their homes and a hotelier's wife had made countless cauldrons of soup for the sick in their homes. Even the returned servicemen who were patients themselves in the hospital helped the nurses where they could to the limits of their own abilities.

By mid-December, the epidemic was over. Approximately 6000 New Zealanders had died. The closed shops once again began to open - only the bakers, butchers and grocers had been permitted to open and even those only on a limited basis. The disease was finally on the wane.

Kathleen Brant wrote that most of the patients in her district of Riverlea recovered, but the effects were long lasting. Milk had to be dumped, cows mad with milk fever had to be shot and buried, hay hadn't been made, causing a shortage of winter feed, and pigs that had been set free to fend for themselves had wreaked havoc, ploughing up the paddocks and ruining crops and gardens.

The bright side was that sons and husbands would soon be returning home from war. This long awaited event was cause for celebration, albeit a short-lived one, because the years ahead were later to hold trials of a different kind: that of the Depression.

References:

Back Blocks Baby Doctor: An Autobiography, by Doris Gordon.

Stumps to Strainers: A Centennial History of Makaka & Riverlea, by Marlene Williamson.

The Industrious Heart: A History of New Plymouth, by J.S. Tullett.

Not a Good Start, by Jean Nicholls, in Taranaki Between the Wars, 1918-1939.

Poverty Bay Herald, March 3, 1919, and December 2, 1918.

Kai Tiaki: The Journal of the Nurses of New Zealand, Volume XVI, Issue 2, April 1923, P82.

Hospital on the Hill, A Centennial History of the New Plymouth Hospital, 1867-1967, by A.B. Scanlan.

* Did this story bring back memories or would you like to get in touch about another Taranaki story? You can write c/- Features editor Deborah Sloan, 49 Currie St, PO Box 444, New Plymouth 4340, or ring the newspaper on 759-0800 ext 8705#, or email tnlfeatures@tnl.co.nz with Our Stories in the subject line.