Christchurch Cycling Craze #10 - Nurse Maude Association, District Nursing

Nurse Maude's District nurses, with their bicycles, utside South Durham St District Nursing Office, Christchurch, 29 August 1914. Reference Number: 1/1-005293-G. Alexander Turnbull Library.

District nurses, in uniform and with their bicycles, outside the South Durham Street headquarters in Christchurch. Left to right they are: E Browne, Sister Constance, M Palmer, M Rogers, Sibylla Emily Maude, D Savory, L Laing and Tolerton. Taken by the Steffano Webb Studio on the 29th of August, 1914.

Sibylla Maude, 1862-1935, born in Christchurch but who later trained in nursing in England returned to become matron of Christchurch hospital. She was the first to establish a system of district nursing in Christchurch after she chose to practise nursing rather than continue to deal with the dead hand of hospital bureaucracy. (See Nurse Maude's biography at the NZ Dictionary of Biography.)

Concerned for the health care of the poor, especially the aged and infirm, Nurse Maude set up an office in South Durham Street in the working class suburb of Sydenham in 1896 and in 1901 formed the Nurse Maude Association to provide in-home nursing for those in most need.

In the early days carrying out her practice on foot, burdened by her equipment and supplies, Nurse Maude and her nurses eventually were provided with a horse and cart for transport then bicycles. Apparently in later years she received a car but her driving was reputed to put other road users in fear of their lives.

In addition to in-home care, Nurse Maude established camps for the treatment of tuberculosis until a sanatorium could be built and in the 1918 Influenza epidemic she was placed in charge of coordinating nursing services.

Nurse Maude, circa 1900. Canterbury City Libraries

The Nurse Maude Association continues to carry out Nurse Maude's mission today with community, acute, and hospice nursing care. Several generations of this bird's extended family have both benefited from and contributed to Nurse Maude's good work for which he is sincerely grateful. The work of such communitarian organisations helps bridge the sometimes yawning gap between private effort and state largesse.

Christchurch Cycling Craze #9 - The 1918 Influenza Epidemic

A nurse leaving a sub-depot on her daily round of visits, during the 1918 influenza epidemic, Christchurch [1918]. The Weekly Press, 4 December 1918. Christchurch City Libraries.

In the influenza pandemic between October and December 1918, New Zealand lost about half as many people to influenza as it had in the whole of the First World War.

The death toll had topped 8600 before the pandemic subsided in December, with Maori affected disproportionately with an overall rate of death of 42.3 per thousand people, seven times that of the European death rate of 5.8 per thousand people.

The flu's impact on communities was uneven too. Some were hit hard while others escaped without much loss. The most consistently lethal sites for death from influenza were the military camps such as those at Featherston and Trentham where the rates were 22.6 and 23.5 deaths per thousand people respectively.

With the medical profession already stretched to the limit by wartime conditions with many doctors and nurses serving in the military abroad, volunteers were called upon to serve in providing medical care, food service, transportation, funeral and burial services. The bicycle provided the means for volunteers and nurses to make house calls upon the ill & dying at a time when quarantine regulations and the lack of manpower prevented transportation to hospitals and temporary treatment stations.

Walter Ford Gibbs (1893-1918), Kuaka's great uncle, was one of 458 Christchurch residents to die of influenza.

Walter Ford Gibbs, 1893-1918

Like many of those most severely ill or who died, Walter was young. In early November 1918, Christchurch was crowded with people attending the Show weekend races and as a cab driver Walter would have no doubt appreciated the increased business. But the large crowds were the ideal breeding ground and transmitting device for influenza.

After becoming ill, Walter was transported from his home at 20 Melrose Street, a small side street just south of Bealey Avenue to Christchurch hospital. He died there on 14 November 1918. Two days later he was buried in an unmarked grave in the Sydenham cemetery in Simeon Street. He was just 25 years old.

It wasn't until towards the end of the century that a modern generation "re-discovered" Walter and restored him to family memory.

ANZAC Day 2009

For Grandpop, and his brothers, who served in the Big One.
He sold poppies for the RSA on a Christchurch Street corner
until he could no longer.
And for Uncles Eddie and Leslie who served in the Other Big One,
dodging Rommel's Panzers in the dead of night in the North African desert.

What stories you might have told if I'd been but a bit older.

In Flanders Fields

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The poignant story behind the poem here.

Lest We Forget - National War Memorial & Carrillion - Wellington - ANZAC Day

National War Memorial & Carrillion Tower, Wellington, 2009
Formerly the National Museum & Art Gallery, the site has become the Wellington campus of Massey University.

Lest We Forget - Lyttelton - Those Who Also Served, ANZAC Day

Their final resting place, one lasting look over the port that was their life.
Lyttelton, 2007.

In memoriam to those whose lives were shortened or traumatized by their wartime service in the years of peace that followed and to those who died while serving in the merchant marine in wartime.

And to those who dealt with the anguish and pain of never seeing sons, fathers, husbands, brothers, and chums ever again. And to those who lost daughters, wives, mothers, sisters, and friends.

Lest We Forget - The Lyttelton Anzacs, Anzac Day

The War Memorial, Lyttelton, New Zealand, 2007

To this memorial we might add those whose lives were shortened or traumatized by their wartime service in the years of peace that followed and those who died while serving in the merchant marine in wartime.

Lest We Forget - Sumner, Christchurch ANZAC Day

Sumner, seaside suburb of Christchurch, ocean front Boer War Memorial to Sergeant H A Rule and Trooper G E Wiggins, two Sumner men who died of enteric fever in 1900 while serving in New Zealand forces fighting in the Boer War in South Africa.

Sumner ocean front memorial to those Sumner lads who served in World War One.