This year marks a century since influenza swept through Nowra.
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Historian Alan Clark has released a new book sharing how the outbreak started, where people were treated, who the nurses were who cared for them, and the stories of those who died.
In this three part series we've shared how Nowra Public School became the temporary hospital and how the Red Cross and doctors worked to treat patients.
In the final part we share the stories of three people who died in the outbreak.
Patience Braithwaite
The daughter of Ishmael and Clara Braithwaite of Junction Street, Patience died on Thursday afternoon, July 10, aged 31 years.
She had been unwell with a cold but it was stated she hovered for several days between life and death before her passing.
During WW1 the whole Braithwaite family was active in the war, and Patience shared the joy as her younger brothers safely returned from the battlefields. Her only mention in the electoral roll designates her as "home duties". An obituary described her as a "happy, pleasant, young woman, well known and highly esteemed amongst a large circle of relatives and friends."
Annie Clarice Scotchmer
Local newspapers claimed the saddest flu case was that of Clarice, who was showing signs of the dieases when she entered Nurse Amy Southhell's private hospital in North Street, Nowra to give birth to her seventh child.
After the birth of her child, Alice, she returned home but died on Thursday, July 10, 1919, aged 30.
Baby Alice grew up and entered the nursing profession, qualifying as a midwife in 1944.
John George Innes McBeath
The oldest of the Shoalhaven residents to succumb to the epidemic was single man, John McBeth who died aged 79 years at the Falls Creek residence of his sister Clara.
His death notice revealed a pride in his Scottish heritage, mentioning his grandfather Peter Innes, a captain in the 79th Regiment of Cameron Highlanders who had fought in the Battle of Waterloo.
John died on Sunday, July 6, 1919 and burial took place at the Presbyterian section of Nowra Public Cemetery.
Nowra District in Mourning Pneumonic Influenza (Spanish Flu) Epidemic- 1919 by Alan Clark can be bought for $12 from the Shoalhaven Historical Society.
