Annie was an attractive woman, about 5 ft tall, who was an active horsewoman and a crack shot with a rifle. She spent what leisure time she had performing a variety of roles on stage, and was a proffessional whistler.
At the time the 'flu epidemic hit in 1918 Annie was involved in the St. Johns Ambulance and with the Red Cross, and she was mobilised as a nurse by the Red Cross, at first working in the central Auckland area. To get around the streets she was provided with a motorbike, complete with driver and sidecar, the driver being one Robert Laidlaw who went on to found the Farmers Trading Company, one of the larger city stores in Auckland.
The 'flu epidemic was so severe that the large number of deaths taxed the undertakers and gravediggers to the limit, and at one time they were forced to use Victoria Park Grandstand as a temporary mortuary.
Because of her fluent Maori Annie was then sent north to Mangonui to treat the Maori people in that area, and she set up two hospitals in 'wharenuis' (meeting houses), one at Taimurua and the other at Waihamana, treating some 300 patients in all, and shuttling between the two locations on horseback, as they were some five miles apart.
When the epidemic passed she returned to Auckland where she worked as a machinist, and also as an artist's and photographer's model. On one occasion she posed 'daringly' for a photograph, dressed in furs and 'exposing' her left shoulder. It is a beautiful photograph and it was used as the design for the top of a very popular line of Cadbury chocolates.
Annie remarried, this time to an Englishman names Joseph Whittaker who was at the time attached to the New Zealand division of the Royal Navy, and who remained in New Zealand after his tour of duty. Both Annie and her new husband Joseph were to receive MBEs for their contributions to the war effort during World War II. [Condensed from 'The Subritzky Legend'] |
