A locomotive hauls a log to the Piha Mill in 1917. This would have been the locomotive driven by John Mutu, who died in the 1918 influenza epidemic. Photo / National Library
A locomotive hauls a log to the Piha Mill in 1917. This would have been the locomotive driven by John Mutu, who died in the 1918 influenza epidemic. Photo / National Library
The adults died on a Friday, the children early the following week.
It was November 1918 and even the isolation of the Waitākere Ranges was no protection from the influenza pandemic that would take 9000 New Zealand lives in eight weeks, half the country's World War 1 death toll. Twenty to 50 million died worldwide.
Herald reports outlined the effect of the crisis on railway towns — Taumarunui's two doctors were buckling under 500 influenza cases by November 11 — but even tiny, isolated settlements like the one the Nepia-Mutu family called home in bush between North Piha and Anawhata weren't safe.
Six, perhaps seven — records aren't clear — family members died in less than a week, highly likely among them one woman's husband and all five of their children, according to Waitākere Ranges Local Board member and historian Sandra Coney, who has been studying the family tragedy for more than 20 years as part of wider research for her books on the Piha area.
A century on, genealogy company Ancestry.com will this Wednesday launch a free database listing the names of Kiwis who died in the pandemic that struck as World War 1 came to an end.
Two men 'tripping' the Anawhata dam, to allow logs to flow through, a year before the 1918 influenza epidemic devastated the settlement. Photo / National Library
The database, which is a work in progress that so far records about 5000 names, will be free on Auckland Libraries online heritage blog and a full list, expected early next year, will also be free on Ancestry.com
Among the tragic roll call is John Mutu, a father of five and engine driver who transported kauri logs from the steep country between Anawhata and the Piha Mill, about 5km away.
Mutu and 21-year-old married mother Hana Nepia, understood to the sister of Mutu's wife Mate (nee Brown), both lived in whare or huts in the tiny bush settlement along with around a dozen others, all believed to be family members.
But that wasn't the end of the tragedy, Coney said.
Four children, perhaps five, from the settlement — set up to help extract kauri for the mill — would die over the following week.
The Herald wrote about the unfolding tragedy on November 12 — the day Mutu's 2-year-old son Teira died. Another son, Mohi, 4, succumbed the following day.
"Two men, three women and five children are now ill. It was reported to the Hospital Board yesterday that these people were without attention."
Historian Sandra Coney. Photo / Jason Oxenham
A board member was reported to be driving to find help but the outcome is not reported.
The Waikumete Cemetery records tell the rest of the sad tale of the family who had migrated to the Waitākere Ranges from the Wairoa River area, near the Kaipara Harbour, as kauri milling pushed south.
Cemetery records show seven people are buried in the two graves used for family. One contains Nepia, Mohi and a female Mutu child. Mutu is buried with three people, including Teira.
Cemetery records also showed Nepia, Mutu and five children from the family had died of the flu or pneumonia, and she had not been able to find any evidence that Nepia's 2-year-old son was among the victims, Coney said.
For that reason she believed all five children were those of John and Mate Mutu — meaning Mate Mutu would have lost her entire immediate family in the epidemic.
Despite years of research she had not been able to find descendants of those who died, but she knew they were out there, Coney said.
The graves told her so.
"In the time I've been researching this people have come and left little ornaments, and painted [Nepia's] grave. So there's people who still remember these people."
*Anyone with information can contact Coney at s_coney@xtra.co.nz
