Memories of ‘31 quake vivid

DOROTHY HOLLAY with photos from the Napier earthquake is looking forward to travelling back to her old home town, landing at the airfield which occupies the inner harbour where she sailed in a yacht the weekend before the earthquake struck. 019061AD

For 94-year-old Dorothy Hollay, now of Te Awamutu but formerly of Napier, recollections of the 1931 Hawke’s Bay Earthquake have not dimmed. And 75 years on those memories have won a national competition seeking to record stories of that fateful time for posterity.

Mrs Hollay has won the ‘Be Our Guest’ competition held in conjunction with the 75th Anniversary of the earthquake, New Zealand’s most significant natural disaster which changed the Hawke’s Bay forever.

Commemoration activities are being held throughout Hawke’s Bay from early to mid February and Mrs Hollay will be a VIP guest at a Survivors’ Weekend programme of events.

In her entry Mrs Hollay recalls working in the laundry of the Napier Hospital as an 19-year-old, and comments that there had been a “weird feeling all morning” leading up to the quake that shook the region at 10.46am.

Dorothy (nee Bradley) was slightly injured from falling masonry but fared far better than many of the patients and other staff.

She recalls seeing patients being operated on in very makeshift conditions in the hospital gardens immediately after the quake.

She also tells of the total demolition of the new year-old Nurses’ Home, the site of many fatalities that day, killing all the nurses asleep after night duty, including a friend who had just completed her first-ever night shift.

“Those poor lasses who cared so much for the patients, worked extremely long hours to make patients comfortable all lost to their families in part for greed for more profit (the building contained no reinforcement).”

Dorothy’s brother Jim, sent to the hospital by their mother to find her, was enlisted to help evacuate patients in the isolation and maternity wards. The family slept in a borrowed tent for many days, just grateful they had lost no family members.

Ironically, proving that positive things can sometimes come from adversity, Jim later married the sister of one woman he helped rescue, along with her newborn baby, and Dorothy herself married Syd Hollay, a young man she met later that day when he volunteered as a dispatch rider for the relief organisers.

Organised by the Napier-based Art Deco Trust and running from February 9 to 16, the 75th anniversary will celebrate the community spirit that saw the citizens of Hawke’s Bay rebuild the East Coast cities of Hastings and Napier following the devastation caused on February 3, 1931.

Mrs Hollay and a guest will be VIP guests at the Survivors’ Weekend (February 10-12), flying courtesy of Air New Zealand Travelcentre, staying at Deco City Motor Lodge with a rental car from Hertz Rent a Car.

Her chosen guest is daughter Ruth Wilson, also of Te Awamutu, who recorded Dorothy’s recollections and typed them out.

“It was the first I knew that dad was the dispatch rider and that was how they met,” she says.

Dorothy and Syd married in 1935 and had three daughters. They moved to Te Awamutu in 1948.

Art Deco Trust co-ordinator Peter Mooney is delighted with the response to the competition that was promoted through national and international media.

“We knew there were so many stories out there that hadn’t been told and we were right. It is great that so many of the personal and often poignant testimonials have been shared.”

All recollections submitted, and copies of the hundreds of photos supplied will be archived by the Hawke’s Bay Cultural Trust to ensure that not only the tragedy but also the bravery and heroism of that time are safeguarded for future generations. Details of the full commemorations programme can be found on the Trust’s website www.artdeconapier.com