Susanna (Susi) Williams
When we talk about World War 2, we usually tell the stories of people, but I would like to highlight the role of Silverstream Hospital in saving soldiers’ lives and connecting New Zealanders with Americans at a time when New Zealanders felt very vulnerable to the threat of invasion by the Japanese. Japanese military successes in early 1942, especially the fall of Singapore, had made the possibility of an invasion of New Zealand very real. In this context the presence of two Marine divisions was welcomed by the New Zealand government. With the Marines here, New Zealand would be safer, our own soldiers could stay in North Africa, and New Zealand could be a base for American operations against Japanese-occupied Islands in the South Pacific.
The book about mindfulness, newly purchased through Book Depository for dealing with anxiety and PTSD was recommended by my therapist. I visualised myself studiously poring over it and completing the various sections of the workbook, each of the completed sections a stepping-stone to wellness, wholeness and peace. However, opening the cover and seeing the word ‘anxiety’ in the title struck me down. I cried so much I couldn’t get past the first page. I never read the book.
No records appear to have survived of the pioneering work in training midwives carried out at St Helens Hospital in Dunedin. The St Helen’s Hospitals provided early women doctors with a secure base and regular salary which was sometimes hard to achieve in general practice. Dr Emily Siedeberg-McKinnon wrote the following account of its initial years, which were subject to controversy. The account was retrieved from a storage box at the Dunedin Pioneer Women’s Hall by