Be Our Guest entry: Letter, Elsie Dallimore
Maker
Dallimore, Elsie
Production date
Nov 2005
Object detail
Brief Description
Letter to the Be Our Guest competition from Elsie Dallimore. Elsie writes about her memories of the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake.
Elsie was at Hastings Street School with four of her five siblings. Elsie and some of her siblings could not find their younger brother, and made their way home to find him already at home. Their mother was injured by falling jars of preserves trying to protect their eight month old sister. She was treated at an emergency hospital in Nelson Park. They slept in the Gas Works yard that night. Cars arrived to take people to Palmerston North. At nearly every bridge there were people with cocoa and sandwiches.
Elsie was sent to Stratford while her mother and siblings were sent to various places in the North Island. Her father had to make his way to Napier from Gisborne, walking from Wairoa. Elsie writes that nobody can explain what an earthquake is like and that they had never experienced such a terrible disaster. She is still terrified after all these years, as when one strikes you never know how big or small it is going to be.
Elsie was at Hastings Street School with four of her five siblings. Elsie and some of her siblings could not find their younger brother, and made their way home to find him already at home. Their mother was injured by falling jars of preserves trying to protect their eight month old sister. She was treated at an emergency hospital in Nelson Park. They slept in the Gas Works yard that night. Cars arrived to take people to Palmerston North. At nearly every bridge there were people with cocoa and sandwiches.
Elsie was sent to Stratford while her mother and siblings were sent to various places in the North Island. Her father had to make his way to Napier from Gisborne, walking from Wairoa. Elsie writes that nobody can explain what an earthquake is like and that they had never experienced such a terrible disaster. She is still terrified after all these years, as when one strikes you never know how big or small it is going to be.
Maker
Production date
Nov 2005
Production place
Production period
Production technique
Media/Materials description
Handwritten on unlined paper.
Media/Materials
Measurements
In the Be Our Guest Folder No 2.: Height x Width: 298 x 210mm
Classification terms
Subject person
Subject period
Subject date
03 Feb 1931
Credit line
gifted by Mrs Elsie Dallimore
Other number(s)
m2006/27/114, 35443
Public comments
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