‘They were dying 12 at a time’ – recollections of the Spanish flu pandemic at Barambah Aboriginal Settlement
Ettie Meredith and Evelyn Sercio were teenage girls on the Barambah Aboriginal Settlement when 87 residents died during the Spanish Flu pandemic over a one month period in 1919. The Spanish flu was one of the most severe epidemics in human history. More than 60 years later, they remembered vividly the tragic events on the settlement. Almost 20 percent of the population died.