QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

A tale of tragedy and mystery

Hilda Finger died on 22 November 1916 and was buried in Peel Island’s cemetery on the same day. Her Death Certificate stated the cause as due to: (1) Cardiac Failure and (2) Leprosy. Family lore, as reported by Hilda’s next younger sister, Mina, attributes the death to an incorrect drug injected by a doctor in Mackay. The doctor was reported to be so upset that he ceased practising. There was no mention of leprosy or Peel Island nor of Hilda’s removal there. Was Mina reporting facts or was it just her way of dealing with curious questions? The other report of Hilda’s death is given by Ivy Rowell, a ten year old eye-witness who tells that Hilda and a male patient were lovers at Peel, but when he died she was so stricken that, in Ivy’s words, she “let out a squawk” and died too. Does such death by mortification occur in real life? Certainly it is common for an individual to lose the will to live after losing a loved partner, but does it occur within an hour as in Hilda’s case? Opera lovers, especially Wagnerians, may say ‘yes’ – take Tristan and Isolde for example. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet also took their love to the grave in a not dissimilar manner – admittedly with the help of a little poison, which leads one to wonder if the rumour of death by an incorrect injection may perhaps have taken place on Peel itself. Sadly, the truth lies buried with Hilda in her unmarked grave beneath the stars and the ghostly breezes rustling the eucalypt scrub on Peel Island.

Above: an early 20th century image of some of the rudimentary inmates’ huts of Peel Island’s leprosarium (image courtesy of Peter Ludlow); the site can be clearly seen as the bright clearing on the northwest corner of the accompanying aerial view of the island. The location of the victims’ cemetery is now an overgrown secret known only to Queensland’s National Park rangers.

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