DONNA Smith has a consuming interest, transporting her from her Warialda home to the World War I battlefields, hospitals and post-war Australia almost every day.
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“I don’t watch TV; I research soldiers,” the Warialda teacher chuckled. “I just have a real passion for family history.”
Donna has produced six comprehensive biographical volumes of World War 1 servicemen and nurses for towns around the district, with two books on Warialda alone.
Inspiration for the project struck her about two years ago at book launches documenting the Walcha, Tamworth and Gunnedah World War I honour rolls.
“I thought, I should do this for Warialda,” she said.
Her research began on the men inscribed on the Warialda and district Honour Roll, and an advertisement she placed in the Warialda Standard landed the blossoming historian with information on men and women from Wallangra.
“I had these precious photos and things, so I thought, ‘Well, I’ll do Wallangra. It’s only small’,” she said. “And then information came in from Graman, and Gravesend, and Yetman.”
The foray into history uncovered more than the names in bronze and she found many people had been unrecorded.
Just the sadness, the number of men everyone perceived as being fine, but took their own lives.
- Donna Smith
“I researched the Warialda Honour Roll and one of my second-great-uncles is on there, but the other brother is not, and as I continued to research it, I found another 200 people associated with Warialda who aren’t on the honour roll,” she said.
The aftermath of war on returned men and their families has had the greatest impact on Donna.
“Just the sadness, the number of men everyone perceived as being fine, but took their own lives – dealing with what they’ve seen, or not being able to deal with what they’ve seen.”
She has nearly a Delungra book, and embarked upon Bingara’s history. Little Plain, Mount Russell and Myall Creek are on her horizons.
She invited district families to contact her with any information about any of the town honour rolls researched to add to or augment her books at donna.m.smith@det.nsw.edu.au or 6729 1102.
