Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

For nearly 25 years, volunteers have been assisting the government of Western Australia in its efforts to preserve and interpret the former quarantine station (now recreation camp) at Woodman Point, Western Australia. Friends’ volunteers are mainly driven by a passion for the site’s social history and want to celebrate the bravery of carers and to commemorate the dreadful loss of life of sufferers. Through guided walks, museum displays, academic theses, books, podcasts, publications, signage and social media, their mission is for others to understand how the station operated and how society functioned in dealing with quarantine.

In 2020, Neil Peacey, the great nephew of Staff Nurse Ada Thompson visited the Isolation Hospital at Woodman Point Quarantine Station. Five years earlier his family donated Ada’s travelling trunk to Friends for permanent display in the Nurses' Sitting Room.

Thirty-three-year-old Ada was one of three nurses who died at Woodman Point while caring for troops infected with Spanish Flu: Rosa O’Kane (28 years); Doris Ridgway (27 years), and civilian nurse, Hilda Williams (26 years). Ada was buried on site on 2 January 1919 but exhumed on 4 March 1920 and reinterred into a private grave at Fremantle Cemetery. Her headstone reads: ‘In loving memory/of our dear daughter and sister/Ada/Sister Thompson AIF/who died Jan 1st 1919/ aged 33 years/greater love hath no one than this/than they lay down their life for/ their country.

Ada is memorialised on the Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour Panel 188 and at the Perth War Cemetery Wall 5 I.

Lest We Forget.