View of a portion of the Roll of Honour, inscribed with the names of 23 persons who served as volunteer nurses during the Influenza Epidemic of 1918) on the first floor of the College Building. Names: Mrs. John Allan MacDonald, Abigail DeLury, Annie M. (Nan) McKay, Christina Cameron Murray (daughter of Walter Murray), Eileen Bell, Kathleen Stevenson (became ill), Stella Methery, Ada Louise Staples (became ill), Katherine Margaret Manson (became ill), Isabel [Isobel] Aberdeen Reid, Vida Mooney, Lulu Mabel Barr, Etta McLeod (became ill), Tena McRae (became ill), Ethel Annie MacFarlane (became ill), Oscar [Oskar] Knodt (became ill), Otto R. Thompson, William G. Hamilton (died), C.S. Hallman, T. Thorvaldson, Mrs. W.C. Murray (Christine Cameron Murray), Janet Crawford, Merle Elizabeth Soare (became ill).
Bio/Historical Note: As the Spanish flu arrived in Saskatoon in 1918 after World War I, Walter C. Murray, University President, gave people a chance to leave the campus if they wished, then ordered a quarantine. The campus for the most part was isolated from the rest of the city, except for Emmanuel College, which became an emergency treatment centre staffed mostly by women volunteers. In granting the use of the building on 19 Oct. 1918, the college only asked that the city fumigate the building and bedding when they were no longer needed. One of the student volunteers who assisted at Emmanuel College became ill after two days and died several days later, Murray reported to the man’s mother in a letter. The student, William G. Hamilton, received full funeral honours, including a procession at the university. Hamilton, a widower, left behind three young children. Murray wrote to his mother that if he had known the young man had children depending upon him, they would have tried to dissuade him from offering his services.
