STACK, Ella 2013
Former Darwin Lord Mayor, Dr Ella Stack has written about her personal experience as a medical doctor working with the injured during the devastation of Cyclone Tracy. In May 1975, she was elected mayor “on a heap of rubble” that was Darwin. With most of the population evacuated, Dr Stack, also a member of the Darwin Reconstruction Commission, worked with others to rebuild Darwin.
In the early weeks after the cyclone, in a hastily put together clinic in Darwin High School, Darwin General Practitioner Dr Ella Stack saw a succession of patients who experienced a harrowing Christmas Eve. She felt some of these stories should be recorded before forgotten. She managed to obtain a small battery run recorder and several tapes from the Health Department. Over the next few weeks several tapes were filled and forwarded to the National Library in Canberra where they were transcribed. There the matter remained until many years later, at a family Christmas, she was describing that night to her grand children and all there urged her to make something of the transcripts.
She brought the edited transcripts to the Historical Society. In 2012 the book was published. It contains edited transcripts of Dr Stack and her family, people at Darwin Hospital with whom she worked and Darwin residents she had known.
The Historical Society of the Northern Territory acknowledges the Larrakia people, the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land on which History House stands, and acknowledges their continuing connection to land, sea, and community. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
Field Trip 27-30 July 2023 - Daly Waters, Hayfield Station, Newcastle Waters & Elliott Regions by Bev Phelts
Field trip to Victoria River Region - Augustus Gregory National Park & beyond by Bev Phelts
Day trip - the 4WD track from Southport to Adelaide River - 20 June 2021 by Bev Phelts
Day Trip to Channel Island
Leprosarium and Middle Arm
25 July 2020 by Bev Phelts
Field Trip 26-28 July 2019
South Alligator River Valley and
Mt Wells Goldfields Loop Road
by Bev Phelts
Field trip Darwin to Nhulunbuy (Gove) - 26-31 July 2018 by Bev Phelts
Field trip - the Murranji Track (Ghost Road of the Drovers)
28-30 July 2017 by Bev Phelts
Field Trip to Oenpelli (Gunbalanya) and Maningrida, Arnhem Land - 22-24 July 2016 by Bev Phelts
Day trip to Bathurst Island (Warrumiyanga). The Tiwi remembers the 75th Anniversary of the bombing of Darwin. Events included the unveiling of statue of the Tiwi man who captured the first Japanese soldier on Australian soil.
Katherine and Beyond – Emungalan, Manbulloo & the graves of William Light & Matt Cahill - 24-26 July 2015 by Bev Phelts
Day trip to the Copper Mine, near Mt Hayward, Daly River area - 14 September 2014 by Bev Phelts
Field trip to Historic Sites & Landscapes in the Lower Roper River Valley - 24-28 July 2014 by Bev Phelts
Field Trip to Rosewood, Kildurk & Lissadell Stations, 26-29 July 2013 by Bev Phelts
Celebrating the 140th anniversary of the Overland Telegraph Line - August 2012 by Bev Phelts
Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the south to north expedition - John McDouall Stuart & his party - July 2012 by Bev Phelts
Field trip to Fort Wellington, Raffles Bay, Cobourg Peninsula - 24-27 July 2008 by Bev Phelts
Field Trip 26-28 July 2024 - Burrundie, Mt Wells tin mine, Springhill, WW11 McDonald Airfield, Copperfield Dam & Umbawarra Gorge.
All images on this site courtesy of Library and Archives NT and personal collections of members of the HSNT