Little Lusitania May Vazey, ?-25/8/1915.

In the cemetery in Houhora, Northland, (possibly the northernmost public cemetery in New Zealand) is the grave of a little girl who died very young.

Her date of birth is not recorded on her gravestone but it can be assumed that she was born soon after the torpedoing of the RMS Lusitania off the coast of Ireland on May 7th, 1915.

Of the 1962 passengers aboard the Lusitania, 1198 died when the ship, after taking one torpedo in the starboard bow, sank in 18 minutes.  Although the German government claimed the Lusitania was a legitimate military target - and had placed advertisements in American newspapers warning prospective passengers that the regarded it as such - the world was outraged.  Little Lusitania Vazey would have been named to commemorate the event - I have seen in other cemeteries the names "Kitchener" and "Verdun" given to people born in 1916, the year of the Field Marshal's death and the battle between Germany and France.

Lusitania May Vasey died just three months after the victims of the sinking of her namesake.