The woman on the island

We’ve told a couple of stories about those held on Matiu/Somes Island, but few were as mysterious as Hjelmar von Danneville.
When she arrived in Wellington in 1911 she caused a fuss. She did not fit society’s view of a woman. Short haired and usually wearing masculine attire, she claimed to have studied medicine in Zurich, had studied music in Leipzig and been a war correspondent.
Initially she was welcomed. With Dr Edith Ara Huntley, she ran the Lahmann Health Home in Miramar. It was a place where women could go for a break. It had opened in 1912 with great fanfare, high society guests abounded and Prime Minister William Massey performed the ribbon cutting.
She had even asked police superintendent John Ellison to give her permission to wear men’s clothing and had submitted to being examined.
But in just five years, with war paranoia looming large, feelings had turned and Sir John Salmond, the author of the war regulations, became more and more suspicious of her especially given how many women - even married ones - seemed to be under her spell.
In 1914 she had been accused of being a German spy but maintained she was Danish.
So in 1917 Salmond thought she was an imposter and sent police to arrest her, interning her on the island as an enemy alien until her sex could be ascertained.
Indeed she allowed herself to be examined and was considered female.
Hjelmar spent six weeks on the cold isolated island before being able to leave supposedly having suffered a nervous breakdown.
She was welcomed back by Edith.
Even now it is unclear how to fit Hjelmar into a category. Was she lesbian? Was Edith her lover? Or was her gender identity more complicated?
Papers reported she left New Zealand on November 14, 1919 , initially heading for Australia before she ended up living in San Francisco. Even there she was arrested for masquerading as a man but ultimately was given a permit to wear men’s clothing.
She died there in 1930.
Edith herself died just a few days after Hjelmar left. She is buried in Karori Cemetery.