Flora Shaw Stewart

Stewart and her husband then moved to Salamaua on the north coast of New Guinea, a staging post for the goldfields area of Wau and Bulolo in the mountains of what is now Morobe Province. They quickly moved on to the goldfields and established the Hotel Bulolo, the first real hotel in the area, with room for 32 guests. She became known to all as 'Ma', and became the confidante and banker of numerous prospectors. Many were only able to carry on because of the loans she gave them, many of which were not repaid. She acted as a hairdresser and a nurse and, in the absence of a bank, often hid their gold under her bed. Not forgetting her love of horses, she raced them with considerable success and she and her husband organized races by shipping horses from Australia to Lae and then flying them up to the goldfields in Junkers airplanes, which were being used at the time to ferry large gold dredgers piece by piece. Racing ended in 1934 when evidence of doping and other malpractices emerged. Moving to Lae, now the second city of Papua New Guinea, she opened the Hotel Cecil in 1936. Among the many important visitors to pass through the hotel was the American pilot, Amelia Earhart, who stayed at the Cecil on the night before her departure on 2 July 1937, on her final flight. She was never seen again.^[1][2][3][4]

Stewart's husband was killed in a road accident in 1937 and her son, a bomber pilot in the Royal Air Force, was killed in action in 1940. In December 1941 she was evacuated urgently to Australia with her two daughters, just prior to the Japanese invasion. The Hotel Cecil, the Hotel Bulolo, and the racehorses were destroyed during the war. At the end of World War II, she returned to Lae as soon as possible, reputedly being the first civilian white woman allowed back into the territory. She took over some barracks and turned them into a temporary hotel, with rooms created by building flimsy partitions that did not reach to the floor or ceiling. She was finally allowed to rebuild the Hotel Cecil on its pre-war site in 1951 and she operated it until 1957. The hotel had 40 rooms. Stewart was clearly well-off. Reports from the Lae correspondent of Pacific Islands Monthly indicated that she took a six-week "world tour" by plane in 1951 and also visited London for the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, a trip that also included Spain. Stewart and her daughters also constructed a theatre/cinema, which opened in 1963. She was a founding member of the Morobe Agricultural Society and led the grand parade at its annual show until the end of her life.^{[1][2][4][5][6]}

Stewart died on 13 May 1979 in Lae and was buried in the local cemetery.^[1][7]