Dormer Street in the suburb of Papanui, Christchurch

Dormer Street in Papanui – Referred to as a “new street” in The Press in 1913. First appears in street directories in 1915. Diedrich Wilhelm Leonard Mehrtens (1882-1952), a carter, is the sole resident. A Papanui war memorial street.A small amount of information from the library website and I disagree with the information about Diedrich Mehrtens. I could find no record of Diedrich Mehrtens living in Papanui. He was born in the Rangiora area and his father who had the same name came out from Germany and settled in the Rangiora area. I thoroughly searched the ancestry website and all the addresses for this family were in Rangiora. I have no idea why the name Dormer but is was possibly the surname of someone who lived in the area but again I thoroughly searched ancestry website with no luck. I even searched for Dormar and Dormaar. In Papers Past there was a constable called Michael Dormer but I couldn’t find him on the ancestry website. I also couldn’t find anyone with that surname in local cemetery websites. Papers Past had sections for sale in 1913 and this street was mentioned frequently in garden competitions. Several surnames mentioned as living on this street in birth and death notices and these same names are on gravestones in the nearby churchyard. When walking here I found a plaque at each end of the street. Nothing in Papers Past about them so I went googling and on nzhistory website I found information about Papanui war memorial avenues. In 1943 the Minister of Internal Affairs suggested NZ communities should plant trees in honour of fallen soldiers. There was a tree planted on Dormer St on 20th August 1946. Brass memorial plaques were hung on power poles at the end of each memorial avenue. This is a cool bit of history that I knew nothing about.A small street with some lovely houses. Many were built in the 1920s with a couple from 1930s and 1960s. Several from 1970s and one from 2014. No I didn’t like the one from 2014.