Transported along with repatriated World War I soldiers, the rest of the world had struggled with the avian virus for more than a year before it arrived in Australia.

"The flu didn't discriminate in terms of age [or] sex, it affected the old, the young, everyone," said Wagga historian Geoff Burch.

By the beginning of April, there were 12 confirmed cases in the city and 60 people quarantined after contact. Five of those confirmed were of the same family.

James Ryan's wife, two daughters and son all came to reside in Wagga District Hospital after coming into contact with another affected relative, Mark Ryan.

So contagious was the disease, the Ryan family would hardly have been unusual.

"Some children lost both their parents. In other families, parents lost all their children," said Mr Burch.

"The impact on not only that generation but the next was huge."

By the time the last case was reported on August 11, 1919, a total of 32 people had died in Wagga. Though, Mr Burch expects that number would have been higher.

"Non-citizens and Indigenous Australians may not have been counted in that number," he said.

"About 50 million people died from it worldwide. It was as big as the war that had just finished."

Fellow city historian Stewart Beattie admitted, "there weren't too many who missed out on getting it." Mr Beattie's own father and mother-in-law survived.

"My father says he went down badly, he was only about 15 or 16, but he lost his hair and spent six months recovering," he said.

"He had three brothers, and a house full of servants and cooks, so he had to be kept in one room on his own. I think he caught it in Melbourne where he had been going to school.

"My mother-in-law was living in Narrandera. Her hair went entirely grey and she too was a teenager."

Where quarantined families were housed, a yellow flag was placed outside.

To cope with the growing wave of infection, nurses and doctors were brought in from all over the nation. Temporarily established tent towns served as their home during the five-month outbreak.

"Under state government edict, schools were closed and the South Wagga Public School hall actually became a convalescence hospital," said Mr Burch.

"A whole lot of regulation was brought in, saying you couldn't hold public meetings, you had to have a doctor's certificate if you were going to travel outside the region."