After over 30 years of searching, she had since located just under 400 scattered across the region.
"It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but you’ve got to find the haystack first," she said.
Her passion was ignited "way back in the ’70s", when she played the bagpipes in Winton.
"We used to play at Drill Hall and I would always notice the names[of those who served] up on the wall and wonder about them."
What also piqued her curiosity was her two uncles’ involvement in the war.
"Returned servicemen didn’t want to talk about war.
"It was seen as taboo. They bottled it up because they weren’t able to talk about the things they had seen and wanted it to be in the past."
Her mother was also trained to go to war but instead stayed in Southland to raise her children.
The combination of her family’s link to the war and the names of those she had seen and did not know, led her to feel as though something was "pushing" her to discover more, she said.
"I approached the Southland District Council in 2003 and they told me they thought there were about 60 war memorials. I knew that wasn’t true because I had already documented about 200."
She then presented her results to the Winton Lions Club who were ‘‘in awe’’ of her findings.
From schools, to churches and halls, she collected as much information as she could on memorials marked with the names of those who had died and served in the war.
"Everything I found was being categorised, from condition to repair needs."
Venture Southland, now known as Great South, got on board and agreed to provide some funding for Mrs Robbie to continue with her research and restoration.
"I took six weeks off work. I was working at Sport Southland at the time, and started building the database."
With the help of Southland’s RSA and other community groups, she was able to find several memorials hidden behind the likes of stairwells and cupboards over the years.
"I can walk into a room and just know it’s there. I don’t know how, I can just feel it."
With the help of Venture Southland, photographs, GPS data and more were compiled into a database and put online.
Historians and Southlanders alike could visit the site, known as the Kia Mate Toa — Fight Unto Death database, to find out about those who had served.
"It has not been updated since 2013, but at the moment it’s just about finding the time to do it."
Working entirely as a volunteer, she had raised thousands of dollars to have memorials throughout Southland restored.
The majority of them had been returned to the community they came from, or given to the Fiordland Military Museum, to be put on display, she said.
"I’m so passionate about it. I’m the only one that’s doing this but if we don’t take action now, they can’t be preserved for future generations to treasure."
The experiences she had had through her efforts were incredibly humbling.
"At times I’m reduced to tears. People stop me in the street to say thank you or ask me if I’ve seen the name of their loved ones on a memorial."
Her dream was to see all the war memorials in Southland restored and ‘‘looking pristine’’.
