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Note: Catherine, or Kate, as she was known to all her extended family was born 17th December 1850 at Old Fordon estate Nile, where her father was the blacksmith. Kate was 21 when she married 23 years old Scots wheelwright Alexander Sutherland. Kate & Alexander lived in Evandale where four of their children were born. After Kate's father died in 1873 soon followed by the death of her mother the Sutherlands joined so many other adventurous families & trekked across the mountains to the much vaunted Scotts New Land, later called Ellesmere, & later still the more prosaic Scottsdale. Kate was to tell of the great forests that lay in the way & how her furniture had to travel by boat to Bridport & then by bullock train to Ellesmere. Alexander bought land to farm & set up as the second wheelwright to serve the North East. Too ambitious for one who carried within him the legacy of his homeland, consumption. After only eight years of marriage Kate was a widow with five children. Life had more blows for the young widow when her sons Alexander & Claude died. Kate was to outlive all her brothers & sisters, her husband, & three of her children. She was the matriarch of the Sutherlands, & the loved Aunt Kate of all her many nieces & nephews. Kate had a strong character that withstood all the blows that life dealt, & she carried into her old age her good looks & vivacious personality. When Kate died in 1941 an unusual tribute for a woman in those times was for the North Eastern Advertiser to publish a long & complimentary eulogy on her life.
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