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Catherine "Cath" McLeod Whillas (b. 1921)

Wife of Dick Whillas and mother of their 14 children; Glasgow-born daughter of a Scottish lighthouse keeper. Much of this family history is drawn from her recollections.

Key facts

Note: her birth certificate records 1921, though some family records give her birth year as 1920.

Early life

Cath was born in Glasgow, where her father Norman was working as an electrician. She spent some time on the Isle of Lewis in childhood. On 7 October 1927 she and her mother Catherine Gunn arrived in Adelaide on the Orvieto as nominated assisted immigrants (see the immigration).

Her childhood followed her father's lighthouse postings. She spent time at Cape Jaffa (boarding for a time in Kingston with Jim "Wag" Winter), Neptune Island, and Cape Northumberland, where she started school at Pt MacDonald PS on 23 May 1933.

Schooling & work

Cath boarded at PLC in Adelaide during primary school but left after one term, later boarding with family friends (the Hopwoods) in Woodville and attending Woodville District High School from February 1936. She left school in November 1937 to work as a sales girl at John Martin's department store. In March 1940 she joined the WAAF, working at Keswick Barracks, Adelaide.

Marriage & family

She married Dick Whillas at Semaphore on 25 February 1943 (see the marriage). Her first child, Nan, had been born on Kangaroo Island in May 1939. Over the following two decades she raised 14 children while the family moved through Angaston, Bray/Robe, Sth Purrumbete, Invergordon and finally East Fremantle, where she worked at Wigmores.

Teena's recollections

Her daughter Teena recalled that during the family's time at Bray, “Mum became a wool classer's cook as well, so she could earn some money.” Teena also remembered Cath teaching her telephone work and Morse code at Invergordon. These recollections are recorded in Teena's interview.

Family

Sources

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