Butcher, Katherine

Kathleen Florence BUTCHER (nee Lewis) was born in Gloucestershire, England, in 1911. Her family migrated to Western Australia on the Osmond in 1920 and stayed with her mother’s sister and her husband Bill Hobbs in Carbunup until they got a block allocation and built their own modest home in a Group Settlement.

The family made a living from growing potatoes and other vegetables, dairying and cattle. Her mother was a seamstress and made money that way. Kathleen went to school in Marybrook with twelve other children from the Carter, Hobbs, Berryman and Weir families. On a recommendation from her teacher Miss May Pillage (later Mardon) she attended Bunbury High School for five years. Her brother John stayed home to help on the farm.

Kathleen talks about the Quindalup Races, Quindalup Hall, social life at the Carbunup Hall and the Busselton Show.

Kathleen worked at Benger School as a monitor and met her future husband at that time. She married Bill Butcher and they moved to farm in Wilyabrup in 1946 where they lived with their two children Shirley and Ellis.

Kathleen talks about life during and after the war years, the local doctor, Dr Yates, and the first dentist who came to a room at the Commercial Hotel. They left the farm in 1968 and moved to Busselton.