53021

Generation: E

Kate Mackenzie

RLM: Kate Mackenzie - my most faithful diligent correspondent in genealogy!

RLM:

I guess her age now about 59 or 60. A good looking woman whose hair must have been very fair, but is now greying. Slim, active, alert, well turned out considering her occupation as a sheep farmer. She does enjoy a talk, especially when she does a little more than her neighbour. She is full of news about her numerous relatives, and is a first class correspondent, writing a good orderly letter and answering questions well, with no dilly-dally.

Obviously she has become a central exchange of news, and is well up in the ways of the world too! She has her own standards for assessing people, is shrewd, foreseeing, and well acquained with the Crofter Acts and the benefits to be derived therefrom, possessed of a constant watchfulness. Probably this latter quality is derived from her occupation as a sheep farmer. This job she took up rather late in life, I think, for she probably "looked after" her ageing parents for some years on behalf of the family. Now, while she would never boast of her knowledge of sheep rearing, but rather the reverse, I felt she had become efficient at the job in the croft on which she lives. She started with 9 sheep and now has 45. I forget the acreage, perhaps 20-30 of very poor hillside, with some common grazing in addition. She looks after them quite alone, having her surplus removed to market as required, by some carter or contractor.

Her house on this bleak hillside is surrounded by trees, and is very well maintained. The garden grows what she needs, with plenty of flowers. Inside everything is spotless. There is a telephone, electric power laid on and a fine little kitchen. On the wall photos of two uncles who perished in War I. She has a number of books in the porch, not often looked at. She bakes marvellous scones, and gives her visitors a fine tea. Her house looks over the moor to the front to Lonachuan, now a roofless ruin, while over the hill to the North are the ruins of the Mackay and Murray crofts, a mile or so away, with two new houses nearby going by the names of the old crofts but occupied or owned by a Campbell and a MacLeod.

Kate has so much to tell us about her relatives that it is difficult to keep track of any one of them and build up a personality. She has the basic elementary data about each, dates of birth and death, job, location, etc., but the high colours or romantic elements are lacking.

I asked her, greatly daring, about her past. She had received offers of marriage in the past - but one way or another she had other interests at the time.

She gets down to the village of Bonar perhaps once per month or fortnight for shopping and a gossip. Otherwise she seems to be quite alone. The track leading from the road to her house is indeed elementary, full of holes, unmetalled, liable to break the springs of one's car. I think she is waiting for the crofters commission to make it up. Her sole companion is a sheep dog, which is quite untrained to looking after sheep! Therefore in all weathers she has to see to moving them herself. In winter, of course, she has to dig them out herself when they get buried in snow. And she has also to look after the lambing. A hard life indeed, but, while she is well, she would not change it. Thrawn! May be, but with plenty of courage.

She is a Liberal in politics. And a heretic in the eyes of old Campbell up the hill who is a rabid "Wee Free". But Margaret and I, with Jessie Petterson, DID take her to church one Sunday. We fortified ourselves with a wee whisky before going in, and immediately on coming out.

I have kept all Kate's letters. They range over a great number of names, and might yet provide a clue to solving the Matheson Enigma.

RHM: Andrew and I visited Kate with Grandpa when she was in her 80s. She lived in a croft at Achuan, above Bonar Bridge. She had a radio, a dog and 100 sheep and was snowed in each winter. Very friendly and talkative. We made fools of ourselves attempting to herd the sheep for dipping and trying to find eggs laid by the hens.

See records on the map of Dornoch of other places visited on this trip.