FEATURE - Curious Cate

Cate Patterson is a woman who wears the mantle of history storyteller with gravity and also a light touch. Now, she has written a novel that exemplifies her skill at capturing the reimagined lives, with their struggles and triumphs, of the Smith family from Montville.

by Louise Tasker

Cate Patterson has always been curious about people’s family histories, and is herself embedded in the hinterland and on the coast through a lineage that goes back well over 100 years.

This constant curiosity has led to Cate recently publishing a novel called Through Her Eyes, an imaginative retelling of the first 20 years of the Smith family and how they shaped the infant Montville.  

Cate was a teacher for over 40 years (now retired), something that fundamentally shaped both her interests and her approach to writing the novel. 

“Throughout my years in the classroom, I thrived in creative, collaborative environments, launching drama programs, writing curricula, and weaving storytelling into every subject

I taught—even science and maths!” Cate smiles.

The skills and curiosity she nurtured as an educator seamlessly translated into her work as a writer, inspiring her to preserve and reimagine the histories of Montville and her own family for new generations.

Drawing on her research, connections with local descendants, and her own family’s legacy, Cate wrote Through Her Eyes to invite readers into the world of early Montville through the perspective of young postmistress Jane “Jinny” Smith, a great-great aunt of Cate’s.

“As the coordinator of the Montville History Group I had avoided telling the Hinterland’s Smith family stories because other families’ members had stories they wanted to tell, but when Covid hit in 2020, I was stuck at home with my computer and a lot of research. I decided it was an ideal time to start writing.”

Cate is rightly proud of the book’s eye-catching cover which her son Luke put together, and can’t wait to show the finished product at the launch of Through Her Eyes in the

Montville Village Hall on Saturday August 15.

Cate was born in 1956 to young parents, Margaret and Don Bartlett, in Kedron. As a child Cate would spend a lot of time at the home of her grandparents, Gwen (nee Smith) and Arthur Toon. 

“Part of my childhood was spent watching older people going about their daily routines. I helped my grandfather with his bees, and my grandmother with rolling out dough. And while they did these things they would talk to me about their ancestors, my grandmother’s of course being the Smiths on the Hinterland Range.”

When her grandparents moved to Caloundra they bought a house two doors down from the Lighthouse, with views of the Pacific Ocean, Pumicestone Passage and the

Glasshouse Mountains. Cate stayed most weekends. 

“Pop would tell me stories between north Brisbane and Caloundra on the Bruce Highway. He had a great respect for the indigenous people, so I learned a lot about Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker) and the stories of the Glasshouse Mountains, and about local authors and artists.”

When Cate married Doug Patterson and brought their blended family together, they married on the Montville Village green, holding their reception in the Montville Village Hall.  

The theme colour was cream and brown and Cate dyed her wedding dress in coffee! 

‘Did you smell of coffee?’ I have to ask.

‘No,’ she laughs.

Cate’s great-grandmother Catherine was married to Alfred Smith, an early pioneer of Montville, so building a home in Montville was like taking a couple of breaths and stepping into a future that was always part of Cate’s life’s trajectory. 

These days, Cate likes walking her dog Mali and paddling. “I  have an absolute passion for paddling down a river system where you can go for 4-5 days and you’re not going to see another person. 

“Doug and I use a mud map, generally, and paddle off in our two-man canoe. We do make mistakes though. One time, while navigating an unexpected shute, I got thrown out, the canoe capsized and everything got completely soaked. We pulled up eventually at a suitable place to camp for the night, and to dry out - and enjoy a Guinness.”

A life as busy as hers is not without its ups and downs. One ongoing challenge has been having a diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma [a blood cancer] which she has lived with now for 10 years as an asymptomatic patient.

A moment of reflection, then she laughs and says, “Probably Doug has been my biggest challenge.  That larger-than-life character of his can be taken the wrong way. But he is a good helpmate. 

“He has always shared the housework and raising the kids - though when he said he believed everything should be half and half I didn’t know if he was serious when he joked, ‘Yes, of course. You do the bathrooms for the first 40 years and I’ll do them for the next 40’.”

Cate and Doug now live down on the coast, but she continues to be very involved in Montville through her volunteering and coordinator work. 

Her location may have changed, but Cate’s heart and soul will clearly always be in Montville.