K Dive

Biographical information provided by Stefanie Lash for the He Tohu exhibition:

K. Dive is probably the signature of Catherine Dive, who was known as Kate. She was born Catherine Thompson Hood in about 1866 to Marion and James Moncrieff Hood. She was raised in Nelson, and married Bradshaw Dive in 1892 at the age of 26, the same age at which she would have signed the Petition.

Kate and Bradshaw had two children; a daughter, Marion Bradshaw Dive, born in 1893, and a son, William Bradshaw Moncrieff Dive, who lived only six weeks.

The couple settled in Eltham, south Taranaki, on a farm they owned. Kate sewed clothes to donate to Hawera Hospital, and judged students’ sewing at Hawera School’s end-of-year examinations.

In 1908 Bradshaw Dive was elected to Parliament for the Egmont district. Early in 1909 the newspapers noted in the social pages that he and Kate were spending a few days in New Plymouth. Kate died in Miss Baker’s Private Hospital there, after a short illness. The Eltham and Nelson communities were shocked, and her large and well-attended funeral was reported in papers in both towns. She was 43.