Biography contributed by Barbara Sullivan
Kate Bennett was the second child of Kate and Joseph Death/D'Ath. When she signed the suffrage petition Kate would have been a young (24-year-old) mother of three.
She was born in 1869 in Lower Hutt. Kate attended the local school in Otaki, and later boarded at St Mary's College in Wellington. Judging from the writing box she was awarded for 'Good Conduct' while at Otaki School, the prize she won for 'Arithmetic' at St Mary's College in Welligton, and the pencil works that are with family members, she was an able and diligent student.
At the age of 18 Kate married Francis Bennett at her family home in Otaki. Francis was a surveyor, and the oldest son of Mary Jane (nee Hebden) and George Bennett of Pencarrow — the first lighthouse keepers of a permanent lighthouse in New Zealand.
Kate and Francis lived and brought their children up in a house that is still standing - in Waerenga Road, right next door to the (later infamous) Jubilee Hotel. Kate and Frank had nine children: Hebden, Norman, Joseph, Athol (my grandfather), Vera (Corrigan), William, Mary (McIntyre), Arthur and Madge (Dillon). Hebden, Norman and Joseph all fought in World War 1 and were injured at Passchendaele. Joseph died on the battlefield and his name is on the commemorative cross at Pukekaraka (the hill next to St Peter Chanel's Church).
Kate was widowed in 1927. She lived on at the house in Waerenga Road, and died in 1958 at the age of 89. She is buried with Francis at the Catholic cemetery in Otaki. She is very fondly remembered today as a kind and loving grandmother and greatgrandmother.
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