Catherine Julia Bilston, later known as Katrine, 'was the fifth of the nine children of Ellen Augustine McElligott and her husband, George Yarra Bilston, an innkeeper who was later a grazier. Although Katrine had no formal schooling after the age of 10, at 17 she was reckoned to be 'a prodigy in literature', as by then she had published serially in the Australian Journal a novel, 'Eve's Sacrifice', and had numerous novelettes and short stories printed in the Australasian , Hamilton Spectator and Sydney Bulletin . However, her writing career was cut short by her 'hasty marriage' on 16 September 1890 at Casterton, Victoria, to John William Mackay, a New Zealander. After the birth of their daughter, Mona Innis (who as Mona Tracy became a well known children's novelist in New Zealand and Australia), in Adelaide in 1892, the Mackays moved to Whangarei, New Zealand ...
After ... her husband deserted the family she returned to Auckland with the children sometime after mid 1902. There she was eventually employed as a journalist for the Auckland Weekly News. She claimed to be the first woman on the staff of Wilson and Horton, who also published the New Zealand Herald. In March 1904 as 'Katrine' she began compiling the social notes ... In August 1908 Mackay accepted a position on the daily New Zealand Times in Wellington ... During the First World War Katrine Mackay ran a tea kiosk in Parnell, an occupation in which her childhood experience of cooking on a sheep station was put to good use. In 1919 her husband, then living in Wellington, died. She left Auckland around this time ... [and] worked as a cook for some years on several North Canterbury sheep stations, then in 1926 she settled in New Brighton and returned to journalism. For 18 months she was women's editor for the Weekly Press, during which time she compiled the immensely popular 'Cookery Chats' and 'Mutual Help Column'. After the Weekly Press ceased publication in October 1928, she published a best-selling book, Practical Home Cookery Chats and Recipes (1929) ...
Mackay was then engaged briefly by the New Zealand Life and Home Magazine. She continued to write on a variety of topics, using nearly 20 different pseudonyms, for a succession of journals: the magazine Aussie , the Otago Witness and the Christchurch Sun. By 1935 she was in her early 70s, but still sold occasional articles, some about notable women writers. In 1929 she had begun but not finished her autobiography, 'A Presswoman's Memories' ... .' (McCallum, Janet. 'Mackay, Catherine Julia 1864 - 1944'. Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, updated 16 December 2003
URL: http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/)
