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Kate Hainey
SLWA:
Everyone in the Port knew Kate.
For many years in the scorching sun and winter’s pelting rain, Kate trudged the streets of Fremantle, selling newspapers. Her quaint figure was often greeted with “Hello Kate, how’re things?” to which she would always reply - “Keep Smilin’ Thro”.
Kate Hainey was born at Clackline in the Wheatbelt, about eighty kilometres from Perth. Sadly, orphaned at a young age, she was brought up in homes for people afflicted in various ways.
Her experience in these homes was such, that at sixteen years old Kate went out into the world, preferring to earn her own living. A life of honest, hard work, keeping the ever-watchful wolf from her humble door. Kate was her own mistress, "truly Australian in her desire to be unhampered". She was also a businesswoman. At one time she had as many as eight boys selling newspapers for her. Sometimes she would take the boys on little picnics or for a ride on the trams, as a reward for when they’d had a good week.
It was a hard battle for every penny and there was a lot of competition, particularly in the 1920s. So, from time to time, when people would take advantage of Kate’s blindness, and steal her paper money, it broke her heart. “Thank God, I’m poor, but honest” she would say.
Kate had a penchant for helping others without judgement. She had so little yet gave her aid very readily. Many homeless stray on a winter night was taken home to her poor shelter. Kate was also a lover of dogs. and would help them too.
When Kate died in 1932, an article entitled 'Just Kate' appeared in the local Advertiser. It described her as a news vendor, pedlar of farewell streamers on the wharf when vessels sailed, as well as one of the best-known identities in Fremantle.
While not favoured by the gods in appearance, wrote the Advertiser, there was a beauty to be found in the sweet tone of her speaking voice. Whenever Kate came to the Advertiser's office to collect the papers, she would always announce herself (as she had to, being blind) with a sweet, cheery - "Is anybody home?" The Advertiser went on to reflect that despite Kate's sightless eyes, she had a clearer vision than most, in seeing the need of those worse off than herself.
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IMAGE: Paper lady, KatAndrew Adamson's top ten 2011 Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989 Les enfants du paradis (Marcel Carné, 1945) Orphée nègre (Marcel Camus, 1959) The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928) Performance (Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg, 1970) Twelve Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957) Les vacances de M. Hulot (Jacques Tati, 1953) Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1954) A Night at the Opera (Sam Wood, Edmund Goulding, 1935) Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933) e, with dog on Market Street
Orloff, Izzy, 1891-1981.
Photograph | 1923.
Available at Online (Call number: 111720PD)
References and Links
as above
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 28 January, 2024 and hosted at freotopia.org/people/haineykate.html (it was last updated on 19 February, 2023), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.