Catherine (Kate) Cuff/Cuffe, the Link to the Paradice Family

As is the case fo

Catherine (Kate) Cuff or Cuffe, later Paradice 

r many female ancestors, the information about Kate Cuffe is sketchy.  It is limited to vital statistics, except for a few recollections from her grandchildren and mentions in her husband’s letters.

Catherine (Kate) Cuffe-was the eldest child of John Evers Cuffe and Jane Sinnett.  She was born on August 3, 1857 in St. Catharines, Lincoln Co., Upper Canada (Ontario).¹  Her early life may have been comfortable.  Her father was a newspaper publisher and local politician, although when Kate was young he was simply a printer (a tradesman) and foreman of the Semi-Weekly Post.²

Presumably Kate had a religious upbringing, as she was reportedly very religious in later life.  The 1871 Ontario Census shows the family as Wesleyan Methodists, although John E. was baptized an Anglican and Jane may have originally been a Roman Catholic.  By the time of her marriage, Kate was a Baptist, a denomination she adhered to for the rest of her life.

On August 19, 1878, Kate married Francis Henry Paradice, the son of George Paradice and Sarah Ann Maggs.  The marriage took place in St. Catharines in a double ceremony in which her sister Margaret married George Havens.  Within three years of her marriage, with two children and a third on the way, Kate had moved with her husband to Denver, Colorado, where she spent the rest of her life.

Kate gave birth to eleven children, the first ten over a period of thirteen years.  The last child must have been quite a surprise when she appeared eight years later.  According to family stories, Kate never fully recovered from her last child’s birth.

Kate’s granddaughter, Louise, recalled her as a semi-invalid.  Louise described her grandmother as a dour and almost fanatically religious woman, who greeted her grandchildren with, “Have you sinned today?”

However, while her health was still good, Kate must have had considerable fortitude and a sense of adventure.  Not only did she follow her husband to what must have been an uncertain future on the frontier of a new country, once settled she chose to go on a camping trip in the mountains by wagon.  As her husband Frank described it,

… though we had only intended to take our driver and the five boys and myself, we wound up by making arrangements to take the whole family excepting the baby.  This would be nine children, myself and Kate and Mr. Benton, twelve in all-- and Kate, thinking to give one of the neighbor's children at treat, added her to the list-- a girl about fourteen years of age-- and then Kate's sister, Eliza, was also added; this made fourteen to provide for…

I think Kate felt a little tired out and used up at times, and also on account of the continued and unusual wet weather, sometimes a little discouraged, but on the whole she enjoyed the trip and it did her lots of good.

Kate became a widow in 1923 when her husband Frank died.  After that she lived with her two youngest daughters, Mary (a widow) and Fran (unmarried) and Mary’s two daughters, Dorothy and Janet.  She died on August 11, 1936¹ of a cancer in her spine (according to Louise) and was buried in the family plot in Fairmount Cemetery. 

Footnotes

Certificate of Death - Catherine Cuffe Paradice, (Photocopy of original supplied by Colorado Vital Statistics (City & County of Denver)).

Junius.  1856.  St. Catharines A to Z.  Published by the St. Catharines and Lincoln Historical Society, 1967.