French, Kathleen

Born at Eltham, NZ and probably deafened from whooping cough, though her mother thought she had been born deaf. Attended a school for the deaf at Sumner, NZ until 1929 but never completed high school. Went into tailoring for a living. Met and married a deaf man in Auckland. Quit work when her first child arrived, but after her husband's death from cancer in 1961, she worked for a while as a machinist.