15995: Catherine Macleod

Caitrìona Ruairidh Chaluim

Catherine (1826-1911) was a daughter of Roderick Macleod and Catherine Morrison, 15 Cromore.

In Lochs, in 1850, she married Roderick Smith, 5 Calbost. Catherine and Roderick settled at 5 Calbost and they had eleven children.

Catherine was widowed in 1877.

Her sister, Mairi, married John Macleod, 6 Calbost and lived in the next croft.

Four of Catherine and Roderick's sons were obliged to settle on the family croft because there was no other land available. There was therefore gross overcrowding on croft 5 Calbost for a long period, as indeed there was on all Calbost crofts. In 1891 the Smith brothers balaich Rhuraidh Gobha joined in the extensive land raiding movement in Southern Park that year. Their contemporary Angus Morrison, 9 Calbost, who was with them in the land raiding, often related how Mrs Smith asked her sons to bring back a sample of the soil of Steimreway which was the place the Calbost contingent was land raiding.

The young men forgot their mother's request to bring back a sample of the soil. It was when they came within sight of their home when they were returning that they remembered. So they scooped up a pocketful of the soil of their own Loba-Ruadh and duly presented the sample to their mother who tasted it in her mouth and declared it to be very good soil, the very same kind of soil as our own Loba-Ruadh she said.