The Australian Women's Register

Summary

Catherina van der Linden was born in 1912 and grew up in Nigmegen, Holland where her father was a tailor. She married in 1940 soon after the outbreak of war. Her first child was born in 1943. Following the war her husband, who had been a Company Secretary, was unemployed and three children were born. Van der Linden reluctantly agreed to emigrate in 1955 after her father’s death. The family travelled in the luxurious ‘Johan Van Oltenbernavalt’ and were shocked by the accommodation at both Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre in Victoria and Woodside in the Adelaide Hills. Their longest stay was at the Glenelg hostel from whence Mrs van der Linden returned to Holland in 1958 with the children, vowing never to return. However she decided to reunite the family 18 months later and worked outside the home in clerical and nurses’ aide positions.

When she died at the age of 111 on 26 January 2024 she was believed to be the oldest living person in Australia and the oldest living Dutch person in the world.