KATHLEEN (Kath) SCRIVEN  (née Montagu & Lawrie) was born in Brisbane, Queensland on the 23rd December, 1930.  Kath was the second child —of 4 children—of Kathleen (Cass) Lawrie (née Willett) and Edward Alan Lawrie. The Lawrie children Jean, Kath, William (Bill) and Alan were raised in Cannon Hill Brisbane. Kath remembered playing cowboys and Indians in the bush and climbing up trees with her brothers when drovers came through the area with their cattle and cracking their whips. Kath attended Cannon Hill primary school until grade 6/7 when she went to Wynnum. She left school at 13 when she went to help her mum—who was pregnant with Alan— with cooking, cleaning and generally keeping house. She carried Alan when shopping with her mum and remembered an American soldier thought she was the mother. At age 14 Kath started work and was taught to embroider at a little shop at Morningside. She spent her teenage years working in a shop in George St Brisbane City as a seamstress and embroiderer.

Kath met John Montagu through friends, they married on the 10th October 1953, and bought a house on Eildon Hill Windsor in Brisbane. Kath started her own business in a little shop on Days Road Grange. John and Kath had two children while living in that home then Kath closed the business and they moved to Stafford where their third child was born. Kath again took up work as an embroiderer from her home, working for Lloyd Mason's brand in Brisbane, who said she was 'the best embroiderer' they had ever seen. They specifically employed Kath to embroider the baggy green caps for the Australian Cricket team and the Australian Rugby Union team blazer pockets. Kath also designed pockets to be sent to Germany to help them make the automatic embroidery machines of today. John and Kath separated in the early 1970's, Kath and the children stayed in the family home at Stafford.

In 1975 Kath met Robert (Bob) Scriven at the Chermside Bowls Club on Rode Road Chermside. They enjoyed bowling and attending dances during their courting and were married on the 20th May 1978 in Brisbane. They continued to live at Stafford but eventually moved several times during their marriage, from Stafford to Carseldine to Bald Hills and finally together at Symes Grove Retirement Village Taigum where they lived when Bob passed away on the 23rd February 2015, aged 80 years. Kath stayed in their home until she felt she needed more help and company. In 2023 at the age of 93, Kath chose to move into  the Symes Grove Residential Aged Care Facility in the next street to her home; she lived there till she passed away on the 10th February 2024.

Kath's Parents were cremated in Brisbane.

Her sister Jean (Wallis) rests ...

Her Brother Bill—who was an Australian champion cyclist— rests in the Tewantin Cemetery, Noosa Shire Qld Australia.

  Information shared by Kath herself and her children Kym, Jeff and Russell (2024).