Growing up in the 1880s in Germany, Katarina Rothe is expected to behave as a young lady should. However, headstrong & intelligent, Katarina’s outspoken manner often sees her in constant trouble with her elders, especially her pretentious Aunt Olga. When she loses her mother at the tender age of nine her world is upended. She is sent to boarding school where she misses the love of a family that she had known as a little girl. With an increasingly distant father, she constantly craves love and a stable home which results in her decision to marry a much older man. Builder, Hugo Meyer ambitious, charming, confident and proud, marries Katarina, and together they have three children. Tragedy strikes when one of Hugo’s buildings collapses, killing and injuring several people. Suffering a breakdown, Hugo flees the country, leaving his family behind. After surviving a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean, fate lands him in Brisbane, Australia in 1900. Back in Germany, a devastated and angry Katarina moves in with her Uncle Walter in Saarbrucken and starts a business making hats. After a period of ten years, in which Hugo has constantly requested for her to join him & with war looming on the horizon, Katarina and her children immigrate to Australia. Meanwhile, Hugo has been busy selecting and farming land at Brymaroo, a small German settlement west of Toowoomba. When Katarina meets up with him again, she is horrified at the primitive conditions on his farm. With no prospect of rekindling their relationship, she opts to return to Brisbane with two of the children; the eldest boy remaining to help his father.
