Catherine Mary Barr was born in Gourock, Renfewshire. She lived at the family home of 7 Albert Road, Gourock and later . Her father Robert Barr was the local chemist. Born 22/5/1871. Lived Druimhain, Tower Drive, Gourock. Daughter of Robert Barr, Chemist & Druggist. Catherine died 30/4/1954
Catherine had an astonishing war with the Scottish Womens Hospital in that she served as a nurse from December 1914-October 1918. Very few in the organisation would serve in this way. Catherine, in December 1914, headed to Serbia via Southampton and Salonika. At Salonika Catherine’s orders were to en-train for Kragujevac a military key point near Belgrade. The unit arrived on the 6th of January and was geared for a 100 beds but immediately had to admit 250 patients and soon after 650. Dr Eleanor Soltau was the chief medical officer and the unit worked around the clock trying to save as many lives as possible. The magnitude of the disaster was everywhere, thousands of men and civilians were scattered in buildings all over the town. Kragujevac was really one large hospitals. Broken limbs, gangrene, frostbite and open infected wounds were just some of the conditions endured by the men. Many lay dying with no medical help. Unfortunately things were set to get worse with the outbreak of typhus, Eleanor wired to HQ for more nurses,” dire need for more fever nurses” unable to use the word typhus, the Serbs not wanting her enemis to know the fragile condition it was in. Elsie Inglis got the message and dispatched 10 more nurses. Catherine went from Kragujievac to help at a new hospital at Mladenovac under the command of Dr Beatrice McGregor. The hospital was doing a quite fantastic job supporting the Serbs. Then in October German and Austrian troops attacked Serbia with such huge force that by the 12th of October the unit had no choice but to evacuate the hospital as the town was on the main railway line. They fled south to Kraguievac and regrouped opening an emergency dressing station, 100′s of Serbian causalities poured in. With the Bulgarians joining the assault on Serbia they were forced to move down to Kraljevo and open another dressing station. Finally in early November all hope was gone and the SWH were forced to choose between retreat to the Adriatic Sea or remain and fall into enemy hands. On the 5th of November Dr McGregor and her nurses joined “The Great Serbian Retreat” The retreat as witnessed by Catherine and her band of women was an endless procession of men, women and children, a beaten nation, attempting in the frozen depths of winter with very little or no food and poorly clothed to trek for weeks covering hundreds of miles over the Albanian and Montenegrin mountain. Hundreds of thousands of Serbians poured like blood from the heart of the motherland, estimates that well over 150,000 died, killed or were lost along the way. History has few parallels to this mass exodus.
Dr McGregor, Catherine and the others made it back to the UK on the 23rd of December. They too had suffered as Caroline Toughill was killed on the mountains of the Ibar valley.
Catherine after a short time at home joined the SWH again and proceeded to Corsica, where she nursed the Serbian refugees who had poured out of Serbia. Many of these poor souls were completely destitute. Catherine worked at the hospital until October 1916. Catherine in 1917 joined the American unit working in Ostrovo, Vranje before moving up to Belgrade.
Catherine was awarded the Serbian Samaritan Cross, she clearly must have loved the people a great deal. Catherine died in April 1954 in Tower drive Gourock.
