Memorial photograph from The Pean, the 1919 graduate yearbook of Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter New Hampshire.
She was born Katherine Patterson Irwin on 14 March 1870 in Dayton, Montgomery County Ohio, the daughter of Andrew Barr & Jane (Schenck) Irwin. Her family nickname was “Kitty,” as shown in the census, and she grew up in Dayton, attending the local schools.
What is known is that she served as a Red Cross Nurse for the A.E.F. in Europe from April 1918 to 24 June 1918 when she died of spinal meningitis, in Evacuation Hospital, at Baccarat France. The disease was probably contracted from one of her patients. It is also known that prior to her enlistment she worked as a nurse in the infirmary (Hooper Building) at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. Her photograph (as shown at right) was published in the 1919 graduate yearbook The Pean.
She is not acknowledged (though she should be ) on the WWI memorial plaque in the New Hampshire State House NOR at the memorial of the University of New Hampshire. She is listed in W. M. Haulsee, F. G. Howe, A. C. Doyle, comp., Soldiers of the Great War, vol. 2 (Washington, D. C.: Soldiers Record Publishing Assoc., 1920), under those from New Hampshire who died from Disease, Rank Nurse. Continue reading
