The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 96

GFs Buddy I Barred windows, double fencing, guard towers this is the stockade. "Stockade Annie" A iq) iO Mrs. Anna M. Barr mothers prisoners at Fort Campbell By JIM MORRISSEY, Staff Writer EVERY Sunday morning an Army staff car stops at an unpretentious frame house in Hopkinsville, Ky. "Stockade Annie" leaves the house and gets in the car, commencing a day that has to be rated something beyond amazing.

Mrs. Anna Mabry Barr an 87-year-old wily wisp of a woman-spends six hours each Sabbath visiting soldiers in the stockade and hospital at Fort Campbell. She's apt to pop up on the post almost any time on weekdays, too. Mrs. Barr gets red-carpet treatment that career officers say is unprecedented at any other Army base.

And, they add, "Aunt Anna" sometimes known as "Airborne Annie, the oldest paratrooper in the world" earned her red carpet the hard way. Back in 1941 when Fort Campbell opened (then Camp Campbell), she started her campaign. "It took me a whole year to get into the stockade," she said, fingering a delicate cameo brooch pinned to a black ribbon around her throat. "I always take the direct approach," Mrs. Barr added with a happy laugh.

"I went to headquarters to see the general and asked for a stockade pass. I couldn't have caused more sensation if I had asked for a pass to heaven. 'There is no such I was told." She was just "Mrs. Barr" then but she had all the determined makings of "Stockade Annie." "Every Sunday for a year I went back to headquarters and asked for a pass," she recalled. Today she carries a handbag full of passes issued by commanding generals and wears "honorary paratrooper" wings.

She explained her Fort Campbell mission this way: "I had three brothers in World War I and I know the American serviceman needs somebody to administer to his heart. He's hungry for love." "I Love Them It's No Pose With Me" That mission seems at odds with the rock-tough reputation of the Fort Campbell-based 101st Airborne Division. "I love them," Mrs. Barr continued. "It's no pose with me.

I'm so sure of what's down in the middle of them. The poor old world is starving now from lack of love." The Stockade Annie legend started when a badly burned soldier was brought to the Fort Campbell hospital. She held his hand and talked to him as the pain-racked youth waited for treatment. Next day the soldier asked, "Where's that old woman who held my hand and talked to me?" A nurse called Mrs. Barr, and she's been Fort Campbell's queen of hearts ever since.

The respect and admiration she receives almost border on intemperance. Recently Mrs. Ernest Lackey of Hopkinsville received a letter from the wife of the former Fort Campbell commander and onetime head of the United States Military Academy. Mrs. W.

C. Westmoreland, now with her three-star-general husband in Vietnam, ended her letter with "an extra-special wish for Aunt Anna." Mrs. Barr first met stockade prisoners when they were taken to the post hospital for treatment. "They needed special attention," she decided. Copt.

Ralph C. Mehciz, stocfcade-coninment officer, gave this appraisal of Mrs. Barr's effectiveness: "I've seen times when within an hour a man who was belligerent and disorderly was turned to butter by Miss Annie. She has free run of the stockade, but she never interrupts stockade routine. In fact, she is the only person allowed to talk with prisoners without custodial personnel being present.

"But don't get the idea that she's soft on them or coddly. Miss Annie is more critical of the boy's offenses than we are. She tells them, 'This is where you1 belong; learn something from the experience and become a better Poplar Hill Was Populous Hill Fort Campbell is really home for Miss Annie. She was born there. The Mabrys were an affluent family and had a large farm on what is now the Fort Campbell reservation.

The place was formally named Poplar Hill. But there were 12 Mabry children and the name became "Poplar, Populous, Popular Hill." Miss Annie was tutored at home, "and I didn't go to a real school until I was 12." She married John Christy Barr, a Presbyterian minister, and they lived for 30 years in New Orleans. "That's why I'm such a sophisticated old lady," she said laughing. "My husband never knew what I was going to do." (Once she was "saved" by the famous evangelist Mordecai Ham, because "the people at the meeting were just sitting there like stones. I started the ball After her husband died, Mrs.

Barr returned to the Fort Campbell area and lived in a log house she had built near the post. Later, she moved to Hopkinsville. However, she denies that her "residence" is Hopkinsville: "I live on wheels and just sleep in Hopkinsville." This is literally true. Although she could have staff-car transportation almost any time, she rides buses often. "I have so many things to do, so many people to see," Miss Annie explained.

She visits prisoners in the jail at Clarksville, near the post, and also visits inmates of the Tennessee Penitentiary at Nashville. Continued on Page 6 tiff Miototrap by H. HiroM Davit, Chtof Clr NntMraphtr Mrs. Anna Mabry Barr chats with Capt. Ralph C.

Mehciz, Fort Campbell stockade officer. 4 SUNDAY, JULY IM4 I.