THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 1, 1995 TAG: 9508010225
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: By MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
Rita ``Rusty'' Barr, a widow who for years lived aboard a wooden ChrisCraft yacht at the Elizabeth City Shipyard and raised a son on the boat, has died at the age of 67.
``Rusty'' Barr kept the mahogany-trimmed ChrisCraft sparkling in the grand tradition of old-time wooden yachts, and hundreds of visiting pleasure boaters learned that she was always first on the dock to help with their mooring lines.
Soon Barr, a full-rigged woman who could be formidable in the presence of clumsy sailors or foolish landlubbers, had earned a reputation as Elizabeth City's unofficial dockmaster and resident oracle. But woe betide the visiting boater who threatened the tiniest scratch on her ChrisCraft's gleaming varnish.
``She was in every way a lovely lady who is still remembered for her kindness to visiting sailors,'' said Mary Hadley Griffin, the present-day proprietor of the Elizabeth City Shipyard.
After the death of her husband, Stanley Graves Barr Sr., ``Rusty'' Barr moved with her infant son, Clark Russell Barr, aboard the family boat and made her home there while he attended Elizabeth City schools.
After her son went off to a series of derring-do adventures as a Special Forces paratrooper, ``Rusty'' Barr took a shore-side job in the land records office at the Pasquotank County Courthouse. Clark Barr became a decorated Green Beret troop leader. Many of his Central American exploits are still stamped ``secret.''
``Rusty'' Barr was visiting her son, who now lives in Siler City and is retired on disability from the Green Berets, when she was stricken with a brief, fatal illness. She died Saturday in McDowell Hospital at Marion.
``Rusty'' Barr, a member of Blackwell Memorial Baptist Church, most recently lived in the 300 block of Magnolia Drive, in Camden.
Besides her son, she is survived by a sister, Ada Burchett of Columbus, Ohio, and two grandchildren.
Funeral services are being arranged by Twiford's Church St. office in Elizabeth City. by CNB