Centenarian Cathy enjoys birthday fit for Queen
There were celebrations befitting royalty at Etive House Care Home in Benderloch on Sunday when its oldest resident reached her 100th birthday, writes Fiona Scott.
Born in a mining village in North Lanarkshire in 1921, Catherine O’Hare (Cathy) was the eldest of nine children and is the only surviving sibling.
After training at Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow, where she qualified as a state registered nurse and midwife, Cathy joined a religious order called the Medical Missions, made up of doctors and nurses, based in Osterly in England. She worked in numerous countries abroad but contracted malaria on several occasions and as a result was prevented from travelling overseas, so she left the order.
She returned home to Scotland and held numerous nursing posts, before retiring to the island of Lismore where she lived for most of the 1980s. In later years, she would move to Fort William, then Oban, where she had previously worked at the maternity hospital.
Always fiercely independent throughout her life, Cathy has become frail in recent years, but now lives happily in Etive House and enjoys talking about her travels.
For her birthday on Sunday, the care home put on a special day of celebrations with rose gold decorations adorning the building.
Cathy received a card from the Queen, flowers and a cake from Lilac Sprinkles adorned with an iced image of Pope Francis. The highlight of her day was a visit from Father James MacNeil of St Columba’s Cathedral.