Pro memoria
BAJINA BAŠTA REMEMBERS ITS UNUSUAL SCOTTISH WOMAN
Our Evelina
A fighter for female rights of aristocratic origin, she came to Serbia on foot in 1915 as volunteer nurse. She treated the wounded, fought the planted typhus epidemic, organized the celebration of St. Vid’s Day in Great Britain in 1916 and collected contributions for the hungry people in occupied Serbia. After the war, she returned to Serbia, to Bajina Bašta, and gave her entire, considerable property, for Serbian war orphans. She burned out, treated the weak and ill in remote mountain villages. Evelina Haverfield (1868–1920) died of pneumonia. She is resting in the yard of the Church of St. Elijah in Bajina Bašta
By: Gordana Simeunović
 Voluntarily renouncing all comforts brought by aristocratic origin is often a form of asceticism itself. The life of Evelina Haverfield testifies about it.
She was born on August 9, 1867 in a small town of Inverloch, Scotland, as noble Evelina Scarlet, third child of baron William Frederick Scarlet and his wife Helen McGruder, daughter of the American Navy commander. Her aristocratic origin enabled her the best education a woman could get at the time. She went to school in Dusseldorf. She was married to Henry Haverfield, major of the Royal Artillery, and had two sons with him. She spent two years in South Africa with her second husband, during the Second Boer War. War was constantly present in her life. She loved sports: horseback riding, hunting, shooting, cycling. She called her bicycle Pegasus, because it offered her a great feeling of freedom, dear to her rebellious spirit.
Evelina Haverfield was a remarkable fighter for female rights. She belonged to the Sherborne branch of the moderate National Union of Suffrage Associations. Since 1908, she has been member of the radical organization Women's Social and Political Union, led by Emmeline Pankhurst. Due to her participation in protests, obstructing the work of the police, and attacks on the police, she was arrested on several occasions.
 One of the main arguments opponents of feminist movements raised against women having the right of vote was that they did not participate in wars. They have always considered war a man’s job. However, history notes that women did participate in World War I, mostly in medical corps. After the British military authorities refused to permit their participation in the military medical corps, suffragists organized the Movement of Scottish Women, led by Elsie Inglis. It was a patriotic movement and, at the same time, a way to promote gender equality.
At the beginning of the war, Evelina Haverfield was appointed commander of the female medical reserve corps, but she left the position and joined the Scottish Women’s Hospital in Serbia in 1915. Serbian officers were first suspicious about her, but, after seeing her on the horse, they accepted her as an equal. In that difficult time for the Serbian people, those wonderful Scottish women were our greatest friends. They worked on suppressing the typhus epidemic, which raged through Serbia along with all other war troubles. She sold her jewelry and, disguised as a peasant woman from Kruševac, went to the green market to buy groceries for the wounded, neglecting the curfew. She admired Serbian soldiers, poor peasants. She spoke: ”Serbian soldiers live bravely and die bravely.” She informed the English public about the difficult situation in Serbia. Together with Flora Sands, she founded the Fund for Supporting Serbian Soldiers and Prisoners of War. They organized the celebration of the Day of Kosovo on St. Vid’s Day in 1916 in several cities of Great Britain. They held fiery speeches in order to collect as much money as possible for helping Serbia.
GLORY AND MEMORY
 The mountain landscapes of western Serbia reminded Evelina of her Scotland. After the end of the war, she returned to Serbia and founded an Orphanage in Bajina Bašta. She helped find accommodation for tuberculosis patients. She sold her entire property and gave it for Serbian orphans, for their basic needs. Just as she did not spare her property, she did not spare herself either, nursing the ill and weary people in remote mountain villages. She passed away on March 21, 1920 from pneumonia.
The entire population of Bajina Bašta escorted to her final resting place. That year, the town mostly consisted of women and children. Most of the male population had not returned from the Great War and left their bones far away from homeland. Evelina wanted to be buried alongside the road, with her grave marked with a milestone, as she has seen throughout Serbia. However, she was buried in the yard of the Church of St. Elijah. Her headstone was made looking up to milestones, it is well-tended and always full of flowers. Vladimir Vasiljević, head of the Church of Holy Prophet Elijah, as well as his predecessors, takes care about the tomb and Memorial Room of Evelina Haverfield.
 On one side of the tombstone there is an inscription in English: ”She worked for the Serbian people, was a straight fighter, genuine rider and most loyal friend! Rest in peace.”
On the other side, the inscription in Serbian writes: ”Here rests the body of noble Evelina Haverfield from the family of third baron Abinger. She sacrificed her life for the Serbian people with her tireless work throughout the war, until her death on March 21, 1920 in Bajina Bašta. In the year 1915, she first worked in the Scottish Women’s Hospital, was imprisoned, then employed in the Yugoslav Division and Fund for Support on the Danube. Finally, she founded an Orphanage for war orphans in Bajina Bašta. May her memory live forever!”
 In Bajina Bašta she is not Evelina Haverfield, she is Our Evelina. Her name is spoken with love and tenderness.
Svetlana Ostojić, who has been living in Bajina Bašta for almost fifty years, remembers stories of old Bajina Bašta people: ”They said she was wonderful. Children in the orphanage loved and obeyed her, she taught them to brush their teeth and wash their face regularly. What’s most important, they were not hungry. Some of them tasted bread for the first time in that orphanage. They said that after lunch she always asked: ’So, what shall we have for dinner?’ And the children would reply in unison: ’Bread, cheese and potatoes!’ She came here to sacrifice for the Serbian people. I heard from old people that she particularly worked on educating village women, holding various training courses for them. She was a great person. Hardly anyone has done so much for Bajina Bašta.
POSTHUMOUS HONORS
 Upon the initiative of the Health Cooperative, a Home-Hospital named after Evelina Haverfield was opened in 1930. Then, ten years after her passing away, Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović, who knew and highly respected Evelina, held a service on Evelina’s grave. Some of his words were: ”What a faith that was, such courage, such love, such generosity! Only a human whose soul passed catharsis could do it!”
On a ceremony held in the Primary Health Center in 1990, seventy years after the passing away of Evelina Haverfield, doctor Đuro Raonić, who organized the event, spoke about Evelina’s life and work. Guests included high officials, representatives of the British embassy in Belgrade, daughters of Scottish war heroines. They brought a poster about the work of Scottish Women’s Hospital in Serbia, emphasizing that the poster is hanging in schools in Edinburgh and its surrounding, and that it is part of the educational program. The memorial service on Evelina’s grave was then held by Bishop of Žiča Stefan.
 On the Feast of the Holy Encounter in 2012, Sandy Williams, great-granddaughter of Evelina Haverfield, came to Bajina Bašta from Canada, together with her friends from Belgrade. Nedeljko Ristić, president of the Heritage Association ”Baština”, remembers:
”That day, on February 15, there was a great snowfall. The saint day of the Heritage Association was celebrated in the Firefighting Home Hall. Sandy Williams was surprised. She thought her great-grandmother was resting in a forest, forgotten. She was touched when she saw how well-tended her tomb was, how alive the love and memory of Evelina was in Bajina Bašta. She brought family photos. We scanned them and they are now exhibited in the Memorial Room in the parish home of the Church of St. Elijah. The same year, on the Day of St. Elijah, patron saint of Bajina Bašta, an exhibition of photos was opened in the memorial room, also called the Home of Evelina Haverfield. That place is a ’shelter under one roof for all the lonely, abandoned and hungry’, which was Evelina’s main behest. The memorial service on Evelina’s tomb was served by Bishop of Žiča Hrizostom that year, and the permanent exhibition of photos and documents from the life of Evelina Haverfield was opened.”
ALIVE IN MEMORY
 After the death of Evelina Haverfield in 1920, the main street in Bajina Bašta was named after her. The street was renamed after World War II and carried the name of Marshal Tito for a long time. Since 1990, it was named after Milan Obrenović, who gave Bajina Bašta the status of a town in 1872. A small street in a remote part of Bajina Bašta now carries the name of Evelina Haverfield. Neđo Rakić says that they are now fighting to have at least a part of the main street leading to the Primary Health Center named after Evelina.
”Two years ago was the hundredth anniversary of Evelina’s death. The municipality council formed a working group for marking the anniversary. We planned to hold the event in two stages. On the day  of her death, March 21, and on St. Elijah’s Day, the patron saint day of Bajina Bašta”, says Rakić. ”We also planned an art colony and opening of her bust in front of the Primary Health Center. Last year, we held a memorial service on the day of her death. There were only a few people present. We were all wearing masks. Unfortunately, the pandemic interfered with our plans, so we postponed holding a dignified memorial service for next year.”
For everything that she had done for the Serbian people, honorable Evelina Haverfield was awarded with the highest Serbian orders: Order of St. Sava and Order of the White Eagle with Swords, which was posthumously granted to her.
Perhaps the most important honor Evelina Haverfield received is the non-fading memory and the love with which her name is spoken in Bajina Bašta, even now, a hundred years later.
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Painting
One of the founders of the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia, painter Mihailo Milovanović from Užice, war painter of the Supreme Command of the Serbian Army in World War I, painted Evelina with orphans. The painting is now hanging in the Primary Health Center in Bajina Bašta.
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Scottish Heroines
The face of Evelina Haverfield is printed on a postal stamp from the British Heroines of World War I series. This was a way of paying honors to Scottish women who helped the Serbian people and army in World War, within a larger campaign undertook by the English embassy in Serbia. The postal stamps present faces of Flora Sands (the only female officer of the Serbian army from Great Britain), Elsie Inglis, psychiatrist Isabel Galloway Hutton, doctor Elisabeth Ross.
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