Dewey's Nine Lives: The Legacy of the Small-Town Library Cat Who Inspired Millions

by Vicki Myron

  But Dewey—he never did that. A thousand times, in a thousand different ways, Dewey was there when people needed him. He did it for dozens of people, I’m sure, who have never opened up to me. He did it for Bill Mullenburg, and he did it for Yvonne, exactly as Tim had done it with Kyle in Bret’s Sunday school class. When no one else understood, Dewey made the gesture. He didn’t understand the root causes, of course, but he sensed something was wrong. And out of animal instinct, he acted. In his own way, Dewey put his arm around Yvonne and said, It’s all right. You are one of us. You will be fine.

  I’m not saying Dewey changed Yvonne’s life. I think he eased her sorrow, but he by no means ended it. A month after Tobi’s passing, Yvonne lost her temper on the assembly line and was not only fired but escorted out of the building. She had been frustrated by management for a long time, but I can’t help but believe the last straw was the pain of Tobi’s death.

  It didn’t stop there. A few years later, her mother died of colon cancer. Two years after that, Yvonne was diagnosed with uterine cancer. She drove six hours to Iowa City, for six months, to receive treatment. By the time she beat the cancer, her legs had given way. She had stood in the same position on the assembly line eight hours a day, five days a week, for years, and the effort had worn down her knees.

  But she still had her faith. She still had her routines. And she still had Dewey. He lived fifteen years after Tobi’s death, and for all those years, Yvonne Barry came to the library several times each week to see him. If you had asked me at the time, I would not have said their relationship was particularly special. Many people came into the library every week, and almost all of them stopped to visit with Dewey. How was I to know the difference between those who thought Dewey was cute, and those who needed and valued his friendship and love?

  After Dewey’s memorial service, Yvonne told me about the day Dewey sat on her lap and comforted her. It still meant something to her, more than a decade later. And I was touched. Until that moment, I didn’t know Yvonne had ever had a cat of her own. I didn’t know what Tobi meant to her, but I knew Dewey had comforted her, as he had always comforted me, simply by being present in her life. Little moments can mean everything. They can change a life. Dewey taught me that. Yvonne’s story (once I took the time to listen) confirmed it. That moment on her lap epitomized Dewey’s understanding and friendship, his effect on the people of Spencer, Iowa, in a way I had never considered before.

  I didn’t notice when Yvonne stopped coming to the library after Dewey’s death. I knew her visits had become less frequent, but she disappeared just as she appeared: like a shadow, without a sound. By the time I went to visit her two years after Dewey’s death, she was living in a rehabilitation facility with a brace on her right leg. She was only in her fifties, but the doctors weren’t sure she would walk again. Even if she recovered, she had no place to go. Her father was in the nursing home next door, and the family house had been sold. Yvonne told the new owners, “Don’t dig down in that corner of the yard because that’s where my Tobi is buried.”

  “Tobi’s still down there,” she told me. “At least her body anyway.”

  There was a Bible on her nightstand and a scripture taped to her wall. Her father was in Yvonne’s room in a wheelchair, a frail old man who had lost his ability to hear and see. She introduced us, but beyond that, Yvonne hardly seemed to notice he was there. Instead, she showed me a small figurine of a Siamese cat, which she kept on a tray beside her bed. Her aunt Marge had given it to her, in honor of Tobi. No, she didn’t have any photographs of Tobi to share. Her sister had put all of Yvonne’s belongings into storage, and she didn’t have the key. If I needed a photograph, she said, there was always the one of her and Dewey, taken at the library party twenty years before. Someone, somewhere, probably had a copy.

  When I asked her about Dewey, she smiled. She told me about the women’s bathroom, and his birthday party, and finally about the afternoon he spent on her lap. Then she looked down and shook her head sadly.

  “I went to the library several times to see his grave,” she said. “I’ve been inside. I looked around. It just doesn’t seem the same. No Dewey. I mean, I saw the statue of him and I thought, That’s nice, it looks just like Dewey, but it wasn’t like Dewey was really there.

  “I don’t go to that place anymore. It was that cat, you know. Dewey, he’d always be there. Even if he was hiding somewhere, I’d just say to myself, ‘Well, I’ll see him next time.’ But then I went and no Dewey. I looked at the place where he used to sit and it was empty and I thought, Well, nothing to do here. It just feels like a building with books in it now.”

  I wanted to ask her more, to figure something out, to learn something profound about cats and libraries and the crosscurrents of loneliness and love underneath the surface of even the most peaceful towns and the most peaceful lives. I wanted to know her because, in the end, it felt as if she was barely present in her own story.

  But Yvonne just smiled. Was she thinking of that moment with Dewey on her lap? Or was she thinking of something else, something deeper that she would never share, and that only she would ever understand?

  “He was my Dewey Boy.” That’s all she said. “Big Dew.”

  TWO

  Mr. Sir Bob Kittens (aka Ninja, aka Mr. Pumpkin Pants)

  “I simply wanted to thank you for putting into such eloquent words what many of us who have loved a cat, or any animal, feel every day. They are our family, and we love them just as deeply and miss them just as desperately when they are gone.”

  I’ve known a lot of cats in my life, so I know that all cats are different, even the special ones. Some cats are special because they are sweet. Some cats are special because they are survivors. Some cats are special because they were exactly what someone needed at exactly the time they needed it: a soul mate, a companion, a distraction, a friend. And some cats are just plain crazy.

  That would be Mr. Sir Bob Kittens, formerly known as Ninja, who lives in an ordinary suburban house in Michigan with his family, James and Barbara Lajiness and their teenage daughter, Amanda. Mr. Kittens is not the cuddly cat. He’s the quirky cat, the cat with attitude, the one who does his own thing, usually in a way you can’t quite comprehend. Maybe that’s why he was the last kitten adopted from his litter at the Humane Society of Huron Valley in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Or maybe it was the note on his cage: NINJA, it read. Then: DOESN’T GET ALONG WITH OTHER CATS OR DOGS. Apparently, he fought them instead.

  When Barbara Lajiness met Ninja, it was not love at first sight. Yes, he was gorgeous, with big amber eyes, bright orange fur, and the longest whiskers she had ever seen on a kitten. Yes, he seemed intelligent and well behaved. But he wasn’t active. He wasn’t climbing and clamoring for attention like the other kittens in the shelter. He wasn’t . . . well, he wasn’t doing anything. He was just lying alone in his big empty cage, hardly bothering to look at the strangers wandering by.

  “He’s great with people,” the volunteer said when she saw Barbara looking at Ninja. “It’s just other animals he has a problem with.”

  Barbara’s husband and daughter wanted him. They had sensed something special in his mischievous eyes and seemingly calm disposition. When Barbara held him, she felt it, too. A potential energy, perhaps, that seemed barely contained. So she put him down and told her daughter sorry, she wasn’t ready. The family had lost their beloved cat only a month before. Barbara didn’t tell her daughter this, but she was terrified of becoming emotionally invested in another living thing that would only end up dying on her.

  But Ninja was so sleek and beautiful. And her daughter and husband were so adamant. And every time she went back to the shelter, which she never should have done but just couldn’t help it, it became more and more clear to Barbara that poor Ninja was never going to get adopted. Not in that isolation cell that made him seem like the worst inmate in the prison, and not with that sign on his cage. “He wasn’t a Mr. Cuddle, purr-like-a-freight-train cat,” Barbara recalled, “
but he deserved a home. Every animal deserves a home. It was sad that no one had a place in their lives for him.” Barbara cared about saving animals, and here was a cat that obviously needed saving. He needed a good, loving, pet-free (obviously) home, and that is exactly what she could provide. She couldn’t turn away. Her whole life, largely thanks to her mother, Barbara Lajiness had never turned away from a creature in need.

  “Why do you call him Ninja?” Barbara asked the volunteer as she was filling out the final paperwork and paying for his adoption.

  “Don’t worry,” the volunteer replied with a smile. “You’ll see.”

  Barbara’s parents divorced in 1976. She was eight years old, and even at that young age, she knew it was coming. Her parents hadn’t been getting along for years, and life at home had been uncomfortable and tense as two people who had gone separate ways struggled to make it work. Her mother was focused on the family. Her father wanted to have fun: to go drinking, to stay out late without the kids, to travel. When he came home, he was angry and frustrated with his life. Barbara had two teenage brothers, and they didn’t appreciate either his absence or his anger. For a while, everyone yelled. Then nobody talked. Barbara’s outlet, even at that young age, was the family cat, Samantha. That’s good, the little girl thought when her brothers told her their father had moved out for good. Now it might be calm in the house. What a sad, sad thought for an eight-year-old child.

  But she soon found out that life without her father was far worse than she had expected, at least financially. Almost instantly, the family plummeted from a comfortable, middle-class existence to the poverty line. Her father had a steady job working for Michigan Bell, the local telephone company. Before they were married, her mother had worked for Michigan Bell, too, as a telephone operator. She gave up her job to raise her children. Eighteen years later, she discovered that even in good times, jobs for middle-aged women with skimpy résumés were scarce. In 1976, in the hardscrabble communities around Flint, Michigan, they were nonexistent. There was barely enough work for the men who had once been employed by General Motors but were losing their jobs as the company took their factories overseas. The only job Evelyn Lambert could find to support her children was at a nursing home, cooking breakfast for the residents. Her shift started at 3:00 A.M. She was paid minimum wage.

  It wasn’t considered acceptable work for a mother. In 1976, in the small town of Fenton, Michigan, the commuter town outside Flint where the Lamberts lived, no work was considered acceptable for a mother. In Fenton, women didn’t get divorced; they didn’t work outside the home; they didn’t leave their children alone for long stretches of time. Nobody wanted even to acknowledge what had happened to Evelyn Lambert. It was too real somehow, and who knows, it might be contagious. Some of the neighbors openly pitied her, something Barbara’s mother could never stand. Others shunned her. Barbara found herself mocked at elementary school, where everyone seemed to know everything about her mom. Her friends were no longer allowed to come over and play, since there was no one to watch them. In only a few months, Barbara realized, her social status had fallen apart as quickly as the family finances. It didn’t help that her father had moved to Grand Blanc, a nearby suburb of Flint, and was spending his time and money on a woman more interested in living the way he wanted to live.

  Finally, a neighbor reached out to them. Her name was Ms. Merce, and she lived a few houses down and across the street. Ms. Merce, along with a few other local women, had started an organization called Adopt-a-Pet. The local humane society, in those days, was essentially an animal disposal unit. They kept the animals only a day or two before putting them to sleep. They were killing animals by the hundreds, and Ms. Merce and her friends didn’t think that was any way for a civilized society to act. Adopt-a-Pet took in animals and kept them as long as it took to find a home. These days, no-kill animal shelters are common throughout the world. But more than thirty years ago, in Flint, Michigan, this was an incomprehensible concept. Cats and dogs were just animals, and animals didn’t have much value. They were disposable playthings that died or ran away and were replaced. Adopt-a-Pet was bucking the attitude of an entire community.

  When Ms. Merce asked Evelyn if she would be an animal foster parent, Barbara’s mother was eager to volunteer. Why? Barbara hesitated for a long time before saying simply, “I guess Mom was just hardwired to help animals.” That’s probably somewhat true. Evelyn Lambert had always shown an embarrassing (at the time) level of concern for all living things. She didn’t believe in herbicide, so her lawn was full of weeds. She didn’t believe in waste, so she used old food containers as planters. She preferred herbal remedies to doctors’ visits and despised insecticides. She believed in the sanctity of life. Every life, even insects. She was wired for compassion.

  But she was also clearly lonely. And aimless in her unfulfilling job. And stung by the rejection of her husband and community. And eager to make a statement by adopting a cause that her husband would never have endorsed and her small-minded neighbors would never understand. What started as a favor for Adopt-a-Pet became, seemingly overnight, a cause. Almost as quickly, the nebulous idea of “animal foster care” became ten cats of various ages, colors, and conditions living together in one small suburban house.

  It was not an easy time. Money was tight. Barbara’s mother watered down the milk to stretch it for a few extra days and made a schedule every Sunday that showed exactly what could be eaten by the children while she was away at work. The biggest treat was a can of soda, which Barbara and her brother Scott had to split, and the biggest argument was always over who had drunk more than their share. Sometimes, there was barely food on the table by Friday night, even as Barbara’s father was off in the next town with another woman, eating at expensive restaurants and taking out-of-state vacations.

  Barbara took on the responsibility of running the household. She felt compelled to do it, as much out of fear as love. A few weekends after her parents’ divorce, her neighbors offered to take her on a camping trip. Before the camper reached the end of the block, Barbara started screaming to be taken home. She was deathly afraid that if she left, her mother would be gone when she returned. She turned that terror, that fear of abandonment, into activity. She fed and watered the cats, emptied their litter, and cleaned their messes. She cooked meals in the microwave and washed the dishes when she and Scott were through. Every night before going to bed, she made sure everything was clean and in its proper place, so that her mother wouldn’t have to worry when she arrived home in the middle of the night. If it snowed, nine-year-old Barbara put on her jacket and shoveled the driveway so that her mother could pull right into the garage. She was working to hold their world together, in her own way, as much as her mom.

  There weren’t many gifts, even at Christmas. The first year without Dad, the family waited until Christmas Eve to buy a Christmas tree because that’s when the trees were cheapest. On the way home, Barbara and her fifteen-year-old brother, Scott (the oldest brother, Mark, was eighteen and not spending much time with the family), started fighting in the backseat. As they turned into the snowy driveway, their mother starting waving at them to stop.

  “Quiet down,” she yelled.

  They didn’t.

  “Right now. I mean it. Right now.”

  The kids sat, shocked, and stared with their mother at the dark house in the silent suburban neighborhood. For a moment, there was nothing but the snow and the wind. Then they heard the tiny meow.

  The next second, Evelyn Lambert was out of the car and clambering around in the snow. Her reputation as the “crazy cat lady” had already buzzed around Fenton, and if someone had an animal they didn’t want, they often left it in the Lambert front yard. Over the next few years, the family would turn into the driveway dozens of times to find a sad-eyed animal staring at their car. If it was a dog, they took it into the Adopt-a-Pet office. If it was a cat, they usually kept it because, well, that’s what the Lamberts did. They helped cats in need.

 
; This time, it was Scott who finally found the cat. The throwers had been aiming for the cat lady’s house, no doubt, but they must have gotten the wrong address, because the wet and shivering kitten was buried in the snowbank across the street. Barbara remembers vividly the sight of her brother, a crazy smile on his face and a headband around his ears, walking up the driveway with the light from the garage reflecting off the snow and a tiny, shivering, coal-black kitten huddled inside his jacket.

  She remembers pulling the kitten out of her brother’s jacket, snuggling him to her cheek, and saying, “He smells like Hamburger Helper.”

  Then she smiled. She hadn’t been expecting any presents that Christmas, but suddenly, as if by magic rather than cruelty and indifference, one had appeared.

  She named the kitten Smoky. Although the Lambert house was full of cats, some adopted quickly and some around for months, Smoky was different. When Barbara held him that night, Smoky had hugged her and rubbed against her cheek. That’s when she knew he was hers. Forever. Barbara’s mother called him Black Spaghetti because he was like a limp noodle in her presence. Smoky loved his girl so much that he would let her do anything to him. She dressed him in doll clothes; she pushed him around in a stroller; she carried him on his back in her arms like a newborn baby. When she played dress-up, she wore him over her shoulders like a shawl. He was totally relaxed in her hands. The other cats slept on the first floor of the house or, in the warmer months, in the unfinished basement. Smoky curled up with Barbara every night.

  She loved the other cats, too. They had been her companions in the lonely afternoons when her friends ignored her, and her mother was at work. But Smoky was her friend and confidante. She didn’t want to burden her mother, who was already burdened enough, so she told Smoky her problems. Many times, they sat together in her room with the door closed. “I’m really sad today,” she confided in him. Or “I’m scared and lonely. I don’t know what’s going to happen.” If her mother yelled at her for spilling water on the floor while washing dishes, Smoky understood it wasn’t her fault, she was only a child, and she was trying her best. When she came back from another soul-crushing visit to her father, whom she increasingly hated, Smoky snuggled against her side and purr, purr, purred. He let her pet him on the head and play with his paws. There was nothing more comforting than pushing on Smoky’s footpads and watching his claws come out and retract, come out and retract. He just stared at her, blinking slowly in that sleepy way cats do, purring deep and strong. He never complained.