Dewey: the Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World Read online

  “Good morning, Dewey,” I would say, my heart singing and the library bursting with life, even on the darkest and coldest mornings. I would look down at him and smile. He would rub against my ankle. My buddy. My boy. Then I would cradle him in my arms and carry him to his litter box. How could I deny him that?

  Chapter 20

  Dewey’s New Friends

  On the afternoon of June 7, 1999, I received a phone call from a Dewey fan. “Vicki, turn on the radio. You’re not going to believe this.”

  I turned it on to hear “and now you know . . . the rest of the story.”

  Anyone raised on radio knows that sign-off. Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story is one of the most popular programs in the history of radio. Each broadcast relates a minor but telling incident in the life of a well-known person. The gimmick is that you don’t know whom Paul Harvey is talking about until his famous closing.

  “And that little boy,” he might say, “the one who so wanted to cut down that cherry tree, grew up to be none other than George Washington, the father of our country. And now you know . . . the rest of the story.”

  Now Paul Harvey was telling the story of a cat who inspired a town and became famous around the world . . . and it all started in a library book drop on a cold January morning in a small Iowa town. And now you know . . .

  Who cares if nobody from Paul Harvey’s staff called to check the facts? Who cares if they didn’t know 10 percent of the rest of the story, the part that made Dewey so special? I sat down at the end of the broadcast and thought, “That’s it. Dewey’s really made it now.” And then, because I was so used to the unexpected with Dewey, I wondered what was going to happen next.

  For years I had gone to the newspaper and the radio station to pass on Dewey news. With Paul Harvey, I decided to hold back. It wasn’t that there weren’t plenty of Dewey fans. Patrons asked every day for the latest bit of Dewey news. Children ran into the library, eager and smiling, looking for their friend. But good news about Dewey no longer seemed to impress the rest of the town. In fact, I was beginning to worry it was pushing some people away. Dewey, I suspected, might be a little overexposed.

  But only in Spencer. The rest of the world still couldn’t get enough. In addition to being on several state boards, I was one of six continuing-education instructors in the Iowa library system. I taught the courses using the Iowa Communication Network (ICN), a teleconferencing system connecting libraries, military depots, hospitals, and schools around the state. Every time I sat down in our ICN room to teach the opening class of a course, the first question was, “Where’s Dewey?”

  “Yes,” another librarian would pipe up, “can we see him?”

  Fortunately, Dewey attended all meetings in the ICN room. He preferred meetings of actual people, but teleconferences were acceptable, too. I put Dewey on the table and pushed a button so he appeared on viewing screens all over the state. You could probably hear the gasp in Nebraska.

  “He’s so cute.”

  “Do you think my library should get a cat?”

  “Only if it’s the right cat.” That’s what I always told them. “You can’t get just any cat. He has to be special.”

  “Special?”

  “Calm, patient, dignified, intelligent, and above all, outgoing. A library cat has to love people. It also helps if he’s gorgeous and comes with an unforgettable story.” I didn’t mention loving, absolutely loving with his whole heart, being the library cat.

  “Okay,” I told them eventually. “Enough fun. Back to censorship and collection development.”

  “One more minute. Please. I want my staff to meet Dewey.”

  I looked over at my big orange buddy, who was sprawled out in his favorite spot on the table. “You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

  He gave me an innocent look. Who, me? I’m just doing my job.

  It wasn’t just librarians who loved Dewey. I was working in my office one morning when Kay called me to the front desk. Standing there was a family of four, two young parents and their children.

  “This nice family,” Kay said, with barely disguised amazement, “is from Rhode Island. They’ve come to meet Dewey.”

  The father extended his hand. “We were in Minneapolis, so we decided to rent a car and drive down. The kids just love Dewey.”

  Was this man crazy? Minneapolis was four and half hours away. “Wonderful,” I said, shaking their hands. “How did you find out about Dewey?”

  “We read about him in Cats magazine. We’re cat lovers.”

  Obviously.

  “Okay,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else. “Let’s go meet him.”

  Dewey was, thank goodness, as eager to please as always. He played with the children. He posed for photographs. I showed the little girl the Dewey Carry, and she walked him all around the library on her left shoulder (always the left). I don’t know if it was worth the nine-hour round trip, but the family left happy.

  “That was weird,” Kay said once the family was gone.

  “It sure was. I bet that never happens again.”

  It happened again. And again. And again. And again. They came from Utah, Washington, Mississippi, California, Maine, and every other corner of the map. Older couples, younger couples, families. Many were traveling cross-country and drove one hundred, two hundred miles out of their way to stop in Spencer for the day. I can remember many of their faces, but the only names I remember are Harry and Rita Fein’s from New York City because after meeting Dewey they sent both a birthday present and a Christmas present of twenty-five dollars every year for food and supplies. I wish I had thought to write down information on the others, but at first it seemed so unlikely more people would ever come. Why bother? By the time we realized the power of Dewey’s appeal, visitors were so common they no longer seemed unusual enough to take note of.

  How were these people finding out about Dewey? I have no idea. The library never pursued publicity for Dewey. We never contacted a single newspaper, with the exception of the Spencer Daily Reporter. We never hired a publicity agent or marketing manager. After Shopko, we never entered Dewey in any contests. We were Dewey’s answering service, nothing more. We picked up the phone, and there was another magazine, another television program, another radio station wanting an interview. Or we opened the mail and found an article about Dewey from a magazine we’d never heard of or a newspaper halfway across the country. A week later, another family popped up at the library.

  What were these pilgrims expecting to find? A wonderful cat, of course, but there are wonderful cats sitting homeless in every shelter in America. Why come all this way? Was it love, peace, comfort, acceptance, a reminder of the simple joys of life? Did they just want to spend time with a star?

  Or were they hoping to find a cat, a library, a town, an experience that was genuine, that wasn’t from the past or for the moment, that was different from their lives but somehow familiar? Is that what Iowa is all about? Maybe the heartland isn’t just the place in the middle of the country; maybe it’s also the place in the middle of your chest.

  Whatever they were after, Dewey delivered. The magazine articles and newscasts touched people. We received letters all the time that started, “I’ve never written to a stranger before, but I heard Dewey’s story and . . .” His visitors, all of them, left smitten. I know this not only because they told me or because I saw their eyes and their smiles but because they went home and told people the story. They showed them the pictures. At first they sent letters to friends and relatives. Later, when the technology caught on, they sent e-mails. Dewey’s face, his personality, his story, it all magnified. He received letters from Taiwan, Holland, South Africa, Norway, Australia. He had pen pals in half a dozen countries. A ripple started in a little town in northwest Iowa, and somehow the human network carried it all over the world.

  Whenever I think of Dewey’s popularity, I think of Jack Manders. Jack is now retired, but when Dewey arrived he was a middle school teacher and the pr
esident of our library board. A few years later, when his daughter was accepted at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, Jack found himself attending a reception for the parents of incoming freshmen. As he stood there in an elegant Michigan nightspot slowly sipping a martini, he fell into conversation with a couple from New York City. Eventually they asked where he was from.

  “A small town in Iowa you’ve never heard of.”

  “Oh. Is it near Spencer?”

  “Actually,” he told them with surprise, “it is Spencer.”

  The couple perked up. “Do you ever go to the library?”

  “All the time. In fact, I’m on the board.”

  The charming, well-dressed woman turned to her husband and, with an almost girlish giggle, exclaimed, “It’s Dewey’s daddy!”

  A similar thing happened to another board member, Mike Baehr, on a cruise in the South Pacific. During the meet and greet, Mike and his wife realized many of their fellow passengers had never even heard of Iowa. At about the same time, they realized cruises had a social hierarchy based on how many cruises you’d been on, and since this was their first cruise, they were at the bottom of the pecking order. Then a woman came up to them and said, “I hear you’re from Iowa. Do you know Dewey, the library cat?” What an icebreaker! Mike and Peg were off the outcast list, and Dewey was the talk of the cruise.

  This is not to say everyone knew Dewey. No matter how famous and popular Dewey became, there was always someone with no idea Spencer Public Library had a cat. A family would drive from Nebraska to see Dewey. They would bring gifts, spend two hours playing with him, taking pictures, talking with the staff. Ten minutes after they left, someone would come up to the desk, obviously worried, and whisper, “I don’t want to alarm you, but I just saw a cat in the building.”

  “Yes,” we would whisper back. “He lives here. He’s the world’s most famous library cat.”

  “Oh,” they’d say with a smile, “then I guess you already know.”

  The visitors who truly touched me, though, the ones I remember clearly, were the young parents from Texas and their six-year-old daughter. As soon as they entered the library, it was clear this was a special trip for her. Was she sick? Was she dealing with a trauma? I don’t know why, but I had the feeling the parents offered her one wish, and this was it. The girl wanted to meet Dewey. And, I noticed, she had brought a present.

  “It’s a toy mouse,” her father told me. He was smiling, but I could tell he was intensely worried. This was no ordinary spur-of-the-moment visit.

  As I smiled back at him, only one thought was going through my mind: “I hope that toy mouse has catnip in it.” Dewey would regularly go through periods where he wanted nothing to do with any toy that didn’t contain catnip. Unfortunately this was one of those times.

  All I said was, “I’ll go get Dewey.”

  Dewey was asleep in his new fake fur–lined bed, which we kept outside my office door in front of a heating unit. As I woke him up I tried a little mental telepathy: “Please, Dewey, please. This one’s important.” He was so tired, he barely opened his eyes.

  The little girl was hesitant at first, as many children are, so the mother petted Dewey first. Dewey lay there like a sack of potatoes. The girl eventually reached out to pet him, and Dewey woke up enough to lean into her hand. The father sat down and put both Dewey and the girl on his lap. Dewey immediately snuggled up against her.

  They sat like that for a minute or two. Finally the girl showed him the present she had brought, with its carefully tied ribbon and bow. Dewey perked up, but I could tell he was still tired. He would have preferred to snooze in the girl’s lap all morning. “Come on, Dewey,” I thought. “Snap out of it.” The girl unwrapped the gift, and sure enough, it was a plain toy mouse, no catnip in sight. My heart sank. This was going to be a disaster.

  The girl dangled the mouse in front of Dewey’s sleepy eyes to get his attention. Then she delicately tossed it a few feet away. As soon as it hit the ground, Dewey jumped on it. He chased that toy; he threw it in the air; he batted it with his paws. The girl giggled with delight. Dewey never played with it again, but while that little girl was here, he loved that little mouse. He gave that mouse every ounce of energy he had. And the little girl beamed. She just beamed. She had come hundreds of miles to see a cat, and she was not disappointed. Why did I ever worry about Dewey? He always came through.

  DEWEY’S JOB DESCRIPTION

  Written in response to the question, “So what is Dewey’s job?” which was often asked after people found out Dewey received a 15 percent library employee discount from Dr. Esterly.

  1. Reducing stress for all humans who pay attention to him.

  2. Sitting by the front door every morning at nine to greet the public as they enter the library.

  3. Sampling all boxes that enter the library for security problems and comfort level.

  4. Attending all meetings in the Round Room as official library ambassador.

  5. Providing comic relief for staff and visitors.

  6. Climbing in book bags and briefcases while patrons are studying or trying to retrieve needed papers.

  7. Generating free national and worldwide publicity for Spencer Public Library. (This entails sitting still for photographs, smiling for the camera, and generally being cute.)

  8. Working toward status as world’s most finicky cat by refusing all but the most expensive, delectable foods.

  Chapter 21

  What Makes Us Special?

  I’ll always remember the former city manager. Every time he saw me, he said with a smile, “Are you girls at the library still mooning over that cat?” Maybe he was trying to be funny, but I couldn’t help but feel offended. Girls! That word might be a term of endearment, but I got the feeling he was putting me in my place, that he was speaking for a large block of community leaders who couldn’t even conceive of making a fuss over things like books, libraries, and cats. That was girl stuff.

  Did the town even need a cat anymore? It was the twenty-first century, after all, and Spencer was thriving. In the late 1990s, the YMCA completed a $2 million renovation. The Spencer Regional Hospital expanded twice. Thanks to $170,000 in donations and 250 volunteers, the modest new playground planned for East Lynch Park turned into a 30,000-square-foot megaplayground called the Miracle on South Fourth Street. Why not just take the next step and attract . . . a casino?

  When Iowa decided to issue a few casino licenses in 2003, some community leaders sensed an opportunity to catapult Spencer into the biggest little small town in America. They courted developers, even picked out a location along the river on the southwest edge of town, and drew up plans. But for many of us, the casino in 2003 looked like the slaughterhouse in 1993—a chance to put on economic muscle, but at a high cost. Sure, the casino would generate good jobs and, according to estimates, more than a million dollars in mandatory charitable contributions a year, but would we ever be the same town again? Would we lose our identity and become, in our own eyes and everyone else’s around, the casino town? The debate went back and forth, but in the end the casino met the same fate as the Montfort plant: the community voted it down. The casino was authorized in Palo Alto County, the county east of us, and built in Emmetsburg, only twenty-five miles away.

  Maybe when we voted down the casino we once again turned our backs on the future. Maybe we were selling out our history as a progressive town. Maybe we were being naive. But in Spencer we believe in building on what we have.

  We have the Clay County Fair, one of the best county fairs in the United States and a tradition for almost a hundred years. Clay County has fewer than 20,000 residents, but the fair attracts more than 300,000 people for nine days of rides, concerts, food, and fun. We have a full-size track for races and tractor pulls, a separate ring for horses, and long metal barns for everything from chickens to llamas. There are hay wagons to take you from the parking lot (a grass field) to the front gate. We’ve even installed a sky bucket system to carry people from one end
of the fair to the other. There’s a year-round sign about ten miles south of Spencer, on the main road (and only road if you’re driving more than a few miles), that counts down the weeks to the fair. It’s painted on a brick building built on the highest hill in the area.

  We have Grand Avenue, a historic treasure, rebuilt in 1931 and revived in 1987. In the late 1990s, our city planner, Kirby Schmidt, spent two years researching our downtown strip. Kirby was one of the native sons who almost left Spencer during the crisis of the 1980s. His brother left for the East Coast, his sister for the West Coast. Kirby sat down at the kitchen table with his young family, and they decided to stick it out. The economy turned; Kirby got a job with the city. A few years later, I gave him the key to the library, and he started coming in at six every morning to search through microfiche files, old newspapers, and local histories. Dewey mostly slept through these early visits; in the morning, he only had eyes for me.

  In 1999, Grand Avenue between Third Street and Eighth Street was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The area was cited as a remarkable example of Prairie Deco and one of the few surviving comprehensive models of Depression-era urban planning. It usually took two or three applications to make the Registry, but thanks to Kirby Schmidt, Grand Avenue made it by unanimous vote on the first application. Around the same time, Kirby’s sister moved her family back to Spencer from Seattle. She wanted to raise her kids the old-fashioned way: in Iowa.

  That’s another of Spencer’s unique and valuable assets: its people. We are good, solid, hardworking midwesterners. We are proud but humble. We don’t brag. We believe your worth is measured by the respect of your neighbors, and there is no place we’d rather be than with those neighbors right here in Spencer, Iowa. We are woven not just into this land, which our families have worked for generations, but to one another. And a bright shining thread, popping up in a hundred places in that tapestry, is Dewey.