This week I wanted to talk about a famous cat who was adopted by an entire school. Let's meet a cat named Room 8!
Accoring to the LA Times, in 1952 a grey and white tabby cat wandered into Elysian Heights Elementary school. Explore Historic California mentions that the cat walked around the desks, got some pets and that someone remarked that he was the skinniest cat they had ever seen. When recess came, the children gave the cat some milk and went out. When they returned, they found their lunches had been raided and the culprit fast asleep! Later, when lunchtime came, he followed along and got even more tasty treats from the children's lunches. After that 1st day, it's no wonder that that same grey cat showed up again the next day, and the Room 8 Memorial Cat Foundation says ne never missed a day of school for 16 years, until his death in 1968!
Eventually the cat was adopted by the school children and got his unusual name after the room he entered in 1952.
The LA Times article says he would disappear during summers and school vacations, but the Explore Historic California site mentions at least one summer when he stayed with former student John Hernandez, and their cats, and maybe even fathered some kittens that summer too!
The Explore Historic California site also mentions that Room 8 frequently attended lunch and while feeding him was officially discouraged, he didn't turn his nose up at a sample here and there and became a big boy! Teacher J. Van Heuklon wrote, "Even though seventeen pounds of cat is a lapful it was a good feeling to have him gently purring and kneading his claws in my lap."
News got out about the cat who returned to school each fall, and he became so famous that he started getting fan mail! Explore Historic California says he would get on average 30 letters a month but that there were times when he'd get more than 100 letters in a day! All that mail created a good opportunity for the 5th and 6th graders to learn to write letters - acting as Room 8's secretaries and responding to his fan mail.
As Room 8 grew older, he had some health problems, including a bad case of pnenomia that landed him in the hospital in 1964. After that, he spent his nights and weekends with the Nakano family, who lived near the school. He lived another 4 years after that, and died in 1968 at around 22 years old!
Room 8 was the subject of a mural, a bronze statue, paintings, poems and even had his pawprints embedded in the cement outside of the school. His biography "A Cat Called Room 8" was written in 1966 by teacher Virginia Finley and Beverly Mason, principal of the school. Another mural was created in 2005 by by Yuriko Etue that features the gray feline walking through California history on the side of the school auditorium.
And Room 8's legacy lives on to this day! In 1972 Hettie L. Perry, known as "the cat lady of Pasadena", founded the Room 8 Memorial Cat Foundation, which is now a cat rescue shelter. Click the link to found out more about the cat rescue and the work still going on in honor of famous school cat, Room 8!
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