Palmyre Madeleine Cox Merson

Born July 13, 1908, Pam Cox grew up in Port Chester, New York, in a gothic-style home at 38 Elizabeth Street, not far from the center of town. Though her mother, Beatrice Munson Cox, preferred living in town, her father, Alexander James Cox, liked spending his free time in the country around Goldens Bridge, New York, where he could enjoy being around horses and hounds.

Alec Cox had come from County Cork, Ireland, sometime in the 1880s. His business was supplying the households of Port Chester and surrounding towns with coal and ice. The coal was purchased from distributors and delivered to the coal bins in the basement of a home, where it sat close to the home's furnace, ready to be shoveled into the furnace to heat the home and make hot water. The ice was cut in large blocks from the area's frozen ponds throughout the winter, stored in ice houses, and delivered in smaller blocks to homes for people to place in the bottom of the "ice boxes" in which they stored their dairy products and meats.

With a father from Ireland and a mother whose family had earlier emigrated from France, young Pam dreamed of discovering royal ancestors in her family tree. One day, full of hope, she asked her father if perhaps there was a prince or princess back in Irish history from whom the Coxes were descended. Not wanting to encourage this kind of dreaming, Alec said to her, "Pammy, most of our ancestors were horse thieves. The less anyone knows about them, the better off we are!"

So Pam gave up dreaming about royalty. Instead, she joined her father in celebrating a life filled with horses and hounds. She looked forward to the day when she could live on a farm with lots of animals. But first she had to survive a world war, a stock market crash, a depression, and another world war. And survive she did. When she died on September 28, 1957 at the age of 49, she lived on a Pennsylvania farm filled with horses, beagles, sheep, chickens, cattle, and cats. And lots of rats.

Martin's Goat-Cart

In 1914, the Great War had started in Europe but did not yet include the United States. Eight-year-old Maurice Martin Merson lived in Portsmouth, Virginia, where a German battleship was making a port call. The boy's parents, Jenny Cohen and Charles Merson, were excited about the arrival of the German warship. While they were observant Jews, they were especially proud of their German heritage.

Jenny said to her friends, "We must enter the War!"

"Why should we enter the War?" said her friends. "Americans want to stay out of it."

And Jenny answered, "We must help the German."

"Jenny," explained her friends, "if we enter the War, it will not be to help the German; it will be to defeat the Germans. If you know what's good for you, don't talk about helping the Germans. It will only get you in trouble."

A short time later, it was determined that, under the laws of neutrality, the US had to intern the German battleship. The German crew had to be held for the duration of the war. A committee of citizens was appointed to find homes for members of the crew. As a fluent speaker of German, Jenny Cohen was appointed head of the committee and managed to find homes for all of the German sailors. Her wish to help the Germans was granted.

Soon the US entered the war and eventually the sailors were sent home in exchange for American prisoners held by the Germans. Before they left Portsmouth, the German sailors gave their ship's mascot, a huge black Angora goat, as a gift to the young son of the woman who had eased their stay in America. Included in the gift was a goat-cart and harness. Soon young Maurice, now nearly twelve, was driving the streets of Portsmouth in his shiny new goat-cart. He must have felt like the Kaiser himself!

Tyler's First Pet

When Tyler was six, Anne and I gave him permission to adopt a dog. He had been asking for a dog for at least two years. When he visited his relatives in West Virginia, they all had dogs. When we visited the Sandanona Hounds in Millbrook, New York, there were dogs galore. He kept asking for a dog, and he finally wore us down.

We lived in an apartment on the Upper East Side, not far from the New York City animal shelter. On our first visit, the shelter staff required us to take the tour. They explained that an animal had to be adopted within thirty days from the time he or she arrived at the shelter. If not, the animal was put to sleep.

To be sure he understood, Tyler asked, "Does that mean you kill them?"

"Yes," answered our guide, "that's what it means."

And so we walked from cage to cage as the guide introduced each dog or cat. "This is Benny, and this is Greta, and this is Arthur, and this is Sox."

As we passed each cage, Tyler turned over each tag to see how long that animal had been in the shelter. Reading off the tags, he recited the number of days that animal had been at the shelter.

"Six days for Benny, fourteen days for Greta, eleven days for Arthur, twenty-one days for Sox," he called out.

And then we came to a cage containing a cat named Brooks. She was old, sleepy, and could not have shown less interest in us. She glanced briefly over her shoulder at us as we stood in front of her cage, and then turned away to resume her nap.

Tyler turned over her name tag and read out, "Twenty-nine days."

"We'll take her," he said. And that was how Brooks came to live with us. She never showed much more interest in us than she did at our first meeting. But I knew that Tyler had made the right choice, not only for Brooks but for himself.