A Sister's Remembrance ...

We were 3 sisters, Myrna, Irene and Darlene, born in a small Texas German community eighty miles from the Mexican border. Animals were always part of our lives, especially cats and dogs. Darlene was the youngest of the three of us, and she had a special talent with animals. She could teach dogs to sit up, roll over, fetch, jump over obstacles, shake hands and perform other tricks. Nadia, her niece, remembers Darlene training Rhett (yes, named after Clark Gable’s character in Gone With the Wind) to do all of these moves – she lived in Austin, Texas at the time and brought Rhett to live with our mother in San Antonio when Darlene moved to Washington, DC.

Dogs weren’t a practical option in DC for her, but Darlene was able to have cats. Some of Darlene’s favorite cats were Madeline, Casey and Stevie. Irene remembers Darlene wadding up paper into balls and throwing them for Casey to fetch. Casey loved to climb into plastic newspaper bags which always made Darlene laugh. One of her rescue cats was named Stevie (his eyelashes had grown into his eyes) – he was a blind cat and was named after Stevie Wonder. Stevie was able to maneuver all three stories of Darlene’s townhouse, and he became a fixture in her life. Her favorite cat was a long-haired multicolored calico named Madeline whose picture is on the website. Madeline’s ashes are buried with Darlene at the family gravesite in San Antonio, Texas.

We established the memorial fund in Darlene’s honor and hope that other animal lovers will contribute to the fund so that stray and abandoned animals in the DC area can be cared for by the ASAP volunteers.