Tom and Baby: The Barlow Drug Store Cats

My family is fortunate that our Aunt Juanita loved to share the family’s history. In the 1990s, she put together genealogies and stories from her life and gave us all copies. I hope you enjoy her telling of

Tom and Baby, The Barlow Drug Store Cats.

In the summer of 1925, a mother cat brought two kittens, one at a time, from the confectionary store down to our drug store, a distance of two blocks. The kittens did not have their eyes open yet. The mother cat never came back, so we fed them with a dropper until they learned to lap milk.

We named the male kitten Tom. He was a striped tabby. The other kitten was a female. She was mostly gray with a patch of white on her throat and paws. We named her Baby.

A large basket with a warm blanket was their bed. They slept and played and delighted the customers and us.

In the winter, Baby became sick and died.

We sold newspapers which we put on a long, low radiator. This was Tom’s favorite place to sleep.

After a while, Tom found a delightful field two lots away from the store.

Occasionally, he brought a mouse back to the store. Sometimes it was alive and other times it would be dead.

If Tom was not around when we closed the store at night, we went to the field and called him. He would come to us immediately.

In 1933 we were going to move our store to another location. We thought Tom might be unhappy, so we asked Dr. Belloff, our veterinarian, [what to do.] He took Tom to his sister’s farm in Stelton on Plainfield Ave.

Several months later my mother was passing the back door of the old drug store on her way to the post office. All of a sudden, Tom ran to her. She was happy but very surprised.

Mother took Tom home where he lived out his life in complete happiness with cooked liver in his diet every day.

In order to get back to the drug store, Tom had to cross the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks or come by the way of the underpass on Plainfield Ave. Which way we will never know.

JBM

February 20, 1995, Age 86