O’le was a helper cat that looked as if he had lived a thousand years.  Old and arthritic, he would care for other cats and kittens. O’le would wash them and train them to be good cats. He was a nondescript gray cat with a bit of yellow on the belly.  Torn ears and scares on his face.

He was named O’le by a very old lady who lived in a manufactured home in a trailer park in the farmland outside Hillsboro.  They were a pair.  Margaret was raised in a cave/sod home in the side of a mountain in a very cold Canadian countryside.  O’le would come up the ramped to her front door every day.  He had done that for years and she did not know where he came from or where he went after eating.  She fed him until he came to me because Margaret was too ill and fell a lot.

At my home, he put the other cats in their place, but also cared for others that were sick.  O’le would wash kittens and big cats alike.

It was his intense green eyes that made you think he had been around before man and he must know everything.  He trained other cats to be helpers and they have continued to this day even though he has been gone almost 10 years.

St. O’le still lives in our hearts.

— Glacier & Ron from Sheridan, OR