Katie Eldred, Kathleen Jean according to her passport, finally lost the battle to prove she could live forever. At the tender age of 102, she died peacefully on April 12, 2019. She is survived by her three children, Sara (Ginty), Revett, and Gervase (Geoff), 10 grandchildren, who knows how many grandkids, and her last rescue dog Patitas.
Katie never met a dog she didn’t like. She inherited the dog bug from her sister Daphne when she, Katie, was just in her late teens and acquired her first Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, on which breed she became, over the years, one of the world’s acknowledged experts, breeding, advising, and later judging, all under the name Turnworth Cavaliers, the name being derived from when she lived in the village of Turnworth, Dorset.
She met and married John Eldred and bore him three children, but parted ways soon after. She then raised the three children, pretty much by herself, in post-war Britain on a secretary’s salary, all the time surrounded by an indeterminate number of the aforesaid Cavaliers. This established her as an unbeatable role model for her offspring.
In her 40s, when two of her three children had left home, Katie and Geoff followed Sara and emigrated to the United States. Katie settled first in Novato, north of San Francisco, but later moved south and lived happily for many years in Agua Dulce in the Mojave desert outside Los Angeles, surrounded by dogs and goats, and working for McGraw-Hill Publishing Company. She criss-crossed the US numerous times attending dog shows.
When she retired she relocated to British Columbia where her three children had, by happenstance, all found themselves living within a day’s drive of each other, and continued her dedication to improving the Cavalier breed.
She is an honorary member of the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club of the UK, the CKCSC of Canada, CKCSC of Puget Sound (COPS), CKCSC of BC, and CKCSC of Oregon Trail. She assisted at the very beginning of the breed in choosing the initial breed stock accepted by the UK Kennel Club. Her breeding appears somewhere back far enough in the pedigrees of most living Cavaliers.
Katie was in her 90s before she admitted to being less able to fend for herself all the time, and so moved in with Sara. In fact, she drove herself around until she was about 97, stopping only after the bumps and dings on her car were explained by her grandson as "parking by Braille". Only when she passed the century mark did it become apparent that it was time for her to move into an assisted living facility. It was there that she spent her last year and in which she quietly passed away.
If you knew Katie and would like to honour her memory, please give a few dollars to your favourite animal charity.
Will Rogers said “If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die I want to go wherever they went.” We are fairly sure that’s where Katie is now.
TRIBUTE TO KATIE ELDRED
1917 – 2019
As everyone already knows the history of Katie Eldred and her Turnworth Cavaliers
dating back to her involvement in England, the U.S. and Canada, I won’t repeat it, but
would like to talk about the Katie Eldred I knew and what she has accomplished in
British Columbia for the love of Cavaliers.
I met Katie approximately 35 years ago. She was one of the first people to bring
Cavaliers to British Columbia. My mother, Olivia Darbyshire moved from Alberta to
British Columbia in 1984 with her Cavaliers and Pekingese. Katie and her became
very good friends as well as friendly rivals in the dog show ring. When I moved to
British Columbia in 1985 with the rest of our dogs my mother sold her house and it was
Katie who found us a home with acreage. From there we travelled to dog shows
together in British Columbia as well as the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club, U.S.A.
shows. My mother and Katie would sit at ringside and critique all the Cavaliers.
Neither of them was shy about saying exactly what they thought. You learned very
quickly if you didn’t want to hear the truth about your dog then don’t ask for their
opinion.
Katie was very involved in an organization called FIDO which would promote breeds in
malls and exhibition venues as well as people could phone the members and ask
questions about the breeds and where to purchase them. It was formed to educate the
public as well as protect the breeds from Pet Shops and Puppy Mills.
In 1986 Katie and my mother decided to form a British Columbia Cavalier Club. They
worked tirelessly holding functions to raise money and get the very small Cavalier
community to join. In 1988 they sent in the Application for Recognition of a Club to
the Canadian Kennel Club. There were 13 members of which Katie was the President.
February 1st, 1989 The Canadian Kennel Club approved the application. The first
Specialty Show was October 7th, 1992 in which Jane Lilley of West Sussex, England
was the Judge. The entry was 38 which was very surprising, for at that time there
were not many Cavaliers in the area.
On October 8th, 2016 the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club of BC held its 25th
Specialty. It was decided for this milestone event that we should honor our founding
members. Katie’s daughter, Sara brought Katie. She was 99-1/2 years old. (See
photo)
Katie Eldred was indeed an ambassador to the Cavalier and will be thought of fondly
for years to come.
Louise Pearce
I have sparse and scattered memories involving Ma (as we called her – solely because she told us decades ago “call me whatever you want except don’t call me ‘Ma’”. So of course being Eldreds ….!)
The earliest I can recall is being in a child seat on the back of her bike (which I remember as being some HUGE cast iron affair!) being ridden up Berrybarn Lane in West Wittering to go to primary school, often finding when I got there that I had forgotten my packed lunch and Ma would have to cycle back for it. I would have been about five.
A later memory is at Woodspeen Lodge near Newbury, she would be taking the dogs for a walk to the village of Speen and would ask if I wanted to come along. Often I would decline, and then sometimes a few minutes after her departure I would secretly ‘track’ her across the countryside, thinking what a clever undercover tracker I was. If ever I lost the trail, a quick stand upright would show me this tall regal woman striding across the countryside with a pack of anywhere between three and six dogs running all around her. Eventually I would get close enough and jump up, yelling “gotcha” and catching her ‘by surprise’. I never did know whether she was taken in by my furtive tracking or whether she knew I was behind her every time I did it.
Another Woodspeen memory is her occasionally suddenly hustling us kids out the front door of the house, ‘shushing’ us and telling us not to make a sound; turns out she had spied the local vicar coming to the back door and she wanted to avoid any discussion with him about attending church or some village fete or whatever, preferring instead for us all to hide in the spinney behind the house. Or the local bobby came to tell her that her donkey and goat had escaped the paddock and were last seen roaming the village of Stockcross and would she please arrange to recapture them – NOW!
And when we later moved to the Isle of Wight Katie had a go at running a Bed & Breakfast in Seaview, but after one season I think she found it way too much work constantly being nice to complete strangers and catering to these humans’ every whim. And of course the inevitable dogs running around the establishment probably did not endear her lodgings to some of the guests! Now, if she had been operating a kennel …..
