By Jennifer Carrasco

My Great Grandpa Charlie McCabe gathered no moss. In fact, he didn't gather much of anything when it came to earthly goods, but he married his true love, Mary Bohan, fathered 5 good kids, and that was about it when it came to his worldly assets.

Twelve year old Charlie had sailed over to Boston in steerage from Ireland because he was starving. It was 1848, the potato famine was on, and evidently  the British didn't consider him one of the deserving poor to nourish with gruel and the opportunity to hack out roads on the rocky mountain passes of Wicklow County.

Charlie stayed for 2 years with Boston relatives, but after they tired of feeding a growing boy, they shipped him up to Maine at the age of 14 to be a logger. He logged for some time there until he took off for the West in his 20's, and was camped out next to the Pataha creek in the Palouse region of Washington state, on April 14,1865, the day Lincoln was shot. Lovely country, but Great Grandad never homesteaded any land in the Palouse. The man was restless, uninterested in in farming and loved to roam. He also fancied himself to be a businessman.

During Charlie's junkets up and down the Columbia River in search of a quick buck, he was informed by a friend in Portland that the newly incorporated city of Boise, Idaho was infested with rats and mice. That city desperately needed some good ratter cats to take care of the varmits. Also, since mining was going on in parts of Idaho, Boise needed dynamite for blasting.

Great Grandad Charlie decided to provide both goods to Boise in one trip.  He rounded up 30 feral cats and cases of dynamite and a string of 15 mules. He made 30 "cat bags" to hang one on each side of the back haunch of each mule and draped a sack of dynamite sticks over each of the mule's front shoulders. His old mare Molly carried Grandad, thirty cat leashes made from leather strips, and a lot of dried venison and salmon which was chow for Charlie, his cats and his big mastiff Mick. 

When grandfather set up camp, he'd hobble the mules, set them to graze and drink and then he "walked"10 unhappy cats at a time, fed and watered them and tied them to a nearby tree. He fed Mick, and he'd make a fire, boil a little venison or chew on some salmon and forage some berries or camas root for dinner. Often, he'd drop a line to catch some fresh trout or shoot and cook a rabbit.

All in all, it was a very complicated arrangement, but my grandfather was confident he would make a killing.

Unfortunately, he did.  As Charlie and his string of mules, cats and dynamite wended their way along the the high cliffs overlooking the Columbia, one unfortunate mule made a misstep and tumbled right off a cliff to .... BOOM! Smithereens. Charlie cussed some fine Irish phrases, then, minus a mule, one sack of dynamite and two cats, he chalked it up to a loss and continued on to Boise.

So, 28 cats arrived in Boise and made short work of the rats, and Charlie earned some jingle in his pocket from his cat/dynamite/mule sales. And unless some outsider has brought a fancy cat like a Persian long hair or a noisy Siamese kitty to Boise, you can count on it that today your darling Boise Tabby or your Marmalade Precious has a bit of Charlie McCabe's well traveled Portland cat DNA as part of its ancestral tree.

Jennifer Carrasco is a longtime West Seattle resident and internationally recognized muralist whose work combines historical depth, mythic storytelling, and botanical elegance. With decades of experience painting large-scale trompe l’oeil and chinoiserie murals for clients ranging from Tommy Bahama to private collectors, she brings a distinctive Northwest voice to decorative arts. Her artistic journey has taken her from Peace Corps service and teaching in the Philippines to NEA residencies across the globe, and long ago she chose to make West Seattle her home.