Shelter’s start took dedicated volunteers

It was called Doctor Wood’s stable, and for countless animals it was a blessed haven from the cruelties and tribulations of a hard world.

Regardless of the hour, the doors of the Market Street livery were open to those of gentle hand and good hearts who brought the stray and injured creatures of the city and county there. When the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in 1914, it carried the name, spirit and little else.

The society consisted of a network of dedicated volunteers who made themselves available around the clock to help animals in need. These unsung champions of beast and fowl used their own vehicles to pick up animals in need of human help.

Helping friends in need

They investigated reports of cruelty, found good homes for animals and often paid for medical care with their own funds. Defenders all, but some stood particularly high.

One sterling example is Anna Grace Lyon, who, in 1934 — during some of the darkest days of the Great Depression — gave $5,000 to the society. In the following years people like Agnes Rothery Pratt, Mr. and Mrs. Ford Hibbard, Linnwood Lehman, Mrs. Oscar Swineford, Mr. and Mrs. William Weedon and Lucy Fowler combined efforts to help needy animals.

These folks and others offered their homes as sanctuaries for lost and stray dogs and cats while the pets waited to be found or adopted. Just before her death in 1953, Mrs. Pratt requested that her fellow society members make a promise that a real shelter be built.

Pratt, the author of “Houses Virginians Have Loved” and “New Roads in Old Virginia,” donated a $1,000 to get things going. The money was used wisely to promote a fundraising campaign.

A place to call home

In 1956 there was enough money in the coffer to purchase eight acres of land off Rio Road. A cinderblock chicken coop soon was transformed into a shelter worthy of the name.

On Dec. 20, 1956, the new SPCA formally opened, and the critters in the area got a much-needed Christmas present. When the redoubtable Sally Mead became the director of Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA in 1967, the animals got a guardian who would protect them with what became a legendary zeal.

In later years Mead would comment that she took the job only until a permanent person could be found.

Born in Douglas, Ariz., on May 20, 1920, she was raised in Pasadena, Calif. She credited her father with instilling in her a respect and love for animals.

A 1942 graduate of Sweet Briar College, Mead

served overseas with the American Red Cross during World War II.

After the war she worked at the Russian Research Center at Harvard University and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and for many years was the manager of the Chalfonte Hotel in Cape May, N.J.

Mead was enjoying a “very pleasant job” at the University of Virginia, where her husband, Ernest C. Mead Jr., was a professor, when she started her career with the SPCA.

In those days there weren’t places of refuge like the Wildlife Center of Virginia, so the local SPCA became an interesting menagerie.

As the years passed, critter celebrities like Ethel the pig, Jean Harlow the donkey, Charlotte the lamb and Pansy the pony all basked in the love of their many admirers.

And woe to all who foolishly ventured into Mead’s domain with a lame excuse for committing a sin such as not getting licenses for their dogs.

“I don’t give a #({$%(^! if your dog lives on Mars, it needs a license,” Mead told one newcomer to the area who met her while retrieving his stray dog.

Then as she produced a cigarette from a tin bandage container and lit it off the one she was finishing, she showed the side of her personality that made people love her.

“Real nice dog, though,” Mead had said with a smile.

The matriarch of the wronged and misplaced was extremely protective of her charges. During her stewardship people joked that it was easier to adopt a child than adopt an animal at the local SPCA.

Mead was the first to agree with the assessment.

“I want to make it [adoption] just as difficult as possible,” Mead told a reporter with The Daily Progress during an interview in 1987.

“You hear about all these programs like ‘adopt-a-cat month.’

“Phooey. We spend more time discouraging than encouraging.”

This was particularly true if the prospective adopter was a UVa student. Mead deemed the students “impulsive, young” and prone to moving around a lot.

Before allowing a student to adopt a pet, Mead would call his or her parents to see if they would give their blessing on the transaction. If not, the process ended right there.

For two decades Mead filled a three-minute-a-day radio slot on WINA Radio with sound scoldings, good advice and no-spin straight talk. One afternoon she talked about a stray pet that had been picked up and was being housed at the shelter.

“I called the owner’s home and got a snappy answering machine recording that said he’s on a cruise in the Caribbean,” Mead said in her gravelly two-pack-a-day voice.

“It ended with ‘Aloha.’ Well, who’s taking care of the dog while he’s off pleasuring himself?”

It’s beyond imagination what that owner faced when he showed up to claim his wayward pooch. During the 1987 interview Mead explained why she was so protective of the creatures that came under her care.

“We’re not bleeding hearts, but for most of the animals in here, we’re their only family,” Mead said.

“Somebody’s got to speak for them, and we do — loudly. The quality of their life is very important.”

Only death could take Mead from her beloved animals and the temporary job that became her calling. She died on May 7, 1989, and was laid to rest in the Grace Church cemetery in Cismont.

In September 2004 a new and greatly expanded CASPCA opened on Berkmar Drive.

At the center of the facility is the Sally Mead memorial courtyard, where prospective owners can spend time with the animals they’re considering adopting.

The nationally renowned facility is a tremendous improvement from Doctor Wood’s stable. The love, care and devotion for animals found at both locations has not changed.

In the end it might be found that such places help redeem, in some small measure, the human failings that make them necessary.