My Dragon's Lair Sharing is the reason for my being...: Firehouse mourns their 21 year old cat, Maxine

Illness strikes down firefighters' feline queen By Gloria Negri, Globe Staff August 4, 2007

She was born in an alley outside the Oliver Street firehouse, the only survivor of a litter. The firefighters found her when she was 5 weeks old, a scrawny tiger cat, with a mangled tail and one eye barely intact. They fed her and took her to a veterinarian who amputated her tail. They named her Maxine and gave her their hearts, as well as her own miniature condo, they made out of styrofoam and fleece. At the holidays she had her own Christmas tree.

Maxine, the diva of firehouse cats, died after a 21-year reign at Division I Fire Department Headquarters near South Station.

A photo of firehouse cat Maxine hangs at Division I Fire Department Headquarters. Her scratching posts and brush stand as memorials to her 21-year presence at the station. A photo of firehouse cat Maxine hangs at Division I Fire Department Headquarters. Her scratching posts and brush stand as memorials to her 21-year presence at the station. (DAVID L. RYAN/GLOBE STAFF)
Also called Max or Maxie, the petite orange and gray cat was put to sleep Thursday after failing health and the ravages of age made that the only humane thing to do, Lieutenant John Forristall said yesterday.

Members of Engine 1 were mourning, particularly retired firefighter Robert Beals of Wellesley, who was around when she was found hiding in a concrete block in the old firehouse in 1986. She made fast friends even among firefighters who professed to not be cat lovers.

They treated Maxine like a queen and in return, she cuddled up in their coats and on their beds. She rid the old Oliver Street firehouse of mice but had more time for napping when they moved to the rodent-free high-rise station on Purchase Street in the early 1990s.

Maxine was no daredevil, Beals said, and preferred hanging out in the firehouse to riding out to fires. "As soon as the truck lights went on, Maxine ran the other way," he said.

In the Oliver Street station where she lived for seven years, Maxine fed her wanderlust and became "well-traveled" around Boston, Beals said.

"She'd walk over the footbridge over the Expressway down to Northern Avenue. We had to pick her up in the conductor's booth at South Station a number of times. Once a woman picked her up at an outdoor event and took her home to Framingham. I had to go out and get her the next day."

In the mid-1990s, Maxine had a tumor on her thyroid, Beals said. "We took her to Angell Memorial and they told us it would cost $1,100 to treat her. Everyone in the firehouse contributed, and she was cured."

There were no plans for a memorial for Maxine, he said, nor for a replacement.

But an oil painting of Maxine hangs in Beals's home, a reminder of his feline pal.