Spot the Curator Cat

An impromptu day-in-the-life shot from the central staircase of the Harrison House:

Do you feel the feline eyes boring into you from the back parlor? Can you find Frankie in the photo?

Living with a cat in a historic house sometimes feels like a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek! Fortunately, our “Curator Cat” is generally not a danger to the furniture: he’s never yet clawed anything up (knock on wood), his 12 pounds won’t break any sofas, and his three legs keep him from jumping too high (like onto the mantels over the fireplaces—that would certainly be a scare!). We worry primarily about hairballs, but luckily those are easy to track down and clean up. You could say that Frankie is a perfect gentleman! . . . Aside from the black and white cat hair he leaves in his wake. :)

The wonderful thing about having a cat in a museum is that we’ve had no trouble with mice, which old buildings often have. And of course, when Frankie choses new lounging spots he helps us highlight different aspects of the Harrison House, and remember that these rooms were (and are) lived in! At any job and in any home, it can be easy to fall into a routine or take things for granted. The most important job of our curator cat is to remind us of the small joys that surround us every day.