Kay McElroy’s remarkable “second career” as the head of an animal sanctuary may have been inspired by a couple of items she discovered in a newspaper.
But for McElroy, who died Thursday at age 74, her obituary will not be the end of her story.
“Not on my watch,” said Nancy Gschwendtner, who took over as director of Cedarhill Animal Sanctuary near Caledonia three years ago when McElroy’s health began a steep decline. “I’m not going to let Kay down.”
For almost 30 years, McElroy was the driving force of Cedarhill, the sanctuary she founded to provide homes to hundreds of animals. The menagerie includes a variety of animals from exotic to domestic, all with one thing in common: They had been neglected, abused or abandoned.
Today, Cedarhill is home to more than 250 animals, including 200 domestic cats, along with a dozen tigers, three bobcats and two lions. There are 10 dogs and seven pigs who also call Cedarhill home.
“What Kay has done out there is extraordinary,” said Andy Shores, a doctor of veterinary medicine at Mississippi State who has provided services for the sanctuary’s exotic cats for the past 18 years. “She did her dead-level best to make sure everything was the best quality. Whatever it took, she did it. She had an extraordinary heart for these animals.”
The accidental advocate
Cheryl Craig has been McElroy’s partner for 42 years, but they’ve known each other almost their entire lives.
“She lived across the street from my grandparents’ house back in Oklahoma,” said Craig, 73. “She went to my birthday party when I was 2.”
Together, McElroy and Craig operated health-care businesses, beginning in 1980. But it was a move to Columbus in the mid-1980s that would change the current of their lives.
“Everywhere we went, Kay always like to read the local newspaper,” Craig said. “…She liked to read the ‘for sale’ (classified advertising) section.”
In 1987, Kay stumbled across one such newspaper item.
A man had placed an ad for a six-month-old cougar cub he wanted to sell.
Out of curiosity, McElroy went to see the cub and was appalled by its condition. It had been kept in a small dog kennel and was malnourished and suffering from badly infected paws, most likely the result of a botched de-clawing effort.
McElroy convinced the owner to trade the cub to her for an old tractor. But she didn’t plan to keep the cub and certainly did not anticipate the journey that would unwind over the next 30 years.
“The plan was to find him a home,” Craig said. “It didn’t work out that way. We started out looking for a home for the cub, but what we found instead was more animals that needed help.”
It dawned on McElroy that there were far more neglected and abused animals than there were people willing to provide them a safe, healthy home.
By 1990, McElroy and Craig had incorporated their sanctuary as a 501c3 nonprofit. Within five years, their collection had grown to more than 200 animals. Craig said it became McElroy’s second career.
“She once told me her life started when she opened Cedarhill,” Gschwendtner said. “From that moment, animals were her complete world.”
The path of most resistance
The genesis of Cedarhill may have been accidental, but the vision McElroy had for the sanctuary was not.
“She knew almost from the start,” Craig said. “I remember standing out on the hill out here and listening to her talk about what it would be. It was mostly trees then. But she looked out and would say, ‘OK. We’re going to build this there. We’ll do this there. Over there, we’ll do this.’ She had a vision for what it would be, then we made it happen.”
One of the most important — and most criticized — decisions McElroy made was that Cedarhill would not be open to the public, a decision that made the operation more difficult to sustain financially while validating her unwavering dedication to the animals above all other concerns.
For Tanya Smith, founder of Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, the decision to close the sanctuary to the public was a bold move.
Turpentine Creek charges a $20 admission fee, money it uses to operate the facility, which is home to more than 100 exotic cats.
“We depend on being open to the public to cover our expenses,” Smith said. “Kay chose not to do that. Every founder has their own reasons for doing things they way they do. But I can’t imagine what she has done is easy.”
Each year, it costs Cedarhill $800,000 to $1 million to provide homes, food and services to up to 320 animals, money raised entirely from private donations.
“She could have probably brought in a hell of a lot more money if she had opened it to the public,” Gschwendtner said. “She just wouldn’t do it.”
That decision meant personal sacrifice as well.
“She lived in a small house and drove a beat-up old car,” said Dr. Bonnie Blake of Boswell’s Animal Clinic who has provided care for the sanctuary’s domestic animals for the past 15 years. “Every penny that came in went to the care of the animals.”
McElroy’s decision to keep the sanctuary closed to the public wasn’t popular among the more curious people in the community, a fact that didn’t seem to faze her.
“She wasn’t exactly what you would call a people-person anyway,” Gschwendtner said. “She thought they were annoying. She preferred the animals. She always said an animal had never let her down.”
Blake said McElroy’s passion for the animals bordered on fierceness.
“We had a great relationship,” Blake said. “But I will say she was adamant about how she wanted things done. She laid down the law pretty quickly with her staff. If they didn’t do things the way she thought was the right way, there weren’t around long. She knew what it took to keep the animals happy and healthy. You know, it’s not always about fuzzy puppies and cuddly kittens. It can be difficult. A lot of people took her as being very blunt because she was so passionate about the animals.”
That passion was the source of her conviction that Cedarhill would remain closed to the public.
“She told me it was because … 99 percent of the animals, whether they were domestic cats or lions or tigers, came from situations where people had abused them,” Blake said. “For those animals, people were their triggers. That was the bottom line with her. Nothing was more important to her than making sure animals felt safe.”
In a 2010 profile in The Dispatch, McElroy put it quite succinctly.
“Sanctuaries are for animals,” she said. “Zoos are for people. I’m not interested in running a zoo.”
A living legacy
The sheer scale of the Cedarhill operations is impressive, but it’s not what Blake will remember best about its founder.
“Kay had 200-plus cats out there that I helped her with,” Blake said. “What always amazed me is that she treated every one of them as an individual. Every one of them was important. I don’t remember her ever being in a position where something was needed and she said she couldn’t afford it. With her, it was always, ‘Do it. We’ll find a way somehow.'”
Craig said McElroy will be cremated and there are plans for a memorial service in the spring.
“I want to do it in March or April, when the weather is warm,” said Craig, who along with Gschwendtner and the staff will continue to operate the sanctuary.
“Kay and I talked about what would happen when we were gone and made plans for that day,” Craig added. “Everything has been put in the name of the sanctuary and the board of directors will continue to run it after we’re both gone.”
In the final weeks of her life, as McElroy’s illness progressed, she was confined to her bedroom. From there, she could look out and watch the animals she had nurtured for the better part of three decades.
“She was very, very sick,” Gschwendtner said. “Most people would have gone to a nursing facility by then, but Kay wanted to stay close the animals she loved and cared for. So that’s what she did, right up to the end.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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