When Barbara Ellen MacLeod starts feeling overwhelmed in her mission to help the cats of Orillia, she thinks of Ted England.
"He is one of the reasons I keep plugging along," said MacLeod, manager and founder of the Comfie Cat Shelter.
England died in February in his 81st year, but MacLeod feels his commitment to the strays near downtown Orillia should not go uncelebrated. She reached out to OrilliaMatters recently to share her thoughts about the keeper of the cats.
MacLeod met England when she moved to Orillia almost 20 years ago. He lived near the end of Colborne Street East at the time, and that's where he looked after dozens of stray cats – in the area of Colborne, Elgin and Scott streets.
"He was a very quiet, soft-spoken person," she recalled, "but he really had a quick temper when people would go after him for looking after the cats. He put up with a lot of verbal abuse."
Even after England moved the the bottom of West Street South, he did his best to visit the cats twice a day, bringing them food and water.
"I don't think the cats were ever not fed," MacLeod said. "He probably took care of more than 500 cats over all the years."
His passion for the well-being of cats, both domesticated and stray, was an inspiration to MacLeod.
"He loved them. He said, 'I'm doing this as long as I can and I don't give a damn,'" she said.
She described her late friend as "a sweet person."
"If we had more people like him, it would be wonderful," MacLeod said. "I miss him."
