OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Garth Williams, 84, illustrator
of the E.B. White storybooks Stuart Little
(1945) and Charlotte’s Web (1952), died
May 8 at home in Guanajuato, Mexico.
Raised on a New Jersey farm, Williams
was not an outspoken animal advocate; but
his drawings for Charlotte’s Web, with his
daughter Fiona as the model for Fern, the
girl who saved the runt pig Wilbur, have
helped influence generations of children to
think more kindly of spiders––and think
twice about eating pigs. Williams’ book
The Rabbits’ Wedding (1958) depicted the
marriage of a white rabbit and a black rabbit––earning
the denunciation of the White
Citizens Council of Alabama, and removal
from general circulation by the Alabama
Public Library Service Division.

Catherine C. Blotzer, 69,
cofounder in 1970 with her husband of 50
years, Edward J. Blotzer Jr., of Animal
Care & Welfare Inc., in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, died on April 26. A
Salvation Army volunteer when she met
Edward, Kay was remembered in a eulogy
by Susan Arlene Krul for providing the
telephoning, bookkeeping, filing, and
other support services necessary to keep her
husband on the beat as Pittsburgh’s senior
humane officer for nearly 35 years.