Human obituaries
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:
Dorothy Checci-O’Brien, 70, died on August 27 at home in
Plymouth, Massachusetts. A longtime valuable news source for ANIMAL
PEOPLE, Checci-O’Brien stood under five feet tall and weighed less
than 100 pounds, but was fined $405 in October 1985 for allegedly
beating up two hunters she caught trying to shoot waterfowl near her
house despite her “No Hunting” signs. Considered the most effective
pro-animal lobbyist in Massachusetts, working strictly as a
volunteer, Checci-O’Brien earlier led a long and eventually
successful effort to wrest the Ellen Gifford Sheltering Home for Cats
in Brighton from the allegedly self-aggrandizing control of corporate
attorney John G. Kilpatrick Jr., and closely monitored the financial
affairs of the Massachusetts SPCA and the Animal Rescue League of
Boston. New England Anti-Vivisection Society president Theo Capaldo
called Checci-O’Brien “the mother of animal activism in
Massachusetts.” Friends of the Plymouth Pound held a memorial
celebration of her life on September 29.