A Tiny Little Fat Cat for the Aviation Museum
By Crystal Schelle
Giuseppe Bellanca is a demanding coworker. He always wants to be fed, likes to nap at the desk, tends to play more than get his work done, and expects someone else to clean up his messes. But this funny cat will more than make up for his antics by bribing people with his purrs and snuggles.
Giuseppe is the Hagerstown Aviation Museum’s on-campus mascot and has been capturing hearts since he was discovered last year. Karen Hemenway, the donor engagement and event coordinator for the museum, is Giuseppe’s handler.
Last October, four kittens were discovered in a drainage pipe in a museum storage unit by executive director John Seburn and curator Kurtis Meyers. They took them to the Humane Society of Washington County and named them all with reference to people of flight: Sherman for Sherman Fairchild who started Fairchild Aircraft; PT after the PT-19 aircraft; Bickle for Helen Bickle who is referred to as “the flying schoolmarm,” and Giuseppe for Giuseppe Bellanca, an Italian engineer who designed two planes for the Maryland Pressed Steel Company of Hagerstown.
Unfortunately, two of the kittens passed away soon after. The other two needed more care. Hemenway took them home but kept them apart from the family’s older cats. Although the third kitten put up a valiant fight, that one, too, passed away.
But the fourth one, Giuseppe, thrived. As he grew, he began to socialize with humans. When he got big enough, she says, they started putting him in a vest so he could be in a harness. But with her older cats already at home, Hemenway decided that the best place for Giuseppe was at the Hagerstown Aviation Museum as a mascot. And the staff were more than willing to accept him.
Giuseppe in the cockpit of an airplane on display at the Hagerstown
Aviation Museum.
“You know how there’s always this trope that men don’t like cats? That doesn’t exist over here (at the museum),” she says.
Hemenway says the mostly male staff and board have cats at home and love to stop in and say hi to Guiseppe.
Volunteer Jack Seburn, the father of the executive director, helps Hemenway tend to Guiseppe.
“The fact that he’s so well-loved by all of the staff and volunteers, it just made it seem like the perfect home for him,” she says.
The cat’s schedule begins when Hemenway arrives at work at 8 a.m. She usually has to wake him.
“And he’ll yell at me and say hi and give me approximately two minutes of purring, and that’s it. That’s all I get for the day,” she says laughingly.
Then he likes to roughhouse for about 15 minutes with either herself or Jack Seburn, and then he gets to work wandering around the museum. He loves to hang out at the boardroom table to show he is the Head Kitty-in-Charge. He’ll continue to play and act like, well, a kitten before he has to nap to get recharged.
Hemenway has a special camera set up so she can check in and see how he’s doing every night. She makes sure the automatic feeder is working, his water is filled, and the litter box is cleaned.
She says Giuseppe has a hilarious personality and makes days at the museum brighter. When the museum is closed, Guiseppe goes home with Hemenway.
“There are a lot of people who come specifically just to see him,” she says. Recently, a couple visited the museum specifically to see Guiseppe. He’s become a local celebrity and even has his own Facebook page.
Jack Seburn says he was delighted when Giuseppe became the museum’s mascot. He enjoys playing and roughhousing with the cat who he says is “still is a little kitteny.”
“He’s a great purrer,” Seburn says. “You can hear him from some distance.” And, he says, you can always tell where Giuseppe has been because “there’s always at least 10 cat toys laying around. He just moves toys from one place to the next.”
After Giuseppe wears himself out, Jack says the cat climbs up on his workspace to stretch out and purrs. “I’ve just learned to work around him,” he says with a laugh.
Hemenway says Giuseppe will continue to help market the museum and, hopefully, attract visitors who love cats.
“I really am just surprised about how well received he’s been here at the museum,” she says. “Overall, he’s just a lot of fun to have.”