What the Cats Are Reading

By Guest Blogger, Lilly the Fairbanks Feline, as told to Sharmin Fairbanks McKenny

During a recent shopping spree on Amazon, Mittens, a tuxedo in the McKenny household, came upon Made to Last Forever: A Family. A House. A Nation. Finding it an intriguing historical novel, she bought the book. Before it was delivered, however, she had her own delivery—a litter of kitties. Since she was busy with little ones whose eyes had barely opened, Mittens gave the book to me, her favorite housemate.

“Here, Lilly,” she mewed. “You read it first. Tell me what you think of it.”

“Get out of here!” I trilled, my hair on end and green eyes wide as I started reading the saga of Jonathan and Grace Fairbanks, my namesakes. “This is the story of the very first of my nine lives!”

Much of the novel was remarkably faithful to what I remembered of the family and the hardships, courage, and determination they wielded as they joined New England’s earliest settlers. The book reminded me all too clearly about my own hardships and courage during those days.

“I feared eating an infected mouse or being bitten by a Plague-infected louse,” I hissed. “That’s how I lost the first of my nine lives.”

It was 1625. The Plague had gripped England. In addition to my first life, it also claimed one of the Fairbanks family members. Summer after summer, the disease returned.

“Having now lived through Covid and the Plague, I don’t know which one was worse,” I said, ears flattened. “But the Plague lasted longer.”

When I read in Made to Last Forever that Grace Fairbanks worried constantly, I remembered her fears and superstitions.

“The Plague isn’t our only burden,” she often whispered to Jonathan. Puritans were suffering persecution under King Charles, and the Fairbanks were Puritans.

I recalled my countless mewlings, leg rubbings, and other wiles of feline persuasion to convince Jonathan and Grace to risk everything and move the family of eight to the wilderness of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It meant leaving their home, their families, and nearly everything they owned. I, on the other hand, have always traveled with just the fur on my back.

“I’ve never liked water,” I snarled, remembering the journey. “Yet we were on the mighty Atlantic Ocean in a tiny ship on a turbulent eight-week crossing.”

For that matter, none of the Fairbanks family could swim. Terrifying storms threatened to splinter the ship into driftwood and bury them at sea. While tranquil, the intermittent calms meant no forward progress. Furthermore, the journey threatened the Fairbanks’s food supply that would keep them from starving during their first year.

Food wasn’t a problem for me, I recalled, pausing to lick a paw. I had sought secluded spots for safety, rest, and to ambush prey. Rats were plentiful as I guarded the barrels of grains and food.

In the tween deck above the cargo hold, a hundred passengers were crowded together with the cannons. The air was foul. Disease spread. Tempers flared. And superstitions flourished.

“I stayed below and kept to myself,” Lilly said. “But one unfortunate dog nearly disappeared overboard.”

“Look, right here!” I chattered when the family’s journey came to an end. “It says we got to Boston and didn’t have a place to stay.”

Then came the part about Watertown and the struggle to find a place to settle where the family would be welcome and safe from attacks. Can you imagine?

First, they went to Watertown, one of the first Massachusetts Bay Colony settlements organized by Puritan settlers in 1630. Then the family had to be accepted unanimously in the new town of Dedham. Fortunately, the tomcats were easier to win over than were humans.

Eventually, the family established a homestead and a sense of settled serenity. My job was to clear the mice and rats from the grain storage in the lean-to abutting the house.

But peace didn’t last long. Jonas, the only one of the family’s six children who wasn’t married, decided to pursue his own ambitions and work at the first successful ironworks in all the colonies.

I’d never seen Jonathan so furious. Not only would Jonas work with craftsmen from all over the world, including men who certainly weren’t Puritans, but he also wouldn’t be home to help his father with their expanding farmland.

I quietly disappeared until tempers cooled.

Then matters grew worse.

Jonas bought an expensive pair of great boots in 1651. The attire of wealthy men, great boots were made of fine leather that could be folded up over the knees when riding and folded down for walking. A Sumptuary Law was established to discourage those who didn’t have a minimum worth of 200 pounds from purchasing or wearing luxury items.

Jonas was called to court. The great boots that landed him in trouble were made of the softest, smoothest leather. I loved rubbing my back on them when he came home.

Eventually, Jonas was sent west to help the Prescott family establish a new settlement. Before he left, however, a little girl named Martha Pidge joined the Fairbanks household. She was only four years old. Her own family couldn’t provide for another child. Martha and I got along wonderfully in the big, old house.

When Jonas finally returned home, the great boot scandal had faded from memory. But something else had changed. He had the unmistakable look of a man hopelessly in love. There was one problem: he wished to marry Lydia Prescott, even though she had two older unmarried sisters.

When Mittens took a break from nursing her kittens, I told her I found much of the novel remarkably faithful to the portrayal of the Fairbanks family and the hardships, courage, and determination of New England’s earliest settlers.  

“Would Jonas win Lydia’s hand?” she asked. “Would Jonas and his father reconcile? Would the family be torn apart by one man striving to choose his own path in life?”

“You’ll have to read the book yourself to find out,” I purred.  

In one of my later lives, I lived in the Fairbanks House in Dedham, Massachusetts. Built in 1637, it is now the oldest surviving frame house in North America. It housed the Fairbanks family for eight generations before it became a museum in 1905.

“It remains much the same as it was in 1637,” Sharmin told me. “It is one of only 2,600 National Historic Landmarks.”

Sharmin would know. She is Sharmin Fairbanks McKenny. As a proud descendant of the Fairbanks family, she wrote Made to Last Forever: A Family. A House. A Nation. The book is a finalist in the 2026 Florida Authors and Publishers Association President’s Book Awards.

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