By Richard Johnston

As the Connecticut Humane Society celebrates its 120th anniversary, I think back to the time of our founding in 1881, when no agency in our state – public or private – existed to prevent cruelty toward people or animals. That situation might be remained for many years if not for the determination of one schoolgirl.

Gertrude O. Lewis, an 18-year-old Hartford Public High School senior, witnessed many acts of abuse to children, animals and senior citizens. While vacationing with her family in Bethlehem, New Hampshire, Gertrude met George T. Angell of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She told him how much this situation distressed her and asked what she could do. Mr Angell suggested that she organize a meeting of the churches in her area.

Even he had no idea how hard she would work to make this meeting happen or what a success it would be. She had worked with area clergy to ask for space to meet and a time when her meeting would not conflict with others. She called on newspaper editors to ask them to help promote her cause and on prominent citizens to invite them to the meeting.

The Society was formed with a gathering of concerned citizens in the basement of a Hartford building. Mr Angell spoke at the meeting and nearly 200 concerned people remained after the lecture to see what they could do to help. That meeting was the beginning of the Connecticut Humane Society. The Society began with a mission to “promote humanity and kindness” to people and animals.

For 84 years the Connecticut Humane Society was the only statewide agency offering protective services to children, until the state Department of Children and Youth Services was formed. It was at that time that the Connecticut Humane Society began a phase-out of protective services for children and shifted the Society’s primary focus to animals.

Over the years we have added and expanded animal shelters, built a staff of caring professionals, recruited a corps of devoted volunteers, initiated humane education programs, entered the public affairs arena, and defined our thematic relationship of people and pets in the environment.

Two years ago we completed construction of our Newington headquarters, a 30,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art shelter and pet wellness medical center and the old building was demolished. The new facility more than triples our capacity to care for unwanted and abused pets, and also allows the Society to offer improved and expanded services to pets and their owners.

Included in the new facility is the Fox Memorial Clinic. Fox Memorial is a place where people in financial need can turn for basic pet wellness care and subsidized medical treatment under certain circumstances. It is a private, non-profit organization separate from the Society but a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Connecticut Humane Society. Since Fox Memorial opened its doors, 3,392 spay and neuter operations have been performed and an average of 150 animals come to our low cost vaccination clinics each month.

As we celebrate this milestone anniversary, the Connecticut Humane Society honors the determination of Gertrude O. Lewis, a schoolgirl who was not going to let her youth prevent her from working for what she believed in. As George T. Angell wrote in Journal of Education, Lewis founded “the Connecticut Humane Society – a live organization which will probably continue its work of humanity a hundred years after the writer of this article shall rest from his labors – now stands as a monument to the power of one modest but earnest schoolgirl.”

Her efforts served as an inspiration to those who worked with her in the founding of the Connecticut Humane Society, and we hope they will serve to inspire other young people, who care about humanity and wonder just one youth can do.

(The Connecticut Humane Society is a private, non-profit organization with headquarters located at 701 Russell Rd., Newington, CT 06111 (860) 594-4502. The Society operates animal shelters in Newington, Bethany, Waterford, and Westport.)