In his will, William Donald Schaefer left money and mementos to his most loyal friends and colleagues. But Maryland's celebrated public figure seemed to leave out someone — a furry little someone that, in the end, was as close to him as anyone.
Even so, it appears that Willie IV, his doted-on long-haired cat, has hit the kitty jackpot.
After Schaefer died last month at age 89, people wondered and worried about the cat. "What happened to Willie?" was a question that kept coming up. The answer? He's living in Essex, in a little home on the side of a curving rural road, getting to know a new family. And he's enjoying the woodsy view from a bay window he's already commandeered.
"You're such a good boy," says Lisa Sherman, the single mother of three who took in the cat just weeks ago, gently stroking Willie's head with the back of her fingers. "You're such a good boy. Yes you are."
Schaefer adopted Willie at the end of 2009, when he was living in the Charlestown retirement community. He came from the Maryland SPCA, a silky-haired white kitten with orange spots. At the shelter they called the cat Shelley. Schaefer quickly named his pet after himself — which was his way. Willie I, II and III, though, were all dogs.
Willie IV was Schaefer's first cat. And at least at first, it was clear to those who watched man and feline interact that the governor was more used to fur things of the canine variety.
"She never does anything I say," he told The Baltimore Sun shortly after adopting the cat. (Schaefer had a habit of referring to the male cat as "she.")
A Sun photographer captured Schaefer and Willie playing together, the former governor dangling a toy on a string, the kitty standing on his hind legs to enthusiastically swat it. As the kitty rolled happily on the blue carpet of Schaefer's living room, Schaefer cajoled: "Come here, cat. Come here, kitty. That's it. Come up here. Do just what I say. Roll over. That's a good cat."
This year, when Schaefer's longtime aide Lainy LeBow-Sachs realized his health was failing, she began looking for a home for Willie. She wanted someone she knew, ideally. But when no one in Schaefer's inner circle was able to take the cat, she put out feelers, knowing the home had to be perfect for the cat that meant so much to her boss.
The Sherman family, what with a mother with a longtime soft spot for cats, and three kids eager to play with an energetic 4-year-old feline, sounded just right.
Lebow-Sachs said she has told Schaefer about Willie's new home when she's visited his mausoleum. "I talk to him about Willie," she says. "He knows where Willie is."
At Charlestown, Willie loved to peer out from Schaefer's sixth-floor window. And in the Sherman house, he's found something even better — a bay window with a wide, plant-filled ledge where he can perch up high, watching the bluebirds and cardinals that alight on the trees just outside.
To the children's delight, the cat is also a big fan of the bathroom, and will follow them right in if they're not careful to shut the door behind them.
Along with Willie, the Shermans have an aging cat named Mitten. After an initial hissy standoff, the two cats are coexisting amicably.
Lisa Sherman found out about Willie through a friend. The idea of the kitty all alone broke her heart.
"I pictured this cat being alone and wondering, 'Where is my owner?,'" she says. "I thought: 'Someone's got to do something, and quick.'"
The Shermans realize that owning Willie is a little like owning a piece of Maryland history — or at the very least, like a brush with local celebrity.
And yet, Willie seems to have picked up a thing or two about politics from his first master. He's never once acted like a big shot around the Shermans.
"He's pretty cool," says Jack Sherman, who's 12. "If nobody told me he was the mayor's cat, I couldn't have known. He seems like just a normal cat to me."