News

By Rich Pollack

    Marsha Love’s The Cat at Cason Cottage may be the only children’s book set in Delray Beach that includes a cat named Clarabelle, a series of friendly ghosts and, of course, lots of local history.
    Love — a descendent of early Delray Beach pioneers including Dr. J.R. Cason who built the cottage in 1924 — uses the book to bring back some of her relatives as spirits who visit a lonely feline residing in the cottage.
    Used to raise money for the Delray Beach Historical Society, the book has attracted local attention since its debut about a year and a half ago. Now it is getting nationwide attention.
    Last month, Love received a national award from the Colonial Dames of America, which each year recognizes one outstanding historically related book in both an adult category and a children’s category.
    “This award means a great deal to me,” Love said. “It affirms that other people see my writing as worthwhile and that this book is valuable to people everywhere.”
    Illustrated by local architect Robert Currie, The Cat at Cason Cottage has Clarabelle the cat visited first by Dr. Cason’s ghost. Later in the story, the ghosts of other family members come visiting, even the ghost of Clarabelle Cason, the last member of the family to actually live in the cottage. All have the chance to briefly tell their life stories to the cat.
    Since the book was published in December 2012 — to coincide with a special fundraiser, Christmas at Cason Cottage Showcase House — some of the ghosts have actually been brought to life in a reenactment of sorts during the Historical Society’s Family Fall Festival and Halloween Fun event at the Cason Cottage last October.
    “We had more than 400 kids come through the house that night,” said Love, who remembers staying in the house and playing there as a young girl when her Aunt Clarabelle still lived there. “There was a line around the block.”
    Love, an interior designer as well as an adjunct professor of English at Palm Beach State College, has always had a love of writing. The idea for The Cat At Cason Cottage, she says, just came to her because of her involvement with the museum.
    The book, published by Middle River Press in Oakland Park, sells for $15. It is available at the Delray Beach Historical Society and at www.delraybeachhistory.org. It benefits the historical society.
    Oh, and in case you’re wondering: No, there isn’t a resident cat at the cottage these days, and while Clarabelle Cason tended to many of the stray cats in the area, Love doesn’t remember any of them making a home there officially.