SOPHIE EVERSON, CAT FANCIER - Buffalo Evening News, 23 October, 1900

Strange Habit of a Woman the Health Officers Want Sent to an Asylum.
Chief Clerk Schneider and Inspector Willard of the Health Department are endeavoring to institute proceedings to commit Sophie Everson of 200 Broadway to an asylum. Clerk Schneider said this morning that the woman is living in filthy quarters and her rooms are a refuge for numerous dirty cats. He said she is known as the "Cat Mother” and goes about acting strangely. The woman has a brother living in the city and the officials tried to get him to consent to the proceedings. He declared his sister is sane and refuses to have her committed. The officials will confer with County Judge Emery and ask him to make an order of committal.

BROTHER CHANGES HIS MIND. DECLINES TO SANCTION PRO-CEEDING TO HAVE FAMOUS CAT MOTHER COMMITTED TO ASYLUM. - The Buffalo Enquirer, 23 October 1900

AT FIRST APPROVED DOCTOR’S SUGGESTION. Judge Emery Would Not Put His Official Seal to the Papers Because of Brother’s Objections — Strange Penchant.
There was an unexpected hitch in the proceedings instituted by the authorities to have Sophie Everson declared insane. The woman is still living in filth at No. 200 Broadway. This morning Dr. Willard and Chief Clerk Schneider of the Health Department called on County Judge Emery to hold a conference, but the Judge was busy with other matters and they were obliged to delay the talk until later.

Sophie Everson is a unique character in Buffalo. Many people assert she is sane, while as many declare she is insane. Dr. Willard of the Health Department, who has had a wide experience in such matters, declares emphatically that she is crazy. The woman is well connected and has a brother living in this city, who manifested enough interest in her to thwart the authorities in their efforts to have her committed.

STRANGE FONDNESS FOR CATS. The Cat Mother is the name by which this woman is known. She occupies a single room and in this she stores everything that she can carry. Her room is the home for numberless cats. When the authorities learned of her existence recently an effort was made to have her committed as insane. The brother at first consented and the papers were all prepared and it was thought that the woman, by this time, would be in sanitary surroundings but, at the last minute, the brother said he thought his sister was sane and refused to have anything to do with the proceedings.

He had an Interview with Judge Emery and, at his request. Judge Emery refused to approve the commitment papers. Dr. Willard and Mr. Schneider will explain the situation to the Judge with a view to changing his mind.

SOPHIE HAS HAD NO BATH FOR 20 YEARS - The Buffalo Times, 23rd October, 1900

AT LEAST, THAT IS SAID OF THE WOMAN WHO LIVES AMID CATS AND FILTH.
Judge Emery has not yet signed papers declaring Sophie Everson inane, and the woman continues to live in her squalid home at No. 200 Broadway, although Dr. Willard is positive that she is crazy. The proceedings by which it was hoped to have the woman committed to an asylum have been temporarily thwarted, at least, by her brother, who declares that she is not insane. Sophie Everson is known as the “cat mother.” She lives in a single room at No. 200 Broadway and has surrounded herself with numberless cats. The room, according to the health officials, is abominably, filthy. It is said that she is in the habit of carrying a girdle of knives about her waist and that she has never had a bath in 20 years.

CAT MOTHER IS INSANE - Buffalo Evening News, 25 October, 1900

Judge Emery yesterday made an order committing Sophie Everson of 200 Broadway, known as the “Cat Mother” to the Insane Asylum. The Health Department complained that the women was living in squalor and acting strangely.

CAT MOTHER’S AWFUL DEN CLEANED OUT - The Buffalo Times, 26th October, 1900

Work of cleaning out the filthiest human habitation in the civilized world was commenced yesterday afternoon. Indeed, had the environment been other than that of civilization such an accumulation of worthless rot could not have been made. The place cleaned was that where Sophia Everson had resided for 24 years, with her numerous cats, until day before yesterday she was taken by force to the Buffalo State Hospital. Her rooms were on the second floor of an old two-story structure in the rear of No. 200 Broadway.

Probably never in the history of junk collection or any kind of craze for the gathering of odds and ends has such a conglomeration been found together. And, worst of all, part of the stuff had become rotten — rotted by excrement from cats. The stench was sickening. The wonder is that the “katzmutter” could survive. Only a person with an unbalanced mind could have desired to live amid the stench. Only an unbalanced person could have collected such a lot of stuff.

As soon as it was noised about the neighborhood that the work of cleaning out the “cat-mother's” den had been commenced the crowd of curious gathered. Women watched the operation from the roofs of adjoining buildings and from the windows. Men entered the narrow alley and watched, occasionally ejaculating, “What a stink! How could she have lived there?”

The landlord entered the apartment and began to throw down the accumulation of years, to refuse barrels and junk piles. To give any adequate description of what was thrown down the narrow stairway is impossible. Imagine everything that has been thrown from the household of a great city or pitched out as worthless from business houses. Pile them up snugly in peach baskets, orange crates and boxes. Put them in a room tier upon tier, with the interstices between the receptacles stuffed with rags, pieces of carpet, old dresses and the like. Let a score of cats run over the mass for years, and you have a picture — only half drawn — of the former home of the Broadway recluse who has been known to the neighborhood of “Die Katzmutter.”

SOME OF THE RELICS. When the landlord commenced throwing the stuff down the stairway the bystanders were at first amused. They saw a bundle of mosquito netting, a piece of carpet, a bit of floor matting, a bundle of old hose tied with what might have been an apron string, the cover of a stove, the seat and back of babe's high chair, the wheels of a baby carriage, a bit of oil cloth, part of a silver table castor, and old hoop skirt, a wire bustle, a mass of rotted carpeting and dress goods, a tin wash boiler, a broken handled skewer, parts of an old stove, an old catsup bottle, empty flasks galore, a coal ash screen, a fire grate, a rat trap, a mouse trap, a wire mechanism no one could guess what it was used for, a bundle of rattan one could easily see was an old fashioned umbrella, half of a stove, some iron barrel hoops, emptied meat cans, more mosquito netting, more pieces of carpet, more bits of floor matting, more old rubber hose, etc., etc.

“GEE, BUT IT STINKS.” The above list was only part of what the landlord dislodged from their sleeping place at his first visit. The list is only a partial suggestion as to a mere sample of what came down that stairway. As fast as the landlord tumbled the stuff down the stairs, a helper picked it up, held it at arm’s length and put it on a fire in the back yard.

“Gee, but that stinks!” was his oft-repeated ejaculation.

The landlord evidently thought so too, for after 10 minutes in that upper room he too came down the stairs. He came for fresh air.

A TIMES reporter then ascended the stairs. It was only by sheer nerve that he followed down an aisle scarcely wide enough for passage. All the rest of the space in two rooms was filled with rubbish. It was packed solidly and arranged systematically. In the corner of the second room was a bedstead but no bed. Where did she sleep? In a little rocking chair, which shows signs of the use it had been put to. Where was her stove? There was none.

HARDLY NO LIGHT. Light came from windows half covered by baskets and boxes of rubbish. Three cats were there. Where had the 120 which the neighbors have counted on the roof back of her quarters gone? No one knows. But there were three of the cleanest, prettiest cats one could wish to see. They fled from man. They had not seen man since they had entered their abode. They were beautiful specimens of their kind — the only clear spots within those wails. How could cats live in that abominable stench? The scene beggars description.

Enough has been said to give an idea of the general conglomeration of putrid stuff that was housed in that place. One or two more things and the material the cat-mother had gathered during these years and tne matter is left to the reader's imagination.

The landlord on his second trip of throwing down the stuff got near enough to a window and smashed the panes of glass. He could breathe then with some comfort. Things tumbled down the stairs faster. There was a likeness of William McKinley, a Buffalo City Directory of 1875, the year before the woman buried herself in that room and began her weird collection. There was a cat’s jaw, and when it appeared a horrible thought was expressed by one of the bystanders — “Did she eat her cats?” There were the remains of what was once a silk dress perhaps the one she was to have been wedded in. Let the reader leave the notation of what was passed out of that room with that thought.

DISAPPOINTED IN LOVE. Neighbors say that Sophie Everson was disappointed in love in her young days, a fact which made her the recluse she was. For 24 years she remained in that place, uncommunicative with her neighbors, even the man who has quarters on the ground floor. She used to go out with a little cart and come home with it loaded. Neighbors thought that she disposed of it in some way, never suspecting until recently that she had hoarded it these years. She always paid her 50 cents a week rent. As a consequence the landlord could not bring eviction proceedings. She was a good tenant in that sense. So the Board of Health was appealed to. Then the State Hospital authorities.

TIED DOOR WITH WIRE. On Wednesday afternoon a policeman and a man and woman attendant at the Forest Avenue institution knocked at the door. No answer came at first. Then the door opened an inch and the tenant looked out and then slammed the door. Thinking it a rickety piece of door the policeman pulled. Then the man attendant pulled with him. Then the woman lent her aid. But there was something which held the door. It was broken in. What held the door was a cunningly devised wire rope, partly twisted, partly braided, but strong enough to draw a train of cars, and it led to a huge iron, at the top of the stairs. Screaming at the top of her voice the recluse was carried away to Forest Avenue. There she got a bath - the neighbors yesterday wondered if she had survived the ordeal. She was given a bed — the neighbors wondered if she slept well.

As far as the outside world goes she is no more. Her former habitation will be cleaned out and disinfected before night and she will be forgotten by all save her relatives. Neighbors say that her family was once well-to-do. Her brother, a tall—stately, grey-haired man, was assisting at the cremation of her weird and curious collection. He said little. Perhaps he was waiting until some family heirloom was discovered.

Broadway will miss Miss Everson. They have been charitably inclined to the old lady. The age of 74 always commands respect, even if its wearer is erratic. They do not think she is crazy. They only think that she had a peculiar mania for collection, cats and filth.