Emily Paine Carter

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Say you are moseying up a quiet street on a Sunday morning, and glance at a lady strolling by with a baby. Except it's a cat! You simply must inquire.

"I said I didn't need grandchildren, so my daughter gave me a cat," Maxine Harper said. And oh, she does baby him. The regal "Don Gato" was clearly enjoying his four-hour downtown Salem tour in his deluxe "ride": a child's plush jogging stroller.

No ordinary cat, for sure: He's an "ocicat": faint ocelot markings show his heritage. Fragrant lavender plants recently greeted me at Don Gato's Roanoke County kingdom -- which he can observe from ottomans and cushy chairs by windows in every room. The home's furnishings even match his pale lavender hue.

Nor is Maxine, "almost 72," an ordinary woman. She sang to me the source of the cat's name: a song she sang to Alaskan students. She's energetic -- she has resurfaced her long driveway and she mows. She appreciates her Bethel Assembly of God preacher, Burt Franks, and his wife, Lisa, for consistent Christianity. She is generous with kind words, cheery opinions and garden herbs. She sold her TV years ago for more time to knit, crochet, tat, quilt, sew, embroider, etc. -- and play piano with Don Gato, she said.

Fun facts: She has 31 pairs of cowboy boots, and all the schools she attended had blue and gold for colors.

More about her: she was one of six children (with two sisters and one brother now deceased). She was born in Slab Fork, W.Va., reared in Beckley, and graduated from Florida's Howard Academy. She had a brief first marriage, and a stint as a country singer and comedian.

She returned to Beckley with her 2-year-old daughter, Florence, then graduated from Bluefield State College with a B.S. in secondary education.

"Then I went to Alaska to teach; I opened the first school for Georgetown, Alaska. Alaska even sent me a ticket, and paid for my eventual Master's [in special education, University of Alaska, Fairbanks]. I didn't know there was a 20-men-to-1-woman ratio!" she laughed.

There she met and married Ethan Harper. They raised Florence -- later a brilliant musician and Air Force linguist -- who quickly picked up Russian words: "Russia owned that territory for a long time, so [the language] mixed with five native tribes'," Maxine explained. "I taught children of our Cold War radar/missile site-civilians."

Later, teaching in New York state was "a shock! Teachers were respected in Alaska. Seems the child is always right in the Lower 48." She and Ethan lived in Roanoke for more than 12 years before moving to the county in 2001 -- to a house she had noticed eight years earlier, first thinking it a mirage of their Alaskan home.

"I loved the sassafras here, like my daddy used to break pieces of for all us kids."

Ethan died in November 2003, just nine months after his leukemia diagnosis. Maxine -- and Don Gato -- had tended him. She's still grateful to neighbors Joanie and Mark Saunders, who sometimes helped her with Ethan at 2 a.m.

Her dad's diagnosis had prompted Florence Harper, now 50, to move to Roanoke from Florida. Salem's Veterans Affairs Medical Center gives "good care" to her injuries from a serious car wreck, said Maxine about her daughter. Maxine's sister, Florence Mather, 86, lives in Salem.

Oh, then there's "Little Brother," as Maxine still calls Bill Withers, 69. Yes, the "Lean on Me" singer has been known to "sneak in and out of town from California," she said. "And he is still quite generous to me." Someone she can lean on -- just as her daughter, husband, students and Don Gato have leaned on her.