Helen Brayton was a wealthy woman whose hobby was breeding cats. In 1912, she imported a prize-winning English silver chinchilla cat named Don Dai. The cat had his own stateroom aboard the ship, plus his own private steward. On his arrival, Mrs. Brayton planned an opulent wedding for Don Dai and her show cat named The Quakeress at New York City's Plaza Hotel and invited her genteel friends who were cat lovers. The newspapers had a great time with that story.
But even more interesting was how the Plaza Hotel began allowing pets in the first place. The rich are used to being catered to, and when one wealthy patron showed up with a tiny dog, the manager declared the hotel pet-friendly. But there are always those who push the envelope. Only a year after the new policy was enacted, an artist who was also technically a princess brought eight "pets" to the hotel that included a bear and two alligators! Then she stayed for five years. Read about the cat wedding in the latest post at The Hatching Cat, and the full story of the princess in an earlier post.