Gretchen Wyler and the story of Big Mike

To the editor: Visiting the Warwick Advertiser Web site today, I was comforted to see that Gretchen Wyler’s passing certainly did not go unnoticed. What a fabulous lady she was! When my Mom and Dad, Paula and Doug Dickson, moved our family from New York City to Warwick in the late 1960s, one of the first things they wanted to do was to adopt a dog. They found the Warwick Animal Shelter at about the same time Miss Wyler did. I can still remember the shape the place was in when Miss Wyler took it over. It was deplorable. My family adopted one of the dogs from that wretched place, a very large and remarkably athletic dog we named Big Mike, who had been hit by a truck and had casts on two of his legs. He had never been domesticated and was essentially unadoptable. Anyone but Miss Wyler might have had him euthanized in the condition he was in, and in the condition the shelter was in, when we adopted him. My Mom and Dad and Miss Wyler became fast friends and remained so throughout the years my family lived in Warwick, sharing a love not only of dogs but of the Broadway stage, and of Warwick, too ... and Big Mike, a product of that miserable shelter, became the stuff of legends. He adopted us. His fatal flaw was that he didn’t chase cars - he literally raced them. He got hit so many times we lost track. He even got shot by a hunter who must have mistaken him for a deer. But it didn’t even slow him down. We were beginning to believe he was indestructible when a cement truck proved us wrong. I can still remember his last trip to the vet that day in the back of Herb Eurich’s pickup truck. If it hasn’t happened already, I hope that all of Warwick’s dogs will hold a parade or a party this summer, to celebrate Miss Wyler’s legacy to them, and to Warwick. It is almost solely because of Miss Wyler that Warwick’s stray and abandoned dogs today have a safe place to sleep and eat and a chance to be reunited with their owners, or adopted by loving new owners. The Advertiser deserves congratulations for its support for the shelter going back forty years. Ed Klein, the former publisher of the Advertiser, who also then owned WTBQ, where my Mom was an on-air personality, was instrumental in assisting Miss Wyler back-in-the-day, and I am delighted to see that the newspaper, and Mr. Gavan in particular, have continued to carry the torch for this noble cause. Through the miracle of the Internet, I corresponded with Ed only a year or so ago, and I shall do so again forthwith. It will warm his heart to know that Miss Wyler and her legacy to Warwick were never forgotten, and that the newspaper he so loved continues to support the facility that Miss Wyler built with her own sweat and tears and an awful lot of her own money. With warmest regards to all my childhood friends and neighbors, Donald W. Dickson, Esq. Austin, Texas dickson@austin.rr.com