My great-uncle Pip was an animal lover.

The more I ask relatives about him, the more I learn about the animals he loved. Many dogs over the decades. But it didn’t stop there.

A goat named Fanny. A horse named Spot. Sheep. Bees, even.

And today is his birthday. He was the eleventh and final child born to Joe and Maggie Regan, Irish immigrants who settled in New Haven in 1888.

Pip, baptized Edward Thomas Regan, was born November 17, 1911.

By the time I met him, Pip had narrowed down his menagerie to a single dog.

As a child, the dogs always seemed monstrously huge to me. Pip understood my fear and held tight to Donny (short for Donnybrook) until I could summon up the courage to pet him gently.

Mom’s uncle Pip registered for the draft when he was 29 years old.

Dad remembers that in 1943 while Pip was in boot camp in Missouri, he bought an Appaloosa horse and somehow got it home to Connecticut.

Pip was an animal lover.

A favorite uncle to many, Pip was extra close to my mom. He was the best man at Mom and Dad’s wedding.

She wrote this poem about their bond a few years before his passing:

To Pip

One day I’ll read this country column
and know I won’t be sending it to you
whose Hallowe’en card came early this late afternoon
whose Hallowe’en letter cheered up
a homesick freshman long ago
I remember a winter walk we took
one snowy Christmas Eve
when chimneys were smoking
and we stopped at a small store
by the river for foil cornucopias
rich with Christmas candies
you taught me how to ride a horse
and drive a car
I think of the night visit to Guildford Green when
autumn leaves were flying
we came too late for checkerberry sodas
but right on time for feasting
on a harvest moon
~ joan vayo October 30, 2000

In one of our boxes of family photos, this picture taken on Pip’s birthday in 1985 caught my attention:

Yes, that’s a seagull on the car. Pip and his sister May would drive to Lighthouse Point and feed those hungry birds from the comfort of their car.

Pip was president of the J.M. Regan Scrap Iron and Steel Co. of New Haven, a family-owned business that recently closed after more than 100 years.

He never married. Family came first, as he and May watched over their sister Martha Rose, who needed special care.

I can’t help but wonder if this devotion was sparked by their parents’ deep faith as they left their home country, never to return, after experiencing terrible religious injustice and bigotry in Belfast.

Pip’s been gone since June 14, 2002.

He was like a bonus grandpa to us, always tucking a dollar bill into our hands at the end of a visit, and chuckling while holding back his enthusiastic dog, who was eager to give us each a slobbery kiss goodbye.

Until next time.

“To Pip” © 2000 Joan Vayo. All rights reserved.

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