This was supposed to be a story about a unique cat named Tig, short for Tigger. Tig is a fitting name for an orange tabby, but it has also become known as an acronym meaning “The Island Greeter,” because Tig is the most welcoming and best-known cat on Dauphin Island.
Tig earned his title honestly. The exceptionally friendly, laid-back cat never meets a stranger. He’s so sociable that his tag reads “I live on the island,” just in case anyone thinks about taking him home with them.
Handsome Tig reclines on a piece of driftwood on Dauphin Island, where he's well known to residents and visitors alike. (Photo courtesy of Jane Walton)
But my interest in Tig led me to an even bigger story about his owner, Jane Walton, who moved to the barrier island south of Mobile with her husband Lee in July of 2016. Then last year, Lee was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and that devastating news turned their world upside down.
“This was supposed to be where we’d be forever, walking on the beach holding hands,” Jane tells me as we sit in Adirondack chairs on the south-facing deck of their beach house, overlooking a canal. The front of their house faces the Mississippi Sound. It’s an idyllic location, quiet, peaceful and beautiful. Their house is named “Now and Forever,” with a sign Jane made with pieces of driftwood spelling out the letters.
The couple, who renewed their wedding vows this past summer on the beach in a joyful ceremony organized by their three adult children, moved to Dauphin Island from Huntsville, where they had spent the previous nine years. Lee is the IT systems manager for Huntsville Hospital, a position he has held remotely and continues to do part-time, though he is now on disability.
“We’d been working our way to the beach,” says Jane. They thought they would end up in the Florida Panhandle until, on a whim, she and Lee visited Dauphin Island with their jet skis in tow. As they drove over the bridge in separate vehicles, they both remember having the same feeling at the same time, an overwhelming sense that “this is home.”
“We never took the jet skis off the island,” she says.
The couple took to “island time” like fish to water, enjoying jet-ski rides together, watching the famous sunsets and falling in love with the community where “everybody knows everything” – but in a good way.
They refer to their friends as their “island family,” a “village” that has embraced and held them throughout Lee’s cancer treatments. The village shows up out of nowhere sometimes to play pool with Lee beneath the house, on the regulation-size table Jane bought for him after his diagnosis. In 2019, the village helped install a lift for Lee. When two strong hurricanes hit in the fall, the village sprang into action to help Jane prepare and then clean up.
When their five grandchildren come to visit – their daughter in Boston has three girls, and their son in Raleigh, N.C., has two boys, all under six years old – they love to catch fish and crabs with the cast net to feed the neighborhood heron, Henry, who comes when they call him. The children are always amazed by the number of stars they can see in the sky above their Nama and Bumpa’s house.
“This is our favorite place in the world, and we love it,” says Jane.
All three of Jane and Lee Walton's children, as well as their five grandchildren, visited the couple on Dauphin Island for Christmas. (Photo courtesy of Jane Walton)
‘A dog in a cat’s body’
Not long after they moved to Dauphin Island, Jane started picking up driftwood, bits of glass and other treasures, loading them onto her jet ski on treks to the western end and bringing them back home with her. Though she insists she was never particularly crafty or artistic, she can envision objects that could be made from pieces of wood – like the red cedar tree she spotted out past the Katrina Cut, which she knew would make a great table. It now sits beneath her house, topped with a circle of glass.
Jane became an expert at turning driftwood into sculptures of mermaids, seahorses, dolphins, sailfish, dragonflies and more, selling them at a friend’s shop. “I don’t think you can have too much driftwood,” she says. “I’m always picking it up.” She stores it in boxes and bins in a workspace underneath the house, sorting it according to length and shape. During Hurricane Zeta, she lost 75 percent of her driftwood stash, which floated away with the tide.
Tig likes to "help" Jane with her driftwood projects in her workspace underneath the house. (Photo courtesy of Jane Walton)
The loss of her supply, as well as the fact that she and Lee spent five months of 2020 in Los Angeles for a clinical trial, mean that Jane hasn’t worked on her art as much as she used to. She still has custom orders she needs to fill, but her customers have been patient and understanding with her.
While they were away, they left Tig at home with some of their island family looking out for him. When they moved to Dauphin Island, they were empty-nesters with no pets, but Tig soon changed that. “He adopted us,” she says. “He’s the most interesting cat I’ve ever known.”
Tig loves to walk on the beach with his owners and digs in the sand like a dog. He’ll stick his paws into a bucket full of fish and get them out. When it’s warm, he likes to ride on the roof of the car. He visits every renter on the Waltons’ street. Even those who profess not to like cats usually love Tig.
The Waltons’ deck was even built to Tig’s specifications, so that he would have a place to rest his chin as he surveys his domain. He lets himself in and out through his own, Tig-sized cat door.
Tig lounges beside the canal behind the Waltons' home on Dauphin Island next to his pal, Henry the heron. (Photo courtesy of Jane Walton)
Tig is fiercely protective, especially of Jane, and he has been known to go “flying” off the porch to attack any dog who’s not on a leash.
“He’s loyal like a dog,” she says. “Anyplace we were last is where he’ll stay until we come back. He’s an unusual little creature, a dog in a cat’s body.”
Those who have met Tig over the years while on vacation can keep up with him through Jane’s frequent posts on a couple of Dauphin Island-related Facebook pages. In addition to Tig and her artwork, which she sells on her Treasures Found page, she’s known for her intrepid post-storm posts where she reports on damages to homes on the island, which she started doing after Hurricane Nate in 2017.
“I would want somebody to do it for me,” she says. “It’s the right thing to do.”
One last wish
Jane lives by the Golden Rule and always tries to treat others the way she would want to be treated, which is how she happened to meet Erica Ramsey-Epperly. She saw that Erica had posted a question in a Dauphin Island Facebook group. Erica’s husband Tommy was on hospice care, dying of pancreatic cancer, and his last wish was to go to a bonfire on the beach. She wanted to know where she might be able to have one.
Jane, a self-described Type A personality, was moved by the post and decided Tommy was going to have their bonfire. She took charge right away. “I was going to make this happen no matter what,” she says. She sent a message to Erica, and the two women, both watching their husbands bravely face the same type of cancer and the same bleak prognosis, “really clicked.”
Soon, Jane had coordinated plans with the mayor’s office and fire department to hold the bonfire. She found a beach house for Erica, Tommy and their children to spend the weekend. She urged her neighbors to make homemade signs welcoming Tommy to the island. She secured dinner for the family to enjoy on the beach.
When Jane and Erica met the week before the bonfire, Erica mentioned that she was behind on her mortgage payment because of Tommy’s medical expenses. Jane hadn’t planned for this to be a fundraiser, but she knew what she had to do. She posted about Erica that Saturday night. “By Sunday, we had thousands of dollars – enough to get them current on their mortgage,” she says. “I was so overwhelmed. I cried the whole day. I was so astounded at the generosity of people.”
Erica was overcome with emotion when Jane presented her a check for more than $8,000 on the day of the bonfire. She hadn’t expected to have her financial burden eased at the same time her husband’s final wish was coming true.
“If I were in that place, I hope someone would help make it happen for me, too,” says Jane.
On a November evening, the five-foot-high bonfire, made with driftwood like the kind Jane finds on the beach, lit up the sky as Tommy lay in a hospital bed in the beach house. Sadly, he didn’t feel well enough to make it down to the beach, where his wife and children and other family members had watched a beautiful sunset and made s’mores in the flames. A professional photographer donated her time to document it all.
“It was such an honor to be so intimately involved in something so meaningful,” says Jane. “I’m friends with Erica for life, and when we get to that point I know she’ll be there for me.”
Jane bonded with Erica Ramsey-Epperly right away when Erica wanted to have a bonfire on Dauphin Island for her husband, Tommy, who was dying of pancreatic cancer. (Photo courtesy of Jane Walton)
When Tommy died nine days later, Jane was one of the first people Erica called. “It’s very challenging because it’s a glimpse into the future,” Jane says, but she was there for Erica. “I hugged her and cried with her as she said goodbye to him one last time.”
By this point in my visit, Jane, Tig and I have come inside the Waltons’ home, where Lee is resting in his recliner as we talk. “That was really cool,” he says of what Jane did for Tommy and Erica, “and she pulled it together in a heartbeat.”
Their youngest son Cam walks in. He just finished his last college class and is staying with his parents while he interviews for jobs. “It’s no big deal when you’re Jane Walton,” Cam says, winking at his mom.
Although Lee looks healthy, he has good days and bad days. He tires easily and feels guilty about the fact that Jane has to do so much around the house. “We’ve had some teary weekends,” Jane admits.
When he was diagnosed 19 months ago, he was given three to six months to live. It’s now a matter of prolonging his life as long as possible and giving him the best quality of life while he’s still here. They are grateful for every moment they have together. Right now, they’re looking at a National Institutes of Health trial in Bethesda, Maryland, as their next step in the new year.
“We’re trying to stay positive and keep fighting as long as we can,” says Jane, holding Tig in her lap and stroking his soft fur. “I’m not going to give him up easily.”
Tig, a loyal cat who acts like a dog, walks with Lee on the beach on Dauphin Island. (Photo courtesy of Jane Walton)