Joy Mattice, The Kind Cat Lady Of NoMi, Passes Away At 79 Advocating For Stray Kitty Cats To Her Last Breath...

Photo, blog post by John Hoff

This blog wishes to mention, belatedly, the passing away of Janet Joy Mattice, the kind-but-controversial cat lady who constantly helped and advocated for all animals, but mostly stray cats. She was 79 years old and passed away April 18, 2015. Click here for a link to her online tribute. Janet preferred to be known by her middle name of Joy. 


In a kind of last laugh directed at the world and those who opposed her feeding of strays, Joy's obituary directs any memorial donations be preferred to Feline Rescue and MN Snap. 

Cat Ladies Controversy Heats Up With Arrest Of "Susan" For Not-Exactly-A-Felony First Degree "Ground Feeding"

Stock photo, blog post by John Hoff

There has been a dramatic new development in the "Cat Ladies Controversy" this blogger previously covered, click here and also here. The cat lady known as "Susan" was arrested in the last few days and jailed.

Susan, whose relationship to Ultimate Cat Lady Joy Mattice is like that of Robin to Batman, or Hawthorne Hawkman to Johnny Northside, was reportedly near 111 22nd Ave. N., on the property of Atomic Recycling, LLC.  Mattice claims she has permission to be on that property and feed an old orange tabby cat named "Leo" who has been around the property for as long as 12 years. However, "Dean and Dale" have a restraining order on Joy Mattice, and live around the corner.

Joy wasn't at the Atomic Recycling property this particular day. Susan was there. And Susan believed she had permission to be on the property...

Kind Cat Lady Of NoMi Receives Minor "Slap On The Wrist" For Attempts To Help Strays (Part One Of Two)

Photo, blog post by John Hoff

"There were four shootings this week," Janet Joy Mattice told me during her criminal arraignment on Halloween, shaking her gray head disgustedly. "And they are on me about feeding cats."

And Then They Were Upon Her

But "on her" they were. Janet (who goes by her middle name, Joy) had a perfect record except for one minor traffic violation. She is the widow of a retired Minneapolis police officer and, during the administration of Governor Rudy Perpich, Mattice received a proclamation in her honor for years of work in the area of animal welfare including changes made in state law as a result of her efforts. In the photo above, Mattice holds a copy of the proclamation in question.

If you talk to Mattice for any length of time she will soon tell you about her rescues of dogs and cats that have been hung, doused with fuel, and all manner of terrible things that happen to the animals she loves and to which she has virtually devoted her whole life. Mattice was born in 1936, so that's a lot of life.

Though Mattice had been helping strays for a long time it appears the mortgage crisis in North Minneapolis has, in the last few years, produced a "perfect storm" of animal overpopulation versus Janet Joy Mattice's energetic and admittedly stubborn attempts to help stray animals. Mattice uses traps to catch cats, has the cats spayed or neutered, and then releases the cats again. Mattice points out (with the paper documentation to prove it) that...

(Parody Post) North By Northside Blog Set To Propose Creative Solutions To North Minneapolis Feral Cat Problem...

Contributed photo, blog post by John Hoff

(This is parody for purposes of commentary on a substantive issue)

After my blog post about Joy The Cat Lady and the charges against her, plus Monday night's red hot discussion about Animal Control issues at Dessert With Don, blogger Jeff Skrenes left a comment promising a "rebuttal" blog post "momentarily."

Clearly, we have different ideas about a definition of the word "momentarily," but I'm sure that's just the beginning of the "Johnny is right, Jeff is a big meanie toward feral cats" differences between us when it comes to this one issue...

Community Emotions Run Red Hot Over Issue Of "Cat Samaritans" Facing Charges For Allegedly "Ground Feeding" Stray Felines In North Minneapolis...

Photo, blog post by John Hoff

Monthly "Dessert With Don" meetings are always fun, a colorful exchange of ideas and information between powerful elected officials and any common citizen who shows up for free cookies like a stray cat looking for a handout.

But Monday's meeting was especially filled with emotion over this month's topic of Animal Control. The actions and fate of two individuals dominated discussion: Joy Mattice, the famous "cat lady of North Minneapolis," and another woman named Susan (I do not have her last name) are facing criminal charges for allegedly "ground feeding" stray cats in North Minneapolis.

Allegedly Did What She Freely Admits To Doing

That word "allegedly" applies only to Susan, the second woman charged. In extensive media coverage about the charges against her, Joy admits to feeding stray cats, click here. 

Before getting into the nitty gritty of this meeting, including a particularly driven woman who was proposing some kind of "final solution" to the city's raccoon issues, I would like to put forward a fairly extensive disclaimer about Joy Mattice...

Slumlord Howie Gangestad Reportedly Ripped Off "Joy The Cat Lady" In A Real Estate Deal...

Photo and blog post by John Hoff

When I wrote about slumlord Howie Gangestad and how he'd flown under the radar of this blog for so long (quite odd, because this blog pulls no punches when it comes to naming the names of slumlords) an anonymous commenter came on the blog and virtually whispered in my ear, saying Gangestad had ripped off Joy Mattice, a/k/a "Joy The Cat Lady," whose humanitarian work I have mentioned before.

Well, it turns out...

...there really is something to the "Howie Ripped Off The Cat Lady" rumor. A few hours ago I was visiting my girlfriend, Jordan Neighborhood "Super Citizen" Megan Goodmundson, and Joy the Cat Lady came through the alley. I chatted with her for a while (actually helping her to retrieve one of her boots that was stuck in a snowy fence, lost in a feline-assisting misadventure) and Joy gave me the dirt on Howie.

In summary (according to Joy) she and her late husband loaned Howie $450,000. Joy's husband, known as "Buzz," was a much beloved Minneapolis police officer. When Buzz died, Howie showed up at the funeral and told Joy, in so many words, he wasn't paying back the money because Buzz was dead and Joy was old and wouldn't be alive much longer, either, so what did she need with credit? Joy reported her response--there at her husband's funeral--was to call Howie a son-of-a-bitch.

Joy says Howie has ripped off a bunch of other people and these folks are gathering up their evidence, hoping to get some kind of legal action against Howie. (I strongly suspect it was one of these individuals who contacted me through the comment function of my blog and put me on this story) These folks want Joy to assist and provide her testimony.

There are more details, but that's what I managed to memorize without notes, talking to Joy in the alley. Talk did naturally turn to felines: Joy says the city is cracking down on people, even folks who feed strays. Joy says she has many kittens that need homes and folks should contact her for free kittens.

The previously mentioned blog post has contact info to help Joy with financial donations or--any time you like, just about--get yourself a cat for a pet.

Does anybody have more info about these allegations? Including any court file numbers, property addresses, names, etc?

Joy Mattice, The Kind Cat Lady Of NoMi...

Photo By John Hoff

Janet Joy Mattice--who goes by "Joy," most of the time--has spent many years in the real estate biz. I met Joy through a would-be real estate deal that didn't go through, but at least I had the Joy of knowing Joy.

Joy's real passion is the welfare of animals, in particular cats. The mortgage meltdown has thrown many people out of homes, and this disruption of the social fabric keeps rolling downhill until it hits hard the most helpless in our society: poor dumb animals.

Joy goes around North Minneapolis (NoMi) with "live traps" and captures roaming felines. She puts out food for the felines until they can be live trapped. She then takes steps to assure the felines go to "no kill" shelters and are adopted. Joy has also done things for non-feline animals...

When I ran into Joy a couple weeks ago, she told me about shelling out more than $6,000 to take care of about half a dozen young pit bulls. These were her own personal funds. Joy doesn't have a non-profit but she is happy to accept donations, including donations of cat food. She also told me about the time she rescued a guinea pig which somebody had just put in an alley in North Minneapolis--cage and all--and left to die.

I asked Joy if she was wearing a real fur coat, and Joy responded, "REAL people wear FAKE fur."

If you know of stray cats, give the critters a break and call Joy instead of Animal Control. The odds of a cat being adopted in a so-called "shelter" are about as good as your odds of winning at pull tabs. Here is Joy's contact info to give her cat information or to arrange for a donation:

Janet Joy Mattice
11200 Commerce Drive North
Champlin, Minnesota 55316-3166

Phone number 763-569-5661