A Main Line animal shelter is 100 years old

When Sheena Bowa was 3, she traded her tricycle for a dog.

"It just followed me home," she explained to her mother, neglecting to mention the swap.

Her mother, reasoning that not too many strays come equipped with a leash, quickly reversed the transaction.

Bowa's first pet was a cat, and a cocker spaniel and black spitz followed. When she was married to Larry Bowa, the former Phillies shortstop, he knew exactly how to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. He gave her a cocker spaniel, which Sheena named Muggsy.

One day in the '70s while Sheena was watching a Phils game at the Vet, a German shepherd stray suddenly appeared beside her aisle seat and gave her a look she couldn't resist. Sheena adopted him and paid a vet to restore his health.

Today, Bowa, 60, a real estate agent, shares her Radnor house with four cocker spaniels, including three rescues, and a stray cat.

"I love animals," she says. "It's my passion."

Lately, that passion has expanded to include the Francisvale Home for Smaller Animals, a largely hidden Main Line gem that is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Bowa, a volunteer and board member, is helping stage a centennial gala Saturday in the Crystal Tea Room at the Wanamaker Building.

"It's small and intimate," Bowa says of Francisvale. "The staff knows the names of all the animals, and the dogs are walked every day. It's easy to jump on a bandwagon that's already going someplace, but I've always rooted for the underdog, and this place needed help. There wasn't even a sign out front. Word has got to get out."

Francisvale occupies 16 hilly acres on Upper Gulph Road in Radnor. A white shingled cottage with a porch houses offices and most of the cats. In a separate stucco building there are air-conditioned dog kennels with access to outdoor runs.

Those who pass by might be familiar with its pet cemetery, where stone monuments on a woodsy slope mark the graves of more than 2,000 beloved Fidos and Felixes, as well as a couple of horses, a monkey, and, legend has it, the remains of the MGM lion. But relatively few people, including neighbors, realize that Francisvale claims to be the oldest continuously operated no-kill shelter in the United States.