Seamstress who crafts Saintly City Cat Show capes and crowns ready to retire — at age 84

When 2025 Saintly City Cat Show royalty is crowned Sunday, it will mark the last show to feature capes and crowns by Flo Dougherty.

Don’t worry, the kitties will still don their royal attire in 2026, but someone else will create the royal cat couture for the first time in about 25 years.

The show, part of the St. Paul Winter Carnival, will be held at the St. Paul RiverCentre 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Dougherty, 84, who is only the third seamstress to fill this role, took over as kit crafter for these kitty coronations after the previous seamstress stepped away for health reasons. Dougherty said it’s time for her to move on.

“Just decided the old fingers aren’t going to work so well anymore,” she said.

Dougherty, who isn’t a cat owner, said she started going to cat shows with her friend and the Saintly City Cat Show manager Linda Baker more than 30 years ago. Baker and Dougherty met while working together at a nursing home.

“She just asked me one time when her family couldn’t go with her,” Dougherty said.

Later, Baker asked her to take on the seamstress role, but Dougherty’s involvement with the show goes far beyond fashioning the feline attire. She has worked the gate, set-up, tear-down, ribbon placement and just about any other chore needed for the show. Dougherty said the thing she will miss the most about her role is the hustle and bustle of getting everything together.

And we cannot forget the group most affected by Dougherty’s departure — the cats. The 2019 and 2020 Saintly City champion Spirit Walker William is particularly fond of his royal attire, which his owner, Tony Pray, keeps hidden.

“I made a mistake and the first time he saw it he dragged it off the shelf and laid on top of it as if to say, ‘I know what this is, and I know that it’s mine,’” Pray said.

Dougherty makes capes and crowns only for the Saintly City Cat Show. She says it would make them less special if she made them for everyone.

Baker said her favorite memory with Dougherty at any cat show was roughly 30 years ago. The two traveled to South Sioux City, Neb., for the now-defunct Sioux City Cat Club show one Easter and Dougherty surprised Baker with an Easter basket full of treats.

A replacement hasn’t yet been named for the 2026 show, but Baker said she likely will rope in one of her friends once again.

“It’s dangerous to be a friend of mine,” Baker said. “You never know what you’re going to get hauled into.”

Dougherty isn’t retiring completely and still works four days a week at Aquarius Home Services. Dougherty just isn’t one to sit at home doing nothing, Baker said. In fact, Dougherty has traveled all over the world, including to the Arctic and Antarctic.

“I’ve been on all seven continents,” Dougherty said.

And even though she is leaving the seamstress role, Dougherty said she will continue to attend the Saintly City Cat Shows for as long as she can.

“I’ve had a ball with it, and I’m sorry to step down, but there comes a time,” she said.