Gelsomina Forever
in our Hearts
Gelsomina has passed away. She was found and scanned for her chip on 7/15/25, by Wendy from Cinnaminson Community Cats. Thank you, Wendy. So much. And though we are heartbroken, we are so grateful to her, and to all of Riverton for your help and concern over this past month.
Gelsomina was loved beyond measure
by her human family.
Thank you all once again.
Lynne Vallone and Howard Marchitello
700 Thomas Avenue
Riverton, NJ 08077
About Gelsomina
Gelsomina escaped the house on 6/13/25, and was sighted several times over the month. She was found deceased only a few houses away in the early hours on 7/15/25.
Gelsomina had skin cancer, and her condition was very closely monitored and treated. She had long outlived her original prognosis with steady intervention. Any time beyond her original anticipated time left with the cancer was a gift, and her family and I quietly know this.
She was found in a place where we searched high and low after a confirmed sighting, and this leads me to believe she did not want to be found. It is quite possible that the cancer did something sudden and drastic, she knew her system was about to give out, and she may have sought a quiet place to pass.
Her former search update site here will now be up a little longer as a memorial site.
Our hearts are low today, but our hearts are also lifted by the spirit of the Riverton community. Riverton has shown its true character during this past month as a beautiful community filled with compassion for their neighbors and their animals.
Gelsomina's family and I (her pet sitter) are eternally grateful for all your support over the month when we were searching night and day.
Gelsomina (aka Gellie - pronounced "Jelly") was a lovely, chirpy brown tabby. She liked to make sure we accompanied her when she ate. She loved squeezy treats and water and belly rubs and harassing the spider plant.
Her favorite perch was in her heated bead on the radiator where she could stay warm while she kept tabs on neighborhood activity outside the window.
The furniture has been modestly restyled by Gelsomina's little claws, and it looks perfect. She was a very gentle cat, and so good with the human grandbabies.
Her little meow and squeak-purrs were a lovely sound in the house, and I, for one, will miss that, and find the house awfully quiet without it.
A Message from the Search Team
There is no more search. Thank you to everyone who tried to find her.
I went around and removed as many of her search flyers as I could. I know I must have missed some. I did this because I couldn't imagine having her human family members doing this while the grief is still so heavy. I'm requesting that if you see any of her flyers that I missed, please feel free to take it down. Thank you so much.
Special thanks goes out to The Porch Club of Riverton, Riverton Free Library, The Early Bird, Juanita's Mexican Cuisine, Brewery Thirty-Three, Riverton Health & Fitness Center, Revive Cafe, Nelly Bly's Olde Tyme Ice Cream Parlour, and Milanese Pizza for hosting our posters! We know your community shout-out spaces are limited and precious, and your support has meant the world to us.
How was she found? By loads of community outreach - and community response!
If Gellie's death can mean anything, let it be that the methods we used eventually worked. Through that community outreach, we were able to see Gellie alive one last time on someone else's Ring camera. And through that same outreach we were connected to Wendy and Cinnaminson Community Cats. And Wendy was the person who ultimately found and scanned Gellie to confirm that it was her.
If you want to boost the odds of your lost kitty being found, do everything we did. Go all-in.
What did we do?
*** Boots on the ground. An indoor-outdoor kitty can wander pretty far, and sometimes get scooped up by a well-meaning neighbor a street or two over. So start with a walking search near their known haunts, widening your search radius by about 1/8 of a mile per day. An indoor only kitty will not go far. They will initially spazz, then find a low place to hide and decompress from the stress. All the data points to that. And Gellie, and indoor cat, was found only a few houses away, on the ground beneath a bush. On day one, start on your own property.
Our search technique:
Keep your carrier and a towel in the car for searches so you don't need to run indoors to fetch them when you spot your kitty. You'll be ready to scoop them right up. Always start by looking down. Walk your perimeters, shake their favorite treat package, no sudden moves, quietly calling their name. Search your garage and shed. Look under cars in your driveway. Get on your hands and knees and look under your shrubs and through your flower beds, and under porches and decks. If you can't find your cat on your property this way, then start looking up. Look for your kitty in any trees, or on your roof.
Still no luck? It's time for the neighbor-go-round. Request and obtain daytime and nighttime permission to carefully search in their yards, under shrubs, under cars, under porches and decks, and ask them if they would mind searching their garages and sheds and to send you any door cam footage that they think might be of your cat. Bonus points if you have neighbors who feed the local ferals! There's an increased likelihood that your missing kitty will seek food and water there. Searching for an indoor kitty between midnight and 4AM is best, as this is when it's quiet enough for freaked out, disoriented indoor cats to feel safe enough to stop hunkering down in place and to get moving to eat and drink.
*** Get your front and back door areas ready. Put their litter boxes outside by the door, and a towel or clothing that smell like you on any porch/deck furniture you might have. If the cat is disoriented but nearby, they can smell their way home. At night, leave out water, and unless you have issues with raccoons, leave out food and a treat trail from the sidewalk to their litter box.
*** Humane traps work! Cover them with a piece of clothing or a towel that you don't care about that smells like you, and use fried chicken or tuna as bait. Put the trap in a cozy low place out of the sun and rain. Check and swap out bait twice a day. The idea is to catch your, cat, but be ready to catch a feral cat, a neighborhood indoor-outdoor cat, or a racoon or opossum. These things happen. If you don't recognize the cat you catch, please consider turning it in to your local TNR people to be scanned and, if feral, taken in for badly needed veterinary care. It's so worth it! If they're microchipped, then they can be returned to their owners right away. If it's a raccoon or opossum, call animal control to take it elsewhere for safe handling and release.
*** Flyers, flyers, and more flyers. The more visible your lost cat is in your local community, the more likely someone is to spot them. Gelsomina's owners even got a lawn sign. It always helps to have extra eyes on the lookout!
*** Our flyers had a QR code that linked to this website. It was free to build. If you can pop up a quick WordPress or Wix-type site with details about your cat with tons of photos or videos, go for it! Update it regularly to keep visitors informed about any possible sightings and changes to your search areas.
*** Post on local missing pets pages on all your favorite social media sites, and if you built a website for your search, link to it in your posts. You're looking at proof that driving flyer traffic to a site with a QR code and shared links on social media get the job done!
*** We also used PawBoost to make with SmartMatch activated (a fabulous resource!!). PawBoost is free, SmartMatch is not, but it's worth it. PawBoost places a social media post for missing pet pages. SmartMatch is $10/week, and it uses your images and search criteria to sort through the hundreds of weekly intakes at local shelters to see if any of them match your missing pet. It even looks for your pet's microchip number among the intakes. SmartMatch saves you hours and hours of trying to sort through photos of intakes, which is also very good for morale. It can be disheartening to look at a photo that resembles your lost pet but you find that it isn't when you visit the shelter.
We did it all, and it worked, even for a kitty nearing the end who didn't want to be found.
Once your kitty is found, take down your flyers and update your website, social media posts, and your PawBoost listing, and cancel your SmartMatch subscription if you had one.
Gellie was wonderful.
She is forever one of our favorite memories.
She was sweet, cuddly, and very cheery. And believe me, when I was pet sitting for her, I spoiled her!
We loved her little face!
Distinguishing Features:
Large ears, red diamond on the top of her head, white mouth/chin, granuloma on her bottom lip.
She also had polydactyly (extra toes and little kitty thumbs!) and a primordial pouch (extra tummy skin) which she would happily roll and expose for belly rubs. Her little meow was quiet and high-pitched.
Special Care
What Gellie Loved:
Water, and lots of it! She loved catnip, Temptations crunchies, and Churu squeezy treats!
Most of all, she loved her quiet time and her radiator. <3
Thank you so much!
Your help as a neighborhood is so touching. We can't tell you how much your tips, your own search efforts, and your willingness to allow us onto your properties to search means to us, and we will never forget your kindness. You truly are wonderful neighbors.