March 27, 2009 Golden memories: Remembering Pagey Elliott Play video

(NECN: Greg Wayland) - Golden memories of a woman who loved golden's. Rachel "Pagey" Elliott was the Massachusetts woman who put golden retrievers on the map. She would have smiled at the tribute she got today.

When has there been a livelier gathering of golden fur and eager faces begging for a little attention?

They could not know that they would make up the honor guard at a memorial service for a woman, who, with her late husband, raised fifty litters of golden retrievers over four decades.

She was Rachel Page Elliott -- or, Pagey Elliott, as she was known.

Author, lecturer, researcher and world authority on the golden retriever breed. She died March 20th at her farm in Carlisle, Mass at the age of 96 after a long battle with cancer

That's why fifty golden’s and hundreds of golden retriever owners and breeders from as far away as Kansas and Colorado came together at the first parish church in Concord, Mass Friday for Pagey Elliott’s memorial service.

Jane Bramhall: She was a character with an insatiable curiosity and love of life and a love of people and animals.

SUSAN FOSTER: Energetic and positive and just loved -- had so many different talents.

Including a talent for creating 1500 jigsaw puzzles in which a golden retriever always figured, sometimes prominently.

This one sold for a record 27 thousand dollars at a public television auction to raise funds for research into golden retriever diseases.

She

guided us, she was a marvelous mentor, she led by example. Such a wonderful person and so innovative and her approach to trying to teach people.

Teach them about the form, function and structure of this breed that she was among the first to bring to this country from England. A breed, that, in addition to its sunny, friendly nature and boundless energy, is designed to retrieve game, along with the occasional rubber ball.

Page was a tremendous intellect in our breed and she really revolutionized some of the thinking on how dogs move.

“She was very, ah, into -- you know the function of this breed, she would say very nicely with her cup of tea and cookies and she said, now we have to see the structure that will produce that and that's what you should, as breeders be aiming for.”

The service called for a procession of golden’s and their owners to the front of the church before the start of the memorial service.

Pretty much what we're going to be doing is from here we're going to get in order and the numbers are up there so you can tell which number you are in line.

Then with a great deal of solemnity - or as solemn as things could be with a lot of happy golden retrievers, the procession began

They wore tartan bandannas and marched to the skirl of a bagpipe in keeping with their Scottish heritage.

Then they formed a long, golden line in silent vigil -- in tribute to the woman who, beginning as a child, had loved them all her life. And loved all animals, riding horses at her farm well into her eighties.

And when she was about 88 or 90 years old, she fell off her horse. She got back on, because, as she liked to put it, the world always looks better from the top of a horse.

Her son and two daughters made their way down the line, greeting the golden’s, thanking their masters.

And there was one special dog in that line -- Pagey Elliott's ten year old golden called Tammy posed for the family portrait.

I just think she brought so many of us together as friends. I mean people that didn't know each other. There was never a day at her house that five people didn't stop in and bring cake and they were greeted and they sat down and they got to know them. And I think with the loss of Pagey, we needed to be here together.

Together for a lick from Tammy, maybe a treat, and golden memories of Pagey Eliott.