Mrs. Dodge was the first woman judge at the Westminster dog show in 1924, and in 1927 she held the first Morris and Essex Dog Show which was, for several decades, the largest dog show in the world, with an attendance of 50,000 people in 1939. The last Morris and Essex show was held in 1957.
Held on the 130-acre polo field at Hartley Farms, her husbands estate across the road from her own (separate beds were apparently not enough), the Morris and Essex dog show had 3 1/2 acres of tents and more than 20 acres set aside for parking. Special guests and judges were served an elegant sit-down lunch, while everyone else received a splendid box lunch. Food consumed at the event included 1 1/2 tons of roast turkey, 100 hams, 750 quarts of potato salad, 8,000 rolls, 400 fruitcakes and 750 quarts of ice cream. Mrs. Dodge and her husband, Marcellus Hartley Dodge, heir to the Remington Arms fortune, paid the entire bill.
Mrs. Dodge's favorite breed was the German Shepherd, though she had many Cocker Spaniels as well, and she could have as many as 150 dogs at any given time, some of which included Bloodhounds, Beagles, Labrador Retrievers, and Rottweilers.
Dog show judges from around the world attended the Morris and Essex show, including Max von Stephanitz, the father of the German Shepherd, who attended in 1930. Rin Tin Tin was the star guest at the show in 1933.
Geraldine R. Dodge was a philanthropist, as well as a dog lover, and she was one of the founders of the Seeing Eye Foundation in Morristown, New Jersey which, in 1929, became the first guide dog school for the blind in the country.
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| Mrs. Dodge with a Best In Show winner. |
Mrs. Dodge died in 1973, but the Morris and Essex dog show has recently been revived (smaller now, of course), and even has it's own FaceBook page!
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