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1915 to 1917
Life on the streets for a little dog would have been tough. He would always have been trying to evade the dreaded dogcatchers and a one way trip to the pound. Lucky for him his life changed around September 1917.
Stubby trained alongside Robert and his buddies, but when the time came for them to ship out, he was left behind. Ever tenacious, Stubby found his way on to the USS Minnesota and set sail for France. Caught mid-Atlantic by General Clarence Edwards, Stubby saluted this high ranking officer and was formally allowed to join the 102nd Infantry Regiment.
After the war, Stubby and Conroy stayed in France for a time. In fact, this is where he met Woodrow Wilson, the first of the three presidents he would entertain in his lifetime.
Eventually, Stubby and Conroy left Vaudeville and headed to Washington, D.C. There, Conroy studied law at Georgetown while Stubby became a fixture at football games. He even became the official Hoyas mascot and performed on the field during halftime, making him the first-credited halftime performer! The duo also worked for the Bureau of Investigation, fighting organized crime during Prohibition.
On March 16th, 1926, Stubby passed away in the arms of his best friend. From coast to coast, newspapers published obituaries for Stubby including a full three columns on the front page of The New York Times. But the one that most strikes a chord with us is: “Stubby only a dog? Nonsense! Stubby was the concentration of all we like in human beings and lacked everything we dislike in them.”
