Greeting cards made by neighbor Kathleen Seacat's nephew, Jonathan Seacat. They're sold at Makers Connect on Garland Road. Photography by Lauren Allen.
Kathleen Seacat is the Energizer Bunny of the M Streets.
Though she has been busy since her retirement from a 40-year career selling cheese, including 35 as an industrial ingredient sales rep for Kraft Foods, one activity stands out: selling greeting cards made by her nephew, Robert Jonathan Seacat, who goes by Jonathan.
In June 2015, she says, Jonathan got high, stole some clothing from a Walmart and in an attempt to escape police, broke into a home in Colorado.
Jonathan, who had a gun, let the 9-year-old boy who was alone in the house leave, while he barricaded himself inside. After 19 hours of negotiating, firing tear gas, using an armored Bearcat vehicle and sending in SWAT teams, police arrested Jonathan.
No one was killed, but during the standoff, Jonathan had shot at the police.
In 2018, at age 35, Jonathan was sentenced to 100 years in prison by a district court judge in Colorado. A jury found him guilty of attempted manslaughter, and his sentence was enhanced because he was a “habitual offender,” according to a press release from the 18th Judicial District in Colorado. Seacat says her nephew had been in and out of prison for crimes such as possession of marijuana.
When Jonathan was in prison, he started writing to Seacat.
“That was really nice, because it gave him just a way to vent,” she says. “Of course, when he first went in there, he was full of awful anger.”
Jonathan had swallowed heroin, Seacat says, which damaged his leg, and he had to do rehab in prison. Eventually, he started going to the gym and lifting weights.
After three years of letter-writing, Jonathan began calling his aunt, which he continues to do monthly. And he started drawing, sending his art to his aunt.
“I really encouraged him to draw, because I thought it was such a wonderful thing for him to spend his time in prison doing,” she says.
He told her that he had started a business in prison, selling cards decorated with his artwork to other prisoners, who would mail the cards to their families.
Seacat, who enjoys writing cards, offered to help find other people to buy his cards so he could get a little extra money but also have something to do.
“That gave me so much peace, knowing that he was doing something that he enjoyed for two or three hours every day,” Seacat says.
Seacat took colorful drawings Jonathan sent her to a business in the Design District to be digitized, and then she provided the digital images to a printer and had the cards made.
She began selling the cards last summer. They’re available at Makers Connect on Garland Road, but Seacat is always searching for more stores to sell the cards.
Seacat’s volunteer work doesn’t stop with Jonathan.
Within the past few years, spurred by a frustration with gun violence in America along with policies on abortion rights and climate change, Seacat has become more politically engaged.
She’s worked on campaigns for Colin Allred and Rochelle Garza and with the Funky East Dallas Democrats, the FEDDs, fundraising and block-walking.
And baking. She was part of an organization called Bake Back Better, selling fancy cupcakes to raise money for Democratic candidates in Dallas. By herself, she bakes muffins and cookies weekly for migrants who arrive in Dallas, at Oak Lawn United Methodist Church, through the church’s Dallas Responds outreach program.
“I just was down there and saw these people,” Seacat says. “And I thought, oh my God, wouldn’t it be nice to have something homemade to eat?”
Besides food items, Seacat organizes donation drives for backpacks, stuffed animals and other items for the immigrants aided through Dallas Responds.
Seacat, who grew up in rural Kansas baking from a young age, is a prolific baker. She makes 14 kinds of Christmas cookies every year, along with a Christmas tree made of cinnamon rolls. For Easter, she makes a cake shaped like a bunny for the neighborhood kids. And recently, she’s been teaching an 8-year-old who lives in the neighborhood how to bake.
“That’s what I do,” Seacat says. “I love to bake.”
