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A quintessential Chestnut Hill family
Gigi Glendinning: animal rescuer extraordinaire
by Len Lear

Gigi adopted Slidell, a six-year-old male Maine Coon Mix, a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, when Gigi was volunteering in New Orleans. Slidell had remained in a shelter, unclaimed.

You might say that Gigi Glendinning, 42, is a member of a quintessential Chestnut Hill family. She and her brother, Andrew (now a Lafayette Hill contractor with three children); her sister, Ellen (now a freelance accountant in Lafayette Hill with two children); and her brother, Bruce (now a regional manager for Prudential Fox and Roach, living in Flourtown with two children); all grew up in Chestnut Hill with their mom, Sandra, now a resident of The Hill at Whitemarsh; and their late father, Robert, a prominent realtor with an office on Evergreen Avenue (and frequent contributor to the Local).

They lived successively in houses on Prospect Avenue, then St. Martin’s Lane, then Auburn Avenue in Wyndmoor and finally, in a Woodward house on Mermaid Lane. Both sons went to Chestnut Hill Academy, and both daughters went to Springside School.

“My dad never went to college himself,” said Gigi, “but he provided us all with great educations. We were very lucky. By buying and then selling the houses we lived in, that’s how he paid for all of our college tuitions.” (Robert Glendinning died at 75 last year of Alzheimer’s Disease.)

After graduation from Springside in 1985, Gigi went to St. Lawrence University in New York state. Then she drove to Seattle with two friends from Wyndmoor, Elizabeth Harris Mellon and Betsy O’Neil, and lived there for a decade. “I heard there were mountains and lakes so it sounded good to me,” Gigi said.

The way I picture it, the hose under our kitchen sink was like a guy at the beach, sucking in his gut. While we were in the house, the hose was flexing its muscles, trying to impress us with its strength, walking carefully to avoid any unnecessary jiggling. The moment we walked out the door, though, it said, “Ahhhhh,” and just let it all hang out.

When I contacted Doug Heller of Flourtown to request an interview, he said, “Sure, sounds like fun. Come on over, I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”

As he was giving me precise directions, culminating with “It’s the seventh house on the right, with a Betsy Ross flag,” I thought the directions were exactly what I would expect from a guy who creates crossword puzzles — enthusiastic and detail-oriented.