Oh yeah. We went through one near hurricane going around the Southern tip of Africa. And then again, coming across the Atlantic, before we got into New York, we had swells waves like 38 feet high, and this was a 500 foot long German built, wonderful freighter. It was only… Read More
And there was so much bumping back and forth that one zebra kicked the end out of its crate. And so they gave me the ship’s medical quarters to live in while we’re on ship. So I’m in my bunk in the seas are rolling. Fortunately, I didn’t get seasick. Read More
Any memorable stories from that?… Read More
All of which Gladys Porter Zoo became noted for. We had the only gentlins duiker in the world in captivity from that point in 1970, until we finally the last one died early in the 2008, I believe. So we kept a group going that started from three different founders… Read More
Because after that time, we had big enough planes with 747 and all that they could bring elephants and giraffe and things by air. But at that time we brought in 11 giraffes as debt cargo on a ship. We brought back about five rhinos. We brought back ostrich’s the… Read More
So it was a process to get them over. On that shipload of animals, which left from Mombasa East Africa, went around the Southern tip of Africa up to New York, where they had to go into quarantine at Clifton, New Jersey for 30 days. And so I rode with… Read More
Interestingly, she was actively involved in the capture of our giraffes. She and her one of her closest friends in Brownsville, Mrs. Duffy, went to Africa on safari, and there was a animal dealership that was active then and still is International Animal Exchange. And they had a base camp… Read More
How did that work?… Read More
You dealt with animal dealers exclusively. You did most of it. You did a little of it. Read More
Was she involved in that process?… Read More
I always involved her from day one with planning. And what do you think about this and that and we got along, I think so well, because she felt part of the process instead of the one that was just expected to write the check. So you had indicated the… Read More
How did you acquire those?… Read More
As far as was she meddlesome, no, she was not meddlesome, but after the zoo was built, she loved to watch a Soap Opera that was on at lunchtime. And so she would have her lunch at home, watch her Soap Opera, and then she’d normally come to the zoo… Read More
And did she just step back after that or was she actively involved in going to find the animals or was she just writing checks?… Read More
Not at all. Gladys was not that kind of a person. Gladys was a very hands-on person involved. For instance, she started the Junior Service League in Brownsville, she and her sister, Camille, and they were extremely active in it in the early days until they could see that it… Read More
And it just so happened that there were about 30 acres across the street that they subsequently ended up obtaining when they decided to build the zoo. Gladys hired Warren Thomas, as a consultant when they started to get the idea that they wanted to build a zoo. And so… Read More
And so that’s how the endangered species concept got involved. It was Warren convincing the Earl C Sams Foundation that that was the route to go in order to do something meaningful for the zoo. So Gladys Porter makes the decision to build a zoo and she brings Warren Thomas… Read More
They were both in the farming and ranching business. And so they moved to Brownsville when they established the Foundation, the Earl C Sams Foundation, Gladys was the first president and they established their offices in Brownsville. And so they did many community service projects. They built a wing on… Read More
Then she started to see where they were being poached, decimated, saw them snared, the utilization of the animals and she really wasn’t comfortable with it. She wanted to be more involved. And so they had done many projects at the time in Brownsville with money that their Foundation, the… Read More
And then by 1917, they had a series of 15 or more stores. And Mr. Sams was the first manager of the satellite store when Mr. Penny established it. So he was number one employee, number one manager. He went on that, I think it was around 1917 that Mr. Read More