Well because he was out of town a lot, it was his intention to train a larger cadre of staff. That’s where he was training Bob Fru and Jerry Lentz and Mike Fleig and I to help Moody Lentz and Henry Sanders manage the zoo so that he could be… Read More
There was some animosity between the governing body that kinda resented Marlin being gone quite a bit. But if he would’ve allowed the developing staff as we gradually got more authority and were able to operate the zoo, it would’ve been a smooth operation. But that was his intention to… Read More
So we would get the letters that were written to Marlin Perkins. That’s how I learned how to type. We had to type out the answer. A lotta times we had to go to library and learn because we didn’t know the answers so we had to research it. And… Read More
And if they’re okay, they went out in the mail. If they weren’t, he’d call us up and yell at us and tell us what we did wrong and what we should do right. And we had to go back and rewrite the letter. So it was a training program. Read More
Were you part of this?… Read More
It impacted us in a lotta ways. First of all, Marlin Perkins loved to inspire young keepers. And if he recognized ambition in a keeper, he encouraged to read all he could, learn all he could and invited us to write signed copy, invite us the right information bulletins. There… Read More
Yes, I can tell you one. Well we were not allowed ever to open a venomous snake box. When it came in, we had to call Marlin and he had to come over and open it up. And he came over one time and we had this crate sittin’ on… Read More
Got one on ya now?… Read More
No. (chuckles) Now Marlin was doing Wild Kingdom. He had come from zoo parade. He was doing Wild Kingdom at the zoo. Read More
Did that impact the zoo in any way or you?… Read More
Now since moody Lentz was also the general curator, also we raised all the baby animals that were born or orphaned like baby lions, baby wolves. And sometimes when Marlin would buy animals for the children’s zoo, they would be sent to the reptile house and we’d have to hand… Read More
Marlin Perkins and Carol would come out to the zoo at night and they’d see the light on in the kitchen of the reptile house. And they would come in. And when they’d see us takin’ care of these animals, they always had advice on how to clean the nipples… Read More
Any unique experiences with Marlin?… Read More
Lincoln Park and the National Zoo being the other two. Now Marlin loves snakes. He hired you. Moody loves snakes. You’re workin’ for him. Read More
Did Marlon show up at the reptile house on a regular basis and was he able to impart any life lessons to you?… Read More
Well Marlin was a frequent visitor to the reptile house. By now Marlin, not only was he director of the zoo, but he was very heavily involved in Wild Kingdom. So he traveled a lot. But when he was in town, he spent a lotta nighttime hours in his office. Read More
Well when I started the zoo in 1963, Marlin Perkins had just been at the zoo about six months and he followed George Vierheller who had been at the zoo for about 40 years. The St. Louis Zoo was in Forest Park. The Forest Park was established about 1875. And… Read More
St. Louis was founded by fur trappers, early fur trappers and hunters. And so there were a lotta baby animals who were brought in from the trappers and kept. Baby bears. There were bears. There were wolves, there were coyotes, foxes, skunks in many of the city parks including Forest… Read More
For the fair, there were 1,000 birds that belonged to the National Zoo that were in that cage. After the fair closed, they did ship those birds to National Zoo and St. Louis had to catch a whole new collection of birds. But at that time, the flight cage was… Read More
And then can you gimme just a little capsule history of the zoo?… Read More