Stories of Heroes (and Gorillas) in Love – February 2010
Postal Clerks Save Dog
The time was winter 1886, and the place was the post office in Albany, New York, where a cold, bedraggled fox terrier made his way inside looking for shelter.
The postal clerks took him in, fed him, and provided the dog with a warm place to sleep. Owney, as they called him, felt right at home and decided it was his job to follow the mail wagons from the post office to the rail station and back again.
One day he slipped on to a rail car, and equally amazing, several days later he caught another train back to Albany. Owney began to travel regularly, probably encouraged by some humans; he always returned to the home office. The clerks in Albany didn’t want to lose him so they gave him a collar with the inscription, “Owney, Albany P.O., N.Y.”
For eleven years, Owney traveled the U.S. from New York to California, and he had the tags to prove it. Other post offices began tagging him with “postmarks” that specified where he had visited. Miners in the West inscribed some molded silver as a label of his visit to a mining community; others labeled him with tags of leather or scraps of cloth. Owney started each trip fresh, because in Albany his friends removed and preserved the tags from his previous trip.
Eventually Owney traveled internationally. One of his medals documented an audience with the prime minster of Japan. Owney had become quite a celebrity.
Today Owney’s body has been stuffed and preserved and stands guard in a glass case in Washington, D.C., serving as a reminder of the importance of goodness and loyalty. (New York Times, 3-20-1910)
If you would like to read more fascinating stories about the postal service, click here.
Before “Lost” or “24″
Serialized adventure stories have long captured the imagination. Starting in the 1930s, young people tuned in to a 14-minute radio program starring the All-American boy, Jack Armstrong. The serialized program aired daily and maintained popularity from 1933-51.
Armstrong was your “average American high school athlete,” who visited exotic parts of the world with his Uncle Jim. Jack, along with Uncle Jim’s own children, Betty and Billy, frequently found themselves confronting danger for the “greater good.” Sponsored for its entire run by Wheaties cereal, the program featured factual information about the parts of the world they visited, exciting sound effects, and a dramatic story that kept listeners tuning in day after day.
For those of us who have become so visually dependent, it is actually quite fascinating to see how effective a radio program can be. Sample it here: http://www.otrfan.com/otr/ja/sunken_reef.html
Love–at the “Usual Prices”
A February newsletter needs a love story. First, I found a touching headline about Cupid “cutting red tape” in 1944 for a blind U.S. soldier whose new bride, a British citizen, was not going to be permitted to come to the U.S. with him. The problem was solved by the intervention of the military. Despite their good deed for the sake of love, the military wasn’t quite my idea of “Cupid,” so I kept reading.
This next story made me laugh. It was a “true love” story–between two circus gorillas. In 1941 Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey brought M’Toto from Cuba, and set up her cage next to their very popular male gorilla, known as Gargantua (formerly called “Buddy”). The two primates were separated by “only a few inches and thick shatterproof glass between them.”
The press agent described the scene in a New York Times article (3-27-1941): “You should have been there. M’Toto stared at Gargantua. He stared at her. They had eyes only for each other. I am guilty of no overstatement when I say it was a case of love at first sight.”
The fellow ended the press conference with this: “Love will be the theme [of this year's circus.] The emotional sensation of the ages! Love on a gargantuan scale!
“At the usual prices.”
Barnum, the master of the “sell,” would have been proud. Gargantua became so popular with the public that he is credited with bringing audiences back to the circus after attendance had diminished during the Depression.
Hearts and Flowers to Forgotten Heroes
Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865) practiced medicine in Vienna and was the first to realize that physicians needed to wash their hands between patients. Today hospitals in the U.S. are still wrestling with enforcement of this issue.
Lillian Wald (1867-1940) was the founder of the first non-sectarian public health nursing system and the founder of the Henry Street Settlement House in NYC. During her lifetime, most sick people stayed at home, and Wald soon established a system to provide visiting nurse services to the poor. Her methods eventually spread worldwide.