Human Obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2004:

Ann Cottrell Free, 88, died on October 30, 2004, of
pneumonia, in Washington, D.C. Born in Richmond, Virginia, Free
debuted in journalism with the Richmond Times Dispatch in 1936. On
April 9, 1939, Free interviewed African American contralto Marian
Anderson just after she delivered her historic free concert for
75,000 people from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The Daughters
of the American Revolution had banned Anderson from performing in
Constitution Hall. Relocating to Washington D.C. in 1940, Free
became the first full-time female national capitol correspondent for
Newsweek, the Chicago Sun and the New York Herald Tribune.
Post-World War II, Free traveled in China as a special correspondent
for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration;
witnessed the ceremony that transferred India from British rule to
the home government formed by Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru;
narrowly escaped the Moslem/Hindu riots that followed; joined the
Marshall Plan in 1948 as a special correspondent, reporting on U.S.
efforts to rebuild western Europe; interviewed Eleanor Roosevelt
during the former First Lady’s successful effort to win the 1948
adoption of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights; and
covered the last days of French rule in Vietnam for the Herald
Tribune and other newspapers. As a roving foreign correspondent,
her stories also included datelines from the Sinai desert,
Palestine, Vienna, Paris, London, and Berlin. In February 1950
she married James S. Free (1908-1996), the longtime Washington D.C.
correspondent for the Birmingham News. James and Ann Cottrell Free
during the 1960s co-wrote a syndicated political column called
Washington Whirligig. Ann Free also wrote for the Washington Star,
Washington Post, Defenders of Wildlife, This Week, the North
American Newspaper Alliance syndicate, and the Women’s News Service.

Introduced to Animal Welfare Institute founder Christine Stevens
(1918-2002) by then-U.S. Senator Hubert Humphrey in the mid-1950s,
Free in 1963 received the Albert Schweitzer Medal from AWI, one of
the highest honors in animal welfare, for reporting that rallied
public opinion behind passage of the Humane Slaughter Act (1968),
and helped to win passage of the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act
(1966), amended in 1971 into the farther reaching Animal Welfare
Act. During the same years, Free interviewed and befriended Rachel
Carson (1907-1964), while Carson was writing Silent Spring (1962),
credited as the rallying cry of the late 20th century environmental
movement. After Carson’s death, Free in a nationally distributed
magazine article initiated the campaign that brought the1966
dedication of the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Maine.
Free authored three books, including Forever the Wild Mare (1965);
Animals, Nature and Albert Schweitzer (1982); and No Room, Save in
the Heart (1987). At her death she was writing a memoir of her time
in China. Free’s oral history Telling Their Story is All I Can Do is
part of Columbia University’s animal advocacy oral history
collection. In 1986 Free co-founded the Vieques Humane Society on
the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. Free is survived by her
daughter, Elissa Blake Free; her son-in-law, William Ward Nooter;
and her granddaughter, Amanda Blake Nooter, all of Washington, D.C.

Lorna Ham Kemp, 79, died on October 21, 2004, in
Victoria, British Columbia. A former school teacher and nurse, a
vegetarian for most of her life, and a survivor of cancers that were
expected to kill her in 1980 and 1982, Kemp lived most of her life
in Brigham, Quebec. The Kemp farm and the Naud farm on the far side
of the Yamaska River were late holdouts against the introduction of
factory techniques to the Quebec dairy industry. While the Naud
family kept their land by founding a penned boar hunt, Lorna Kemp
and her daughter P.J. Kemp informally made the Kemp farm the local
animal rescue headquarters. They took in dozens of feral cats, some
dogs, a flock of ducks, and once an abused monkey. They began
sterilizing barn cats in 1977, influencing neighbors to do likewise.
In 1978 P.J. Kemp wrote an essay entitled “The Soul of Beasts” for
The Town-ships Sun, a now defunct regional newspaper. “The Soul of
Beasts” was often reprinted and cited during the next few years and
may have been the first animal rights manifesto to reach a broad
Quebec audience. ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton gained his
first experience with farm animal welfare, feral cat sterilization,
and wildlife management while living at the Kemp farm, 1977-1989.
With Lorna Kemp’s introductions, encouragement, and translation
help, Clifton won the cooperation of many surrounding farmers in
keeping much of Brigham Township virtually trap-free throughout the
trapping boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The farm was lost
through a 1989 split involving other family members. Lorna and P.J.
Kemp moved to Victoria, B.C., where they continued to rescue cats.
P.J. Kemp nursed Lorna Kemp through her terminal illness, the first
symptom of which may have been a blackout leading to a serious fall
from a ladder while trying to help a cat.

Jeff Hubbard, 38, animal control officer for Wise,
Virginia, since 2000, and for Wise County for one week, died
unexpectedly on October 9.

Anthony Helzer, 20, an employer of the Houston SPCA who had
been missing since mid-day on September 30, was found dead in woods
near the SPCA on October 5.

Margaret B. Mitchell, 102, who founded the Bristol Humane
Society of Bristol, Virginia, died in Bristol on December 13,
2003. She was remembered on October 4, 2004, when Spay Virginia
director Teresa Dockery dedicated a sterilization clinic to be built
with $650,000 from her estate plus additional funding. Dockery was
for eight years president of the Bristol Humane Society.
Paul F. Iams, 89, died on October 26 in Chappaqua, New York, from
complications of a broken hip. He lived near one of his two
daughters, in Sun City West, Arizona, and was visiting the other
in Chappaqua. Born in Dayton, Ohio, Iams sold dog food for several
years, then sold soap for Procter & Gamble. After World War II duty
in the U.S. Navy, Iams in 1946 rented a feed mill in Tipp City,
Ohio, and began making dog food for Kentucky Chemical Inc. At first
he used their recipe. In 1950 Iams moved the operation to Dayton and
began using his own recipe. He hired future business partner Clay
Mathile in 1970 and sold Iams to him in 1982. Mathile sold the firm
to Procter & Gamble in 1999.