Human obituaries
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2002:
Jayne Paulette, 84, died on June 5 from cardiac arrest in
St. Louis, Missouri, where she was born and lived for most of her
life. “Jayne served for many years as secretary of the Simian
Society of America and was among the first to advocate that Simian
Society members should not acquire individual monkeys as pets, while
still helping primates in private hands,” recalled Primarily
Primates president Wally Swett. “She was a staunch supporter of
Primarily Primates,” Swett added, “for all of its existence, and
served as Primarily Primates vice president for several years
preceding her death.”
Charles Vorhees, 85, died on June 10 in Hopedale, Ohio.
Brother of Helen V. Brach, who married into the Brach candy fortune,
Vorhees served as vice president when she formed the Helen V. Brach
Foundation, a major funder of animal welfare projects, and
succeeded to the chair after she disappeared in 1977 while personally
investigating a gang who killed horses to enable the owners to
collect insurance. The case was finally cracked in 1994. The
ringleader, Richard Bailey, was convicted of killing Helen Brach,
other ring members were convicted of four previous murders, and at
least 25 other people were convicted in connection with the horse
killings. Charles Vorhees’ son Charles Allen Vorhees is also a
longtime Brach Foundation board member.
Bryan Nel, 72, died on February 18 soon after finishing a
volunteer shift at the Kwekwe SPCA Centre kennels in Zimbabwe. Nel
chaired the Kwekwe SPCA, served as a representative on the National
SPCA Council, and chaired the Zimbabwe National SPCA itself from
July 1999 until August 2000, when he was re-elected but soon
resigned due to failing health.
Maria Durin Chamber, 76, a British citizen living in
Paranaque City, the Philippines, died in a housefire along with her
three poodles on July 4 when she ran back into the blazing building
to try to save them.
Frank Inn, 86, whose given name was Frank Freeman, died on
July 27 in Sylmar, California. As a child, Inn was hit by a car,
pronounced dead, and survived only because an embalming student
detected a faint heartbeat before injecting him with formaldehyde.
Confined to a wheelchair while recovering, he amused himself by
training a puppy named Jeep with food rewards. As a young “gopher”
for MGM Studios, Inn impressed animal trainer Henry East when Jeep
quickly learned a stunt sequence that East could not get a dog to do.
East hired him as an assistant. Inn hit the TV bigtime training Cleo
the basset bound on the Jackie Cooper show People’s Choice during the
1950s, and trained Arnold Ziffel the pig for the 1960s sitcom Green
Acres, along with nearly 500 animals used in episodes of The Beverly
Hillbillies, but he enjoyed his greatest success with Benji, a
charismatic little mutt he adopted from the Burbank Animal Shelter in
1960. Benji initially performed in the 1960s TV series Petticoat
Junction, but leaped to stardom 14 years later in first of the
series of eight hit movies and 13 episodes of a TV show bearing his
name. Karl Lewis Miller, trainer of the animals used in the Babe
films, was among many Hollywood trainers taught by Inn, who when
not training animals to perform, trained dogs to help the disabled
and promoted shelter adoptions.
Karen Vowell, 35, of Lynnwood, Washington, was killed
near the Edmonds beach on July 19 when she tried to pull her dog
Betty Boop from in front of an Amtrak train. Betty Boop survived
uninjured.
James Karaffa Gregory, 50, a priest of the Congregation of
Holy Cross, Indiana Province, Kenya, and formerly a priest in
South Bend, Indiana, U.S., was trampled on June 25 by a giraffe
while hiking at the Aberdare Country Club, 100 miles north of
Nairobi. The giraffe believed to have attacked him later leaped off
a cliff and died when approached by investigators.
Sean Mckeown, 58, died on July 11 in Stanford, California.
As reptile curator for 20 years at the Chafee Zoo in Fresno,
California, and the Honolulu Zoo in Hawaii, Mckeown was
distinguished as the first person ever to breed endangered Madagascar
ploughshare tortoises in captivity, and started the first breeding
program for Madagascar boas. He wrote numerous books and more than
100 published articles about reptile care.
Elizabeth Yunker Hilton, 49, was found shot to death on
June 6 near the body of her husband, Jack Lacy Hilton, 56, a
former patrolman for the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department, whom
the Madison County Sheriff’s Department believes killed her and then
himself at their home in Little Sandy Mush, North Carolina. A
registered nurse, Mrs. Hilton kept more than 120 pets, including
dogs, cats, chickens, geese, a peacock, a turkey, two donkeys,
and several lamas, cows, pigs, goats, horses, and sheet. Most
were rescue cases. The animals are believed to have been auctioned
off by the court-appointed executor of the Hiltons’ estate.
Priscilla Chemutai Aiyebei, 24, a game ranger at Lake
Nakuru National Park, was killed by a lion on July 8 near the staff
quarters. Fellow rangers tracking the lion found the remains of a
male ranger who was believed to have returned home on leave on June
28, but was appearently killed and eaten instead. The lion was shot.
Jarso Dima, a security officer at the Mount Kenya Game
Ranch, and father of six children, was trampled by an elephant on
June 24 near the Kenya Army barracks in Nanyuki. Farmer Stephen
Ruiru was trampled nearby a few days earlier.
