MY MOTHER AND THE ZOO.

MY MOTHER AND THE ZOO. Because of my mother’s connection to the Brookfield Zoo through Mr. Bradley, the Zoo played a big part in her life and our life. She chose our family dentist because he had been helpful with the elephants at the Zoo. Her brother Walter worked in the bird house at the Zoo before World War II. Once he brought home some emu eggs and my grandmother made an omelet from them. My grandmother also had a pet alligator name Allie, originally from the Zoo. She kept it in the bathtub and brought it up to the family summer place in Lakeside, Michigan, where apparently it disappeared. My mother told the story of the difficulty she had in phoning around looking for a veterinarian who could treat a sick panda on April Fool’s Day. She knew a lady who kept snakes, including Big Ben (a cobra, I think). My mother spoke of being at the Zoo before it opened (in 1934) when a snake escaped. People called out to her, “Don’t move, Miss Pallesen.” When she told the story, she always added, “I wasn’t going to move anyway.”