A Celebration of the Life of Ann Cottrell Free, The National Press Club, Washington, D.C., December 4, 2004
(This is a collection of remarks "as prepared" - not quite "as delivered.")
Don Larrabee, Former President, National Press Club: We are here to celebrate a Free Spirit. I am privileged to introduce an illustrious group of Ann Free's friends, family and comrades in arms. Before I do, I would like to speak as a long-time neighbor and journalism compatriot of this marvelous mover and shaker.
Ann went back to the days when the small coterie of women reporters were known variously as "the girls in the balcony" at the Press Club and Mrs. Roosevelt's press "girls" who gathered by invitation of the First Lady. We talked about these matters often when I was engaged in the struggle to admit women to Press Club membership. There was a time in my memory when it was regarded as the kiss of death for a candidate for Press Club office to run on a platform favoring women members. So until, 1969, Ann and Helen Thomas and May Craig were second class citizens in the balcony, unable to eat lunch with the ballroom speakers or submit them to questioning.
The struggle for equal rights with male journalists finally ended with a big assist from President Kennedy but Eleanor Roosevelt was in the forefront. Ann recalled, as a "greenhorn" 24-year old reporter with Newsweek, going to the White House with a dozen other women reporters on January 13, 1941 for what Eleanor wanted to be a "girls only" press conference. There may be no more survivors of these historic gatherings where Ann remembered the first question was: "Do you think Mrs. Roosevelt, that married men should be drafted?" Only as a last resort was her reply, adding that she certainly would not approve of their marrying just to escape the draft. The gatherings were to provide Mrs. FDR with a platform for her ideas of social reform and she insisted on a "women only" rule because she felt it would give Washington newswomen in those Depression times a better hold on their jobs and it might create openings for others.
After Pearl Harbor, the Association was formalized and ended only when FDR died after 500 such sessions. Ann was chairman one year and allowed men to attend just once at the insistence of press secretary Steve Early. Ann remembers her early colleagues as a feisty lot and that goes with the territory when you are fighting for your turf. Needless to say, I enjoyed having Ann and Jim as neighbors who could share war stories about the news business. Jim was historian of the Gridiron Club which finally admitted women in 1975. As a neighbor also, I became aware of Ann's love for animals and often encountered stray cats and dogs when I came to their door. I admired her compassion. And it was legendary in the Westmoreland Hills neighborhood.
But as all of you know, Ann's world stretched from Washington to China and had many facets. She went from the Richmond Times-Dispatch to being the first full-time female Washington correspondent for Newsweek, the Chicago-Sun and the New York Herald Tribune, covering the administrations of eleven Presidents. As a freelance journalist, her work spanned everything from the civil rights movement in the late 1960's to animal welfare issues. Her writings prodded Congress into action on a humane slaughter and animal welfare law. She reported on the environment, pollution and the use of pesticides and had a close collaboration with Rachel Carson on her landmark book, "Silent Spring."
She was rewarded in her lifetime with the coveted Albert Schweitzer Medal among numerous honors. The speakers who follow all underscore Ann's own pattern of listening to a different drummer and, as she once said, making her self unpopular by blowing the whistle on what she considered injustice.
We are in for a celebration and we begin with - Helen Thomas. She needs no identification but we all regard her as the "First Lady" of the Washington press corps - for 57 years with United Press International and now as a syndicated columnist with Hearst Newspapers. She has just joined us from the annual meeting of the Gridiron Club of which she was the very first female member almost 30 years ago. She and Ann suffered through the "men only" years together and I'll let her elaborate.
Helen Thomas, Columnist, Hearst Newspapers: Good Morning. Where can one start to salute a great newspaperwoman who did so much in her life and toward the end of her days bemoaned that she would have like to have done more?
With her great compassion and wonderful writing talent, she threw a spotlight on the suffering of humankind and animals - what one of her heroes Albert Schweitzer called a "reverence for life."
Ann Cottrell Free was a pioneer woman reporter and had an amazing career that reflected her fearless gift for adventure and courage in the search for truth. She had a front row seat covering history - 10 presidential administrations and, at the age of 24, was the youngest reporter at Eleanor Roosevelt's Monday news conferences. Mrs. Roosevelt limited the news conferences to women only in the hopes that editors would hire more women. Mrs. Roosevelt made news at times, giving newswomen the scoop. They loved her. Ann and the others in the coterie had enviable access to the national leaders and their wives that is unheard of today given the security and secrecy.
She would walk into the White House, give her name and cover the events of the day. Try that now. So in some ways it was the good old days. Of course, she could walk into the White House, but not the National Press Club, the all-male bastion, not until she married a great newsman James Free, remembered well as one of the best historians of the Gridiron Club. Their daughter Elissa followed them in their journalistic footsteps spending 21 years at CNN.
Growing up in Richmond, she was a liberal at heart and had great sympathy for the blacks who were struggling against their second class status at the time. One of the highlights of her career was to cover Mrs. Roosevelt in Geneva when the former first lady issued the Declaration of Human Rights. She was at the White House when Harry Truman was sworn in as president after Franklin D. Roosevelt died.
Noting the deep national mourning and grief when FDR died, she said: "It seemed the light went out in Washington." She was so right - where is the heart and the dedication to the poor and oppressed today?
Her career spanned the end of the Great Depression, Washington after it galvanized for war after Pearl Harbor, the dark McCarthy era and, in her latter years, the environment, as a friend of Rachel Carson who wrote the Silent Spring, and at her suggestion the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Maine was established. She also blew the whistle on the Food and Drug Administration's incarceration of laboratory dogs. Her testimony before a congressional committee brought an end to the National Zoo's deer hunts at its endangered species preserve in Virginia.
She was presented the Albert Schweitzer Medal from the Animal Welfare Institute and the Rachel Carson Legacy Award among many others. Her book, "Animals, Nature and Albert Schweitzer" has gone into several printings. She had worked for the New York Herald Tribune, Newsweek, and the Chicago Sun. And she let no grass grow under her feet and before she married she traveled the world over, places where it took daring and courage to be a reporter. She covered the break up of Chiang Kai-shek's government in China and saw the devastation of war. She also focused on the Chinese government's corruption, diverting relief food from famine victims.
She also covered Mahatma Ghandi's prayer meetings and was on hand when Britain's Lord Mountbatten handed over the rule of India to Nehru. Her journeys also took her to roiling Palestine and to the Southeast. Everywhere she traveled she witnessed great suffering and man's inhumanity to man.
She once said she was "cursed with empathy, which is also a blessing" and that undoubtedly gave her the impetus to see the world around through a prism of great sympathy. Ann can be called one of nature's noblewomen - she will be deeply missed, especially her profound respect for all things living.
Don Larrabee - Ingrid Newkirk is co-founder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the largest animal rights organization in the world. Ingrid and Ann met in the early 1970's when they were both involved with the Montgomery County Humane Society. I'm told by daughter Elissa that Ann greatly admired Ingrid's brave and effective approach that has helped and saved countless numbers of animals. Ingrid Newkirk.
Ingrid Newkirk, President, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: I was 21 years old when I met Ann and working for the Montgomery County Humane Society (MCHS). No, I had beensacked by the MCHS for speaking out against hideously cruel practices at its Rockville shelter. These sorry things still go on in shelters in other less developed or well off parts of the world; unpleasant and cruel things, but they are not things that should happen to animals in one of the most affluent counties in the United States.
I trolled the board of directors and found no sympathetic ear, until, that is, I found Ann's. I suppose I am saying that the first thing I remember about Ann is her ear!
Ann was a fine journalist, a keen reporter, something which certainly used to mean a skeptic, a digger, someone who wants to get to the heart of "what's what" and then put the straight story on the table.
She didn't simply accept what I said, she was a tough sell, but she rooted about and she grilled me. Really grilled me! And shortly, she realized it was all true.
Ann took most seriously her responsibility to not just sit on a board, listening and nodding. She wasn't that type. She was an activist, ready to shake things up if that's what needed to be done, to make sure the organization lived up to its charter. So she challenged shelter management's policies, and without faltering, led the charge for reforms from the inside. It made the papers sit up and take notice and turned the tide for the animals in that shelter.
Ann was also a keen planner and strategist. She used her considerable contacts to find a friend on the County government, Elizabeth Scull and through Elizabeth, her son David Scull. Together, we reformed that shelter in large part because Ann was a person of principle. That is how I remember her - as a person of principle.
I also remember the first time I was invited to a "do" at Ann's house. Back then, no one was vegetarian. In England, vegetarians were called "cranks," in the U.S., "oddballs!" But Ann was an ethical vegetarian, in the tradition of the Quakers, the Suffragettes, Mahatma Gandhi, Leonardo da Vinci, and Henry Salt. She felt, as George Bernard Shaw said, that it wasn't right to eat the objects of one's affection. Like me, she had witnessed the killing of chickens when she was a child and it had broken her heart and appalled her, and she had resolved to have nothing to do with killing her friends. She found it hard to understand how caring people, people who said they abhorred cruelty to animals, and did, could, every day, take animals' lives for nothing more than a taste.
I remember that, at that lunch, I was introduced to probably the worst vegan dish in the world, no fault of Ann's. It was ratatouille, which, to this day, I think of as more of a punishment than a food! I did not tell my host that I feel zucchini should be used as a weapon of self defense, never in a recipe.
Over the years, Ann's investigative nature was invaluable to animals, whether wild horses, deer, stray dogs or cattle. She used her powers of the pen, of persuasion and persistence in dealing with people, and in dealing with the government. She wrote about her first experience of seeing animals used in experiments: Hundreds of frantic beagles kept in barren metal cages, housed deep in the sub-basement of the Food and Drug Administration building and poisoned to test chemicals. Ann described their unrelieved pain and their miserable deaths. She knew what they were going through even in their confinement, when she wrote of their tireless neurotic circling cage behavior:
"Beagle, beagle, circle, circle, circle within your cage.
A path to the brook...a path to the hedge...over the hill...down to the meadow fresh with dew..
You have worn down the grid, but never quite through."
And, shaken and disgusted but determined, she said, as Isaac Bashevis Singer had said before her, that something had to be done to stop the animals' "holocaust." So she lobbied and cajoled and pushed and, although she left us knowing that millions of animals are still pacing and lonely and poisoned and dying badly in laboratories, and our government is still hard to move on the subject, she somehow managed to get new quarters built for these dogs. And, together with her chum and contemporary, the much-missed Christine Stevens, set the stage for passage of the first Animal Welfare Act governing the treatment of animals in laboratories in the U.S.
The most touching and the very first essay I ever read about homeless dogs and cats was by Ann and was an excerpt from her book, "No Room Save in the Heart." That article made people sit up and pay attention to what was happening to dogs and cats in the District of Columbia and provided the impetus for the City to stop using the gas chamber to end animals' lives in a fearful and painful way. In the mid 1970's, I took over as Poundmaster of the D.C. Animal Shelter - what a wonderful title! - and had the pleasure of seeing Ann's work through by ordering that old chamber to be soldered apart and carted out of the building in bits to the scrap heap.
Ann captured hearts and minds, too, with her wonderful "Animals, Nature & Albert Schweitzer." That book is on my shelf and should be on everyone's gift list for any occasion.
One year, a letter of mine was printed in the Washington Post and in it I had had the audacity to quote Schweitzer. Ann rang me up immediately. "Who is writing for you these days?" she asked. I told her it was still just me. "Ah, not bad," she said. From Ann, that was high praise.
Thanks to her, the plight of wild horses was put on the map, the plight of dogs in laboratories and the plight of hunted animals and more.
For the people who try to wake society up to what we can all do for animals, Ann will live on through her work and through her words.
I leave you with the words of her beloved Albert Schweitzer, who wrote:
"It was quite incomprehensible to me...why in my evening prayers I should pray for human beings only. So when my mother had prayed with me and had kissed me goodnight, I used to add silently a prayer that I had composed myself for all living creatures. It ran thus: "O Heavenly Father, protect and bless all things that have breath; guard them from all evil, and let them sleep in peace."
Ann knew that not only our own families, but even our Heavenly Father often fell down on the job when it came to protecting animals.
In her life, she helped pick up some of the fallen pieces and we will remember her fondly and with gratitude for being such a fighter, such an inspiration, and such a friend to those who have no voice of their own with which to protect themselves. As she was an activist, I ask that each of us remember her by being activists ourselves, settling today perhaps on a kind deed of some sort that we will resolve do to help her live on through us.
Thank you.
Don Larrabee - Wayne Pacelle is Chief Executive Officer of the Humane Society of the United States, the Nation's largest animal protection organization. Ann has known Wayne from the time he entered animal work in the 1980's and pegged him as a leader early on as he helped pass a dozen new federal laws to protect animals and many more at the state level. Wayne Pacelle.
Wayne Pacelle, CEO, Humane Society of the United States: Thank you for those fitting words. On behalf of The HSUS, I want to offer my condolences to the Elissa and to Ann's entire extended family. It is a privilege to join with all of you today in honoring Ann and celebrating her contributions to humanity and to the ethic of reverence for life.
Ann Cottrell Free's death really marks the passing of a generation of animal protectionists. Of the prominent humane advocates active in the mid- to late 1950s, Ann was, so far as I am aware, the last one. In the past few years, we've lost all of the others. Just last year, Martha Griffiths, the Michigan congresswoman who proposed the first bill to guarantee humane slaughter in 1955. Two years ago, Grace Korsan (Korzan), who joined the HSUS board of directors in 1955 and served for many years, and Christine Stevens--Ann's close associate, and the founder of the Animal Welfare Institute. A few years back, Marcia Glaser and Helen Jones, co-founders of The HSUS. All have passed, but each one has left a kind and gracious and enduring mark in the world.
For her part, Ann's wonderful and truly unique contributions as an advocate, a gifted journalist, and a poet assure that she will be always remembered as one of the pioneers in the 1950s renaissance of animal protection.
Less than two weeks ago, The HSUS celebrated its 50 th anniversary. It is extraordinary to think that Ann Cottrell Free had been involved for that entire period in the cause of protecting animals.
Ann played a pivotal role in the campaign to make evident the need for regulation of animals' treatment in the laboratory setting. She was active in the difficult years before passage of the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act. In almost one hundred years of activity, the humane movement had never been able to convince the public and the politically influential classes of the need for reform. Of course, it was an early priority for Christine's group, the Animal Welfare Institute, and for The HSUS. HSUS founder Fred Myers sent investigators into several laboratories during the 1950s, bringing to light evidence of cruelty and neglect that was disturbing and even shocking. But it wasn't quite enough to help enact substantive policy reform.
The blow Ann struck just a little over 45 years ago, in mid-November 1959, was a direct hit, which changed the landscape of debate over laboratory animal welfare forever. Her exposé of the mistreatment of beagles used for testing of color dyes by the Food and Drug Administration, in the sub-basement of a USDA building on Independence Avenue, just a short walk from the Capitol, provided not just shocking revelations, but substantive accounts of needless cruelty and suffering that helped the humane movement attract the sympathetic attention and assistance of elected officials.
Here's how she described the scene. "In those windowless sub-basement rooms, hundreds of dogs flung themselves against the bars of their cages, piled tier on tier. They were barking, screaming, whining, mute--and drooped their heads in the dark corners. Others circled ceaselessly in their cages. The steel grids showed their pathetic, circular path. . . . Some remain in their cages for seven years."
Ann's work in exposing these conditions galvanized the efforts to secure federal legislation on laboratory animals. A number of bills surfaced in the early 1960s, some promoted by AWI, some by The HSUS, some by other organizations. They didn't go very far, but in 1962, the humane movement got a hearing. Christine, Fred Myers, and others testified, and made a strong case for the idea of bringing the use of animals in research and testing under the control of law. Ann's articles were placed into the printed records of the committee that considered these bills.
Ann played a role in the passage of all of the major legislation in the era, including the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1957. She went on to play a role in the continuing efforts to expose cruelty in transportation and housing of animals, and as many will know, these efforts reached their successful culmination in 1966 with the passage of the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act.
Ann did not rest on these legislative victories, but continued her activism through the end of the century and into the dawn of a new century.
Ann was a latter-day standard bearer for an older proposition, that we should use the creative arts, in her case poetry, to promote concern for animals. In the journal Between the Species , in her little work No Room, Save in the Heart , in other fora, she tried to do it herself. "Poetry, too," she wrote, "can bear witness. It can bring new vision to the commonplace and it can speak the language of the heart, where most meaningful action begins."
In her travel and professional work, Ann passed through some of the most astounding moments of the twentieth century. And she moved among some of the century's giants--Eleanor Roosevelt, Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Rachel Carson. In so many ways, Ann labored to keep alive the memory of these great figures.
Especially Schweitzer, whose ethic of reverence for life Ann took to heart. "By respect for life," Schweitzer wrote, "we become religious in a way that is elementary, profound, and alive."
If you recall, Rachel Carson called Schweitzer, "the one truly great individual our modern times have produced." She was too modest. Carson, Christine, now Ann, all were living embodiments of this higher ethic of reverence for life, an ethic that is so badly needed, and one that is so rife with meaning for our world.
Whatever progress we animal advocates are now making, it most certainly involves standing on the shoulders of those who preceded us, and it involves our efforts to build upon their legacy. Ingrid and I and so many others are so grateful for the pioneering work that Ann did during her lifetime.
It is indeed a wonderful thing to look back, as Ann and her family can do, and be proud of a life organized around the principles of looking outward and helping others. To know that's one life was devoted to the mitigation and the elimination of suffering of the less powerful and the vulnerable. To know that one's life was driven by altruistic concerns.
We are all so proud of Ann, as a leader, as a pioneer, as a creative spirit in our cause, and a symbol of light and goodness that we may follow as we press ahead with our important cause in the 21st century.
I know it would have pleased Ann to see so many of you gathered here today, still in a position to carry that ethic forward. I am proud to be among you, and I am proud to have known and admired the beautiful soul we remember today.
Don Larrabee - Joan Little Ragno says she spent many hours in the Free household from babyhood on, soaking up the excitement and fun that was always afoot when Ann was around. Joan and Elissa Free became friends as their fathers had been since boyhood days in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The two men attended college and graduate school together and reconnected in Washington when Joan's father became a government historian. I'll ask Joan to tell the rest of the story.
Joan Little Ragno, Longtime Friend : My family's friendship with the Frees dates back many years, to the time when Elissa's father, Jim, and my father were boyhood friends in Alabama.
From the time Elissa and I were toddlers, I was fortunate to spend a great deal of time in the Free household. The Free's was always an exciting place to be, full of energy and drama and fun. My earliest memories of Ann are vibrant ones: "Don't call me Mrs. Free, call me Ann!" This statement, delivered to me in no-nonsense tones at about age five, firmly established Ann in my mind as a uniquely independent woman. In those days, when Elissa and I would play, our mothers would often meet on Westmoreland Circle, where Ann would be waiting in her VW bug to take me over to the house on Q Lane, a house filled with fascinating things from around the world. I remember the big trunk from China with its heavy brass trim, a silkscreen of a Chinese horse that hung over the mantel, and a curious wooden instrument rather like a bell that you tapped with a stick in order to hear a satisfying, deep, and to my young ear, exotic, sound. A graceful wooden bust of an Indonesian youth stood like a blessing in the living room. Richly colored textiles and rugs were scattered through the house. All these were mementos of Ann's travels as a pioneering reporter for UNRRA after the war.
Ann was a person of far-reaching interests, which she pursued with great energy and drive. Whatever she did, she did wholeheartedly. I can so clearly picture her in the basement of Q Lane, intently tapping away on her typewriter at her big desk, stacks of manuscript piled around her. It was the early 60's, and she was working on Forever the Wild Mare, her award-winning book for young people that is set here in Washington at the National Zoo. Many years later, as a young teacher in California, I read the book aloud to my students. They loved it and so did I. It was only then, on reflection, that I truly appreciated what a remarkable story it was, skillfully blending together Ann's passion for animals and nature with her interest in Asian cultures, her Scottish heritage, and her love for poetry. Forever the Wild Mare also expresses Ann's special understanding of the concerns and problems of youth, and this too was a leitmotif in her life. I still remember a quote that was taped to a mirror above Elissa's bureau when we were teens. It was a short poem, written by Ann in Chinese epigrammatic style: "Youth! So precious. // Lasts so short a time."
Ann loved young people! Whenever I visited the Frees as a teenager and college student, the house was always filled with Elissa's friends. After issuing a warm welcome, Ann by turns would challenge, charm, shock, and delight us with her irreverent and refreshingly frank opinions on just about everything. She wanted to know what we were thinking, and for us to know that she cared about what we thought. In the turbulent early 70's, with its rapidly shifting social and cultural norms, Ann was different from other people's parents. No controversial subject was off limits. From women's lib to the beef industry, if you didn't talk about it, she would!
There are many animal stories I could tell about Ann, but two stand out. The first occurred when Elissa and I were about seven. We were playing outside on Q Lane when a small dog ran by. We called it, it came, we petted it. No owner was to be seen. Ann, always interested in the fate of a stray, leapt into action. Excitedly, she called the number on the tags and reported it found. A few minutes later we were surprised to see a limousine pull up. We giggled as a uniformed chauffeur walked to the door in a dignified manner to claim the runaway, who had wandered over from Embassy Row.
The other occasion was in January of l977, during a particularly cold winter in the northeast. I had recently finished college and had come to Washington to look for work. Elissa was home for the holidays and preparing to leave for England to study abroad. It was shortly before Jimmy Carter's inauguration. A good deal of snow was on the ground and it was bitter cold. With characteristic zeal, Ann was in the midst of investigating guard dog conditions. Together, Ann, Elissa, and I went around to used car lots and junkyards, peering through chain link fences and rusty gates to check on dogs who were standing sentry in extremely cold conditions. Ann took notes, recording whether the dogs' water had frozen in the bowl, or if they had water at all, and if there were signs of shelter, food, or appropriate care being given.
There were so many facets of Ann's personality. I feel I've touched on only a few. She encouraged me with my writing from a young age and over the years was truly generous with support and practical advice. I loved her zaniness! Life was never dull around Ann. She had a keen wit and intellect, great zest for life, and left the world a better place by her extraordinary work on behalf of animals. But it is as the intense, generous, loving and uniquely spirited mother of one of my oldest friends that I will miss her.
Don Larrabee - Mathile Kearny-Kibble recalls meeting Ann in the early 1970s when, which working on her master's degree at the University of Maryland, she found a job as a shelter worker at the Montgomery County Humane Society where Ann was on the Board. She says Ann steered her into a newly funded position in Humane Education and from that became her friend for life. She married an Australian veterinarian Bob Kibble and moved to Sydney and a lifetime of work in animal welfare to her current chairmanship of the Delta Society of Australia, a human/animal interaction organization. Mathilde Kearny-Kibble developed a strong bond with Ann Free, as she will tell you.
Mathilde Kearny-Kibble, Chairman of the Board, Delta Society Australia: Ann Free has been my mentor and friend since the early 70's when I first came to work at the Montgomery County Humane Society shelter in Silver Spring, a graduate student taking time off to think about her life. Ann was a Board member with a newly funded humane education program to supervise.
I did not come from an animal welfare background and after a brief introduction and the words, "you'll do", Ann began my crash course in animal welfare and humane education. She gave me stacks of reading and we held long conversations on the phone or in her 3 rd floor office in her home. She gave me time to think and much to think about. I wrote articles for the shelter newsletters, letters to schools and community groups and snippets for the local paper - all of which received Ann's consideration and a hefty dose of her red editing pen.
Gradually I improved but Ann was relentless - there was always more to learn. She was patient and perceptive during this time, carefully taking me through concepts and issues that were second nature to her, until I grasped what was needed. Frequently I found myself in awe of her knowledge and accomplishments. I loved what I was learning and doing.
From the very first I came to know Ann's family, patient Jim who always welcomed me with open arms and kindly southern charm and the dark haired beauty, Elissa, Ann's daughter and favorite sparring partner whom she loved without measure. Ann tested her child daily, both women and girl iron fists in kid gloves. Elissa's passion for animals has been passed to her daughter Amanda just as Ann came to hers at her own mother's knee.
There came a day when Ann felt I needed a new challenge and suggested I apply to David Claflin at the MassSPCA for a job with its sister organization, the American Humane Education Society, an old and venerable institution. I moved to Boston in 1975 and Ann came with me in spirit.
The week before Easter in 1976 Jean Goldenberg came to stay so she could spend some time with the Inspectorate of the MSPCA. On Thursday of that same week an Australian veterinarian, Bob Kibble, poked his head into my office because someone at Angell Memorial Animal Hospital where he had spent the week suggested AHES could answer his enquiries regarding animal welfare and humane education. I remember explaining to him that Mass. was a special case and he really needed to spend time talking to my house guest from Washington so I invited him for dinner.
Ann's influence must have been stamped on my forehead. When Bob decided his interest in me went beyond the professional he drove from Ohio to Boston via Bethesda to meet and speak with her. How like Ann to welcome a stranger into her home and give him a day of her busy life just so they could get to know each other. Neither Bob nor Ann ever talked about that day's agenda but Bob was given Ann's seal of approval and they shared a private friendship until the end of their days.
Ann continued to give me the benefit of her guidance and friendship for the years that followed my move to Australia. She kept me informed of her interests as her oyster was still the world while mine largely receded to the local animal welfare issues of Sydney's North Shore.
Remembering visits to see Ann reminds me of the constancy of this remarkable woman. The doorbell's ring was answered by a modest pack of small barking dogs, none more than 8 inches high. This would be followed by Ann's screams of discipline and encouragement to dogs, family members and visitors as she approached the front door. Food, drink and exchanges of information followed in close order, Ann's raised voice expounding on the latest crisis, political, social or personal followed by twinkling eyes and a half smile as she shifted to her conspiratorial confidential voice to give her private thoughts on the matter.
Her journalist's curiosity led her to digest what the world had on offer. She was a keen and critical observer, never satisfied until she understood the undercurrents, connections, hidden meanings and ramifications of the item at hand. She would rant in frustration at her limitations of time and resources that prevented her from doing the more thorough job of investigation of which she was capable.
Her home was a clutter of books, folders, magazines and journals, the result of a lifetime's work and interests. She read three newspapers a day and more news magazines. Clippings became the confetti of her life, festooning every available space. It may have been a blessing that her computer skills never amounted to much as her hard drive would have quickly succumbed to overload had the wealth of the web been open to her.
Ann took her inspiration from the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt and Albert Schweitzer. She admired the struggles and successes of her friends and colleagues such as Rachel Carson, Ruth Harrison and Christine Stevens to name but a few. Issues such as pound seizure, factory farming, humane slaughter, animal dealers, the planet, wild life, stray, unwanted and abused animals formed one part of her life but time and effort were also devoted to exploring her family history, politics and the other affairs of man. All were her daily bread.
Ann took me under her wing and guided my way. A product of her time, environment and experiences she was unique and imperfect. Ann was tempestuous and endearing, honest and open. Her expectations from others were the same she demanded of herself - question what you learn, defend your beliefs, act with integrity and embrace your life.
In my mind I can hear Ann telling me the things I left out that I should have been said just as I can see her taking up that red pen to improve on my script and for me this is how it should be. Ann has been at home in my mind and heart for the past 30 years and I don't think she intends to move out anytime soon.
Don Larrabee - Leila Zakhirova and Ann became fast friends in the summer of 1999 when Leila lived with Elissa Free and her husband Bill Nooter while interning at the Embassy of Turkmenistan. They first met through Peace Corps volunteer, Rose Forney, a long-time friend of Ann. Leila says she was fascinated by Ann's free spiritedness and rich life experiences, unbound by customs and traditions. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in political science at Indiana University.
Leila Zakhirova, Student from Turkmenistan: I met Ann the summer of 1999 through our mutual Peace Corps friend Rose J. Forney, who lived with my family for two years in Turkmenistan. In the five years I've known Ann, she has often reminded me of a small earthquake - the kind that shakes up everybody and everything. She had so much vibrancy about her that she violated the laws of nature by remaining the youngest 88 year old spirit I've ever encountered. She had so much energy that when energy was first dispensed to the world, she must have stood in line a dozen times before everybody else got theirs.
Ann was fascinated by Central Asia and its connection to the Silk Road. To her, this region was exotic. As we all know too well, Ann was obsessed with things exotic. She couldn't get enough of it - not surprising, for someone whose life was filled with exotic adventures.
Ann's obsession with the exotic brought us together a couple of years ago when I was applying to graduate schools. A part of the graduate application process was to submit a statement of purpose in which I had to identify my objectives for pursuing graduate school. So, I wrote a statement, which I thought was a masterpiece until I made a mistake of sharing it with Ann. By the time Ann was through with my statement, there was nothing left of the masterpiece. She was convinced that with my original statement I was going to "bore my admissions committee to death." It was neither interesting, nor exotic (which is infinitely worse!). Several revisions later - with Ann's version of what my objectives ought to be - a true masterpiece was born. To this day, I honestly believe that thanks to Ann's refusal to settle for the average, the ordinary, and the simple plain, I am in a position to be the first one in my entire clan of some two thousands relatives to get a PhD.
I often wonder... what if Ann and Rose had never met based on their mutual interest in animals. Would I ever have had a chance to meet Ann? If not, what a loss it would have been to me. Ann is honest. Ann is straightforward! Ann is my hero!
Don Larrabee - Now we will hear from family members:
First, Nancy Ingram Nooter, mother of the Frees' son-in-law, William Ward Nooter, then granddaughter Amanda Blake Nooter, and finally son-in-law Bill Nooter.
Nancy Ingram Nooter, Mother of William Ward Nooter: Throughout our lives, we sometimes are fortunate enough to meet persons who are unforgettable in some way, who touch our intellects or our hearts in some significant manner. For me, Ann Free was such a person. She was both a relative by marriage and a good friend. Ann and her late husband, Jim Free, were the parents of lovely Elissa, who married our son Bill. A beautiful daughter, Amanda, has come of this marriage, and thus the Frees and the Nooters have shared a treasured granddaughter.
We admired and loved Ann for many things. She was a person who was truly dedicated to helping all beings in need, both human and animal, and succeeded in accomplishing most of her goals. She was energetic, tireless, and persistent in working for the common good. She was also fun to be with, combining the talents of wit, good humor, candor, and a genuine interest in others. She always wanted to know the opinions of her family members and friends, and even casual acquaintances, sometimes to their great surprise.
Sometimes she did not agree with their opinions, in which case she always made her own views known. But she always did so in a spirit of seeking the best solution for all, and with respect for her adversary's right to hold his or her views.
In a time when "values" have taken on a political as well as a personal meaning, it is reassuring to recall that Ann had her full share of them long before the current debate began. She had not only a strong sense of values, but she truly lived by them and imbued her family with them as well. We had great love and admiration for her, and will miss her more than our words can say.
Amanda Nooter, Granddaughter:
Bittersweet
My feelings for my dear Grand-ma-ma cannot be expressed,
But I will try to explain to you the way that I know best.
A poet, writer, a journalist,
She was all these things and more.
But the way I knew her was quite different,
I can remember since age four.
She stole my toys on my birthday,
Harassed me when I was ill.
She made me scream and holler,
And she'd chase me up the Hill.
These things I've said sound oh so horrid,
But of course they were all fun and games.
No, our relationship was much deeper than that,
An unspoken love that does not have a name.
The more she poked and teased me,
My resistance to her grew.
I secretly admired her,
And now I wish she knew.
All that I can hope for,
Is to ensure her legacy.
Surely all that endless spirit,
Lives on inside of me.
William Ward Nooter, Son-in-law: On Elissa's and my behalf, I would like to express our deepest appreciation to the National Press Club for sponsoring and hosting this Celebration of Ann's Life; they not only provided this beautiful space, but the programs and the luncheon reception as well. Our dear friend, Evangeline Pappas, created the obit folder you received and Morris Coburn prepared the beautiful photo boards on display. In addition, I want to thank all the fabulous speakers today for sharing your thoughts and memories of Ann (I am so grateful to my mother and especially proud of my daughter). And, of course, Don Larrabee deserves our gratitude for leading us today, just as he did at Jim's service here 8 and a half years ago. But most of all, thanks to all of you for coming, some from great distances (including the Midwest, the West Coast and, even, Australia) to join us here today. In Ann's instructions (of course, she left detailed written instructions!), she wrote: "any ceremony is up to you - less, better." Despite those words, Elissa and I know how pleased and delighted she would be by the turnout today. Thanks to each of you.
I wanted to share with you the other instructions Ann left us regarding her death. She wanted to be cremated and have her ashes scattered in the wild meadow of her beloved farmhouse in Lantz's Mill, VA. We are to place a stone or bronze plaque in her family plot at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA with the following words: "I am not here, Save for my legacy of love, For those nearby and those left behind, But look to meadows, woodlands and streams, Running into the sea. You will find me there - Life all about me, I am not alone." We have followed those instructions (of course!), and will be scattering the ashes and arranging for the plaque later next year.
We have heard eloquent words here today about Ann's many accomplishments, the impact she has had on so many people and of the different roles she played throughout her life: journalist, animal and environmental activist, author, poet, hell-raiser, friend and grandmother, to name a few. For me, she was known as the "mother of all mothers-in-law". But in these last minutes today, I would like to focus on Ann the person and personality - the many characteristics she displayed during the 25 years I had the privilege to know her.
In trying to capture Ann's personality, there are so many descriptions that come to mind - strong, both physically and mentally, strong in personality and strong, especially in will. She was so educated and well-read, so ahead of her time in the causes she championed, for women, minorities and animals. But as I thought about her characteristics, I found many opposite and contrasting traits that were so strongly dominant in the way she related to those around her. For instance, she could be incredibly generous at times, and yet she wouldn't want to tip the waiter or pay much of anything. Last year, as she was being taken by stretcher from a nursing home back to Sibley Hospital for the second time, she yelled out, in front of everybody, for me to grab some Darvocet (her favorite painkiller) from the nurses, because they charged too much for it at the hospital.
At times, she was the most charming, genteel Richmond lady you would ever want to meet. But most of the time, she reveled in being outrageous. One of her last big fights was with the Virginia Dep't of Transportation (VDOT), which wanted to build a larger bridge and pave the road in front her country place. VDOT hosted a "community meeting", but would not allow any discussion. To get everyone's attention, and start a real discussion, she found a piano in the room and banged loudly on the keys, creating a cacophony of sound, which brought everyone's eyes on her. She then was able to hold the floor for some time, before being shut down by the "authorities", who clearly had never encountered anyone like her.
Ann was a whistleblower throughout her life, bringing sometimes ugly truths into the light. She was also truthful to the point of being blunt at times. For instance, if she didn't like the way you looked or dressed, she would tell you, even if she didn't know you too well. But she also had a way of manipulating the truth, when it suited it her, at least in her personal relationships. She was incredibly manipulative when she wanted to be, which probably served her well in all of the adventures she had as a young woman. Although she displayed incredible kindness to others, and especially to those who could not defend themselves, such as the animals, she also had a very difficult side to her personality. When I accompanied her to the Animal Rescue League a few years ago to get the "Top Dog Award", I told her that, in her case, it should have been named the "Top Female Dog Award". She heartily agreed and was, in fact, very proud of this side of her personality.
Her dear old Richmond friend, Sally Patton Pittard, described her as being "a devil", which is a very polite way of putting it. While this characteristic probably resulted in her being able to accomplish much more than a "milk toast" like me (that was just one of the pet names I heard), it sometimes got displaced upon innocent victims. Not too long ago, a friend of ours who is the mother of one of Amanda's close friends and who, luckily, knew Ann pretty well, got a call. The first words she heard on the line were, in a loud Southern shout: "You lazy bastard! Why haven't you gone to pick up Elissa?" Our friend immediately recognized the voice and responded: "Ann, Ann, it's me, Charlotte!" "Oh. I thought I was calling Bill!" Click!
Of course, Ann was a brilliant person. Few others could match her knowledge on so many subjects and in analyzing situations. She kept her superior intelligence up to her last days. Two days before she died, she was on the telephone with her good friend, Rose Forney. She used the word "amanuensis", in referring to another friend, Joan Rooks, who was also her helpmate at home. When asked what it meant, she said, in her usual fashion: "Look it up!" I had never heard this word before and I wasn't sure if it was real or a result of delirium. When I got home, I got out the Oxford English Dictionary and found out that it means "one who takes dictation from another."
But she was also rather stupid in some ways, especially with anything mechanical. She went through more TVs and remote controls than anyone in history. She also was a messy klutz. When we traveled together in Morocco back in the 80's, she mistakenly brushed her teeth with Icy Hot, a muscle relaxant that heats up upon contact with skin. She panicked, thinking she was poisoned, so we found a pharmacy and tried to explain the situation in very bad French. It took quite awhile for the poor pharmacist to figure what we were talking about, but finally he assured Ann that it was nothing to worry about. Well, by chance, about a week later we happened to see the same pharmacist on a mountain pass in the High Atlas Mountains. He looked at us, made a brushing motion and said "Icy Hot". On this same trip, she more than once carried a half open bottle of Maalox in her purse, with foreseeable consequences.
Ann was a serious person and a serious thinker. But she also had the most amazing sense of humor. One of my early experiences with her ways was when I visited their house while Ann was laid up in bed with back problems. She was upstairs in the bedroom. She said: "I'll get Jim" and proceeded to pull out this beaten up old bugle. She blew on it and a horrible noise came out. A few minutes later, Jim appeared dutifully at the door. Her humor stayed with her, even in her last days of life. As we parted to go home one evening that last week, Elissa said "Be good!", which of course was not something you would take for granted with Ann. She responded; "I'm always good!"
Ann also showed contrasts in addressing fears and worries. She would constantly express ridiculous worries about Elissa and Amanda: "Don't drive at night!", "Don't let Amanda cross the street!" She also had phobias about going up steep hills and such. But she was probably the bravest woman I have met in many other ways. She had no fear in trying to help an animal or a person in need. She would not be cowed by any authority figure whatsoever. And I felt very privileged to watch her meet her own death with incredible bravery and dignity. She knew she was dying that last week. When the doctors came and asked her how she was doing, she replied in a matter-of-fact tone: "I'm dying, how are you?" She appeared to drink in the beauty around her, the flowers in the room, Amanda and Elissa and the friends who were present. I think she found it difficult to let go, but was not afraid to face death. It was a powerful lesson to me that I shall never forget.
As a person, Ann was many things and displayed many different and opposing characteristics. The lines from the famous Longfellow poem aptly apply to her: "when she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid." Not only in her life accomplishments and professionally did Ann Cottrell Free push the envelope, but as a person she did so also. I don't think I have ever met, or ever will meet again, such a fully human human being.
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Don Larrabee, Former President, National Press Club: We are here to celebrate a Free Spirit. I am privileged to introduce an illustrious group of Ann Free's friends, family and comrades in arms. Before I do, I would like to speak as a long-time neighbor and journalism compatriot of this marvelous mover and shaker.
Ann went back to the days when the small coterie of women reporters were known variously as "the girls in the balcony" at the Press Club and Mrs. Roosevelt's press "girls" who gathered by invitation of the First Lady. We talked about these matters often when I was engaged in the struggle to admit women to Press Club membership. There was a time in my memory when it was regarded as the kiss of death for a candidate for Press Club office to run on a platform favoring women members. So until, 1969, Ann and Helen Thomas and May Craig were second class citizens in the balcony, unable to eat lunch with the ballroom speakers or submit them to questioning.
The struggle for equal rights with male journalists finally ended with a big assist from President Kennedy but Eleanor Roosevelt was in the forefront. Ann recalled, as a "greenhorn" 24-year old reporter with Newsweek, going to the White House with a dozen other women reporters on January 13, 1941 for what Eleanor wanted to be a "girls only" press conference. There may be no more survivors of these historic gatherings where Ann remembered the first question was: "Do you think Mrs. Roosevelt, that married men should be drafted?" Only as a last resort was her reply, adding that she certainly would not approve of their marrying just to escape the draft. The gatherings were to provide Mrs. FDR with a platform for her ideas of social reform and she insisted on a "women only" rule because she felt it would give Washington newswomen in those Depression times a better hold on their jobs and it might create openings for others.
After Pearl Harbor, the Association was formalized and ended only when FDR died after 500 such sessions. Ann was chairman one year and allowed men to attend just once at the insistence of press secretary Steve Early. Ann remembers her early colleagues as a feisty lot and that goes with the territory when you are fighting for your turf. Needless to say, I enjoyed having Ann and Jim as neighbors who could share war stories about the news business. Jim was historian of the Gridiron Club which finally admitted women in 1975. As a neighbor also, I became aware of Ann's love for animals and often encountered stray cats and dogs when I came to their door. I admired her compassion. And it was legendary in the Westmoreland Hills neighborhood.
But as all of you know, Ann's world stretched from Washington to China and had many facets. She went from the Richmond Times-Dispatch to being the first full-time female Washington correspondent for Newsweek, the Chicago-Sun and the New York Herald Tribune, covering the administrations of eleven Presidents. As a freelance journalist, her work spanned everything from the civil rights movement in the late 1960's to animal welfare issues. Her writings prodded Congress into action on a humane slaughter and animal welfare law. She reported on the environment, pollution and the use of pesticides and had a close collaboration with Rachel Carson on her landmark book, "Silent Spring."
She was rewarded in her lifetime with the coveted Albert Schweitzer Medal among numerous honors. The speakers who follow all underscore Ann's own pattern of listening to a different drummer and, as she once said, making her self unpopular by blowing the whistle on what she considered injustice.
We are in for a celebration and we begin with - Helen Thomas. She needs no identification but we all regard her as the "First Lady" of the Washington press corps - for 57 years with United Press International and now as a syndicated columnist with Hearst Newspapers. She has just joined us from the annual meeting of the Gridiron Club of which she was the very first female member almost 30 years ago. She and Ann suffered through the "men only" years together and I'll let her elaborate.
Helen Thomas, Columnist, Hearst Newspapers: Good Morning. Where can one start to salute a great newspaperwoman who did so much in her life and toward the end of her days bemoaned that she would have like to have done more?
With her great compassion and wonderful writing talent, she threw a spotlight on the suffering of humankind and animals - what one of her heroes Albert Schweitzer called a "reverence for life."
Ann Cottrell Free was a pioneer woman reporter and had an amazing career that reflected her fearless gift for adventure and courage in the search for truth. She had a front row seat covering history - 10 presidential administrations and, at the age of 24, was the youngest reporter at Eleanor Roosevelt's Monday news conferences. Mrs. Roosevelt limited the news conferences to women only in the hopes that editors would hire more women. Mrs. Roosevelt made news at times, giving newswomen the scoop. They loved her. Ann and the others in the coterie had enviable access to the national leaders and their wives that is unheard of today given the security and secrecy.
She would walk into the White House, give her name and cover the events of the day. Try that now. So in some ways it was the good old days. Of course, she could walk into the White House, but not the National Press Club, the all-male bastion, not until she married a great newsman James Free, remembered well as one of the best historians of the Gridiron Club. Their daughter Elissa followed them in their journalistic footsteps spending 21 years at CNN.
Growing up in Richmond, she was a liberal at heart and had great sympathy for the blacks who were struggling against their second class status at the time. One of the highlights of her career was to cover Mrs. Roosevelt in Geneva when the former first lady issued the Declaration of Human Rights. She was at the White House when Harry Truman was sworn in as president after Franklin D. Roosevelt died.
Noting the deep national mourning and grief when FDR died, she said: "It seemed the light went out in Washington." She was so right - where is the heart and the dedication to the poor and oppressed today?
Her career spanned the end of the Great Depression, Washington after it galvanized for war after Pearl Harbor, the dark McCarthy era and, in her latter years, the environment, as a friend of Rachel Carson who wrote the Silent Spring, and at her suggestion the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Maine was established. She also blew the whistle on the Food and Drug Administration's incarceration of laboratory dogs. Her testimony before a congressional committee brought an end to the National Zoo's deer hunts at its endangered species preserve in Virginia.
She was presented the Albert Schweitzer Medal from the Animal Welfare Institute and the Rachel Carson Legacy Award among many others. Her book, "Animals, Nature and Albert Schweitzer" has gone into several printings. She had worked for the New York Herald Tribune, Newsweek, and the Chicago Sun. And she let no grass grow under her feet and before she married she traveled the world over, places where it took daring and courage to be a reporter. She covered the break up of Chiang Kai-shek's government in China and saw the devastation of war. She also focused on the Chinese government's corruption, diverting relief food from famine victims.
She also covered Mahatma Ghandi's prayer meetings and was on hand when Britain's Lord Mountbatten handed over the rule of India to Nehru. Her journeys also took her to roiling Palestine and to the Southeast. Everywhere she traveled she witnessed great suffering and man's inhumanity to man.
She once said she was "cursed with empathy, which is also a blessing" and that undoubtedly gave her the impetus to see the world around through a prism of great sympathy. Ann can be called one of nature's noblewomen - she will be deeply missed, especially her profound respect for all things living.
Don Larrabee - Ingrid Newkirk is co-founder and president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the largest animal rights organization in the world. Ingrid and Ann met in the early 1970's when they were both involved with the Montgomery County Humane Society. I'm told by daughter Elissa that Ann greatly admired Ingrid's brave and effective approach that has helped and saved countless numbers of animals. Ingrid Newkirk.
Ingrid Newkirk, President, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: I was 21 years old when I met Ann and working for the Montgomery County Humane Society (MCHS). No, I had beensacked by the MCHS for speaking out against hideously cruel practices at its Rockville shelter. These sorry things still go on in shelters in other less developed or well off parts of the world; unpleasant and cruel things, but they are not things that should happen to animals in one of the most affluent counties in the United States.
I trolled the board of directors and found no sympathetic ear, until, that is, I found Ann's. I suppose I am saying that the first thing I remember about Ann is her ear!
Ann was a fine journalist, a keen reporter, something which certainly used to mean a skeptic, a digger, someone who wants to get to the heart of "what's what" and then put the straight story on the table.
She didn't simply accept what I said, she was a tough sell, but she rooted about and she grilled me. Really grilled me! And shortly, she realized it was all true.
Ann took most seriously her responsibility to not just sit on a board, listening and nodding. She wasn't that type. She was an activist, ready to shake things up if that's what needed to be done, to make sure the organization lived up to its charter. So she challenged shelter management's policies, and without faltering, led the charge for reforms from the inside. It made the papers sit up and take notice and turned the tide for the animals in that shelter.
Ann was also a keen planner and strategist. She used her considerable contacts to find a friend on the County government, Elizabeth Scull and through Elizabeth, her son David Scull. Together, we reformed that shelter in large part because Ann was a person of principle. That is how I remember her - as a person of principle.
I also remember the first time I was invited to a "do" at Ann's house. Back then, no one was vegetarian. In England, vegetarians were called "cranks," in the U.S., "oddballs!" But Ann was an ethical vegetarian, in the tradition of the Quakers, the Suffragettes, Mahatma Gandhi, Leonardo da Vinci, and Henry Salt. She felt, as George Bernard Shaw said, that it wasn't right to eat the objects of one's affection. Like me, she had witnessed the killing of chickens when she was a child and it had broken her heart and appalled her, and she had resolved to have nothing to do with killing her friends. She found it hard to understand how caring people, people who said they abhorred cruelty to animals, and did, could, every day, take animals' lives for nothing more than a taste.
I remember that, at that lunch, I was introduced to probably the worst vegan dish in the world, no fault of Ann's. It was ratatouille, which, to this day, I think of as more of a punishment than a food! I did not tell my host that I feel zucchini should be used as a weapon of self defense, never in a recipe.
Over the years, Ann's investigative nature was invaluable to animals, whether wild horses, deer, stray dogs or cattle. She used her powers of the pen, of persuasion and persistence in dealing with people, and in dealing with the government. She wrote about her first experience of seeing animals used in experiments: Hundreds of frantic beagles kept in barren metal cages, housed deep in the sub-basement of the Food and Drug Administration building and poisoned to test chemicals. Ann described their unrelieved pain and their miserable deaths. She knew what they were going through even in their confinement, when she wrote of their tireless neurotic circling cage behavior:
"Beagle, beagle, circle, circle, circle within your cage.
A path to the brook...a path to the hedge...over the hill...down to the meadow fresh with dew..
You have worn down the grid, but never quite through."
And, shaken and disgusted but determined, she said, as Isaac Bashevis Singer had said before her, that something had to be done to stop the animals' "holocaust." So she lobbied and cajoled and pushed and, although she left us knowing that millions of animals are still pacing and lonely and poisoned and dying badly in laboratories, and our government is still hard to move on the subject, she somehow managed to get new quarters built for these dogs. And, together with her chum and contemporary, the much-missed Christine Stevens, set the stage for passage of the first Animal Welfare Act governing the treatment of animals in laboratories in the U.S.
The most touching and the very first essay I ever read about homeless dogs and cats was by Ann and was an excerpt from her book, "No Room Save in the Heart." That article made people sit up and pay attention to what was happening to dogs and cats in the District of Columbia and provided the impetus for the City to stop using the gas chamber to end animals' lives in a fearful and painful way. In the mid 1970's, I took over as Poundmaster of the D.C. Animal Shelter - what a wonderful title! - and had the pleasure of seeing Ann's work through by ordering that old chamber to be soldered apart and carted out of the building in bits to the scrap heap.
Ann captured hearts and minds, too, with her wonderful "Animals, Nature & Albert Schweitzer." That book is on my shelf and should be on everyone's gift list for any occasion.
One year, a letter of mine was printed in the Washington Post and in it I had had the audacity to quote Schweitzer. Ann rang me up immediately. "Who is writing for you these days?" she asked. I told her it was still just me. "Ah, not bad," she said. From Ann, that was high praise.
Thanks to her, the plight of wild horses was put on the map, the plight of dogs in laboratories and the plight of hunted animals and more.
For the people who try to wake society up to what we can all do for animals, Ann will live on through her work and through her words.
I leave you with the words of her beloved Albert Schweitzer, who wrote:
"It was quite incomprehensible to me...why in my evening prayers I should pray for human beings only. So when my mother had prayed with me and had kissed me goodnight, I used to add silently a prayer that I had composed myself for all living creatures. It ran thus: "O Heavenly Father, protect and bless all things that have breath; guard them from all evil, and let them sleep in peace."
Ann knew that not only our own families, but even our Heavenly Father often fell down on the job when it came to protecting animals.
In her life, she helped pick up some of the fallen pieces and we will remember her fondly and with gratitude for being such a fighter, such an inspiration, and such a friend to those who have no voice of their own with which to protect themselves. As she was an activist, I ask that each of us remember her by being activists ourselves, settling today perhaps on a kind deed of some sort that we will resolve do to help her live on through us.
Thank you.
Don Larrabee - Wayne Pacelle is Chief Executive Officer of the Humane Society of the United States, the Nation's largest animal protection organization. Ann has known Wayne from the time he entered animal work in the 1980's and pegged him as a leader early on as he helped pass a dozen new federal laws to protect animals and many more at the state level. Wayne Pacelle.
Wayne Pacelle, CEO, Humane Society of the United States: Thank you for those fitting words. On behalf of The HSUS, I want to offer my condolences to the Elissa and to Ann's entire extended family. It is a privilege to join with all of you today in honoring Ann and celebrating her contributions to humanity and to the ethic of reverence for life.
Ann Cottrell Free's death really marks the passing of a generation of animal protectionists. Of the prominent humane advocates active in the mid- to late 1950s, Ann was, so far as I am aware, the last one. In the past few years, we've lost all of the others. Just last year, Martha Griffiths, the Michigan congresswoman who proposed the first bill to guarantee humane slaughter in 1955. Two years ago, Grace Korsan (Korzan), who joined the HSUS board of directors in 1955 and served for many years, and Christine Stevens--Ann's close associate, and the founder of the Animal Welfare Institute. A few years back, Marcia Glaser and Helen Jones, co-founders of The HSUS. All have passed, but each one has left a kind and gracious and enduring mark in the world.
For her part, Ann's wonderful and truly unique contributions as an advocate, a gifted journalist, and a poet assure that she will be always remembered as one of the pioneers in the 1950s renaissance of animal protection.
Less than two weeks ago, The HSUS celebrated its 50 th anniversary. It is extraordinary to think that Ann Cottrell Free had been involved for that entire period in the cause of protecting animals.
Ann played a pivotal role in the campaign to make evident the need for regulation of animals' treatment in the laboratory setting. She was active in the difficult years before passage of the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act. In almost one hundred years of activity, the humane movement had never been able to convince the public and the politically influential classes of the need for reform. Of course, it was an early priority for Christine's group, the Animal Welfare Institute, and for The HSUS. HSUS founder Fred Myers sent investigators into several laboratories during the 1950s, bringing to light evidence of cruelty and neglect that was disturbing and even shocking. But it wasn't quite enough to help enact substantive policy reform.
The blow Ann struck just a little over 45 years ago, in mid-November 1959, was a direct hit, which changed the landscape of debate over laboratory animal welfare forever. Her exposé of the mistreatment of beagles used for testing of color dyes by the Food and Drug Administration, in the sub-basement of a USDA building on Independence Avenue, just a short walk from the Capitol, provided not just shocking revelations, but substantive accounts of needless cruelty and suffering that helped the humane movement attract the sympathetic attention and assistance of elected officials.
Here's how she described the scene. "In those windowless sub-basement rooms, hundreds of dogs flung themselves against the bars of their cages, piled tier on tier. They were barking, screaming, whining, mute--and drooped their heads in the dark corners. Others circled ceaselessly in their cages. The steel grids showed their pathetic, circular path. . . . Some remain in their cages for seven years."
Ann's work in exposing these conditions galvanized the efforts to secure federal legislation on laboratory animals. A number of bills surfaced in the early 1960s, some promoted by AWI, some by The HSUS, some by other organizations. They didn't go very far, but in 1962, the humane movement got a hearing. Christine, Fred Myers, and others testified, and made a strong case for the idea of bringing the use of animals in research and testing under the control of law. Ann's articles were placed into the printed records of the committee that considered these bills.
Ann played a role in the passage of all of the major legislation in the era, including the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act of 1957. She went on to play a role in the continuing efforts to expose cruelty in transportation and housing of animals, and as many will know, these efforts reached their successful culmination in 1966 with the passage of the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act.
Ann did not rest on these legislative victories, but continued her activism through the end of the century and into the dawn of a new century.
Ann was a latter-day standard bearer for an older proposition, that we should use the creative arts, in her case poetry, to promote concern for animals. In the journal Between the Species , in her little work No Room, Save in the Heart , in other fora, she tried to do it herself. "Poetry, too," she wrote, "can bear witness. It can bring new vision to the commonplace and it can speak the language of the heart, where most meaningful action begins."
In her travel and professional work, Ann passed through some of the most astounding moments of the twentieth century. And she moved among some of the century's giants--Eleanor Roosevelt, Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Rachel Carson. In so many ways, Ann labored to keep alive the memory of these great figures.
Especially Schweitzer, whose ethic of reverence for life Ann took to heart. "By respect for life," Schweitzer wrote, "we become religious in a way that is elementary, profound, and alive."
If you recall, Rachel Carson called Schweitzer, "the one truly great individual our modern times have produced." She was too modest. Carson, Christine, now Ann, all were living embodiments of this higher ethic of reverence for life, an ethic that is so badly needed, and one that is so rife with meaning for our world.
Whatever progress we animal advocates are now making, it most certainly involves standing on the shoulders of those who preceded us, and it involves our efforts to build upon their legacy. Ingrid and I and so many others are so grateful for the pioneering work that Ann did during her lifetime.
It is indeed a wonderful thing to look back, as Ann and her family can do, and be proud of a life organized around the principles of looking outward and helping others. To know that's one life was devoted to the mitigation and the elimination of suffering of the less powerful and the vulnerable. To know that one's life was driven by altruistic concerns.
We are all so proud of Ann, as a leader, as a pioneer, as a creative spirit in our cause, and a symbol of light and goodness that we may follow as we press ahead with our important cause in the 21st century.
I know it would have pleased Ann to see so many of you gathered here today, still in a position to carry that ethic forward. I am proud to be among you, and I am proud to have known and admired the beautiful soul we remember today.
Don Larrabee - Joan Little Ragno says she spent many hours in the Free household from babyhood on, soaking up the excitement and fun that was always afoot when Ann was around. Joan and Elissa Free became friends as their fathers had been since boyhood days in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The two men attended college and graduate school together and reconnected in Washington when Joan's father became a government historian. I'll ask Joan to tell the rest of the story.
Joan Little Ragno, Longtime Friend : My family's friendship with the Frees dates back many years, to the time when Elissa's father, Jim, and my father were boyhood friends in Alabama.
From the time Elissa and I were toddlers, I was fortunate to spend a great deal of time in the Free household. The Free's was always an exciting place to be, full of energy and drama and fun. My earliest memories of Ann are vibrant ones: "Don't call me Mrs. Free, call me Ann!" This statement, delivered to me in no-nonsense tones at about age five, firmly established Ann in my mind as a uniquely independent woman. In those days, when Elissa and I would play, our mothers would often meet on Westmoreland Circle, where Ann would be waiting in her VW bug to take me over to the house on Q Lane, a house filled with fascinating things from around the world. I remember the big trunk from China with its heavy brass trim, a silkscreen of a Chinese horse that hung over the mantel, and a curious wooden instrument rather like a bell that you tapped with a stick in order to hear a satisfying, deep, and to my young ear, exotic, sound. A graceful wooden bust of an Indonesian youth stood like a blessing in the living room. Richly colored textiles and rugs were scattered through the house. All these were mementos of Ann's travels as a pioneering reporter for UNRRA after the war.
Ann was a person of far-reaching interests, which she pursued with great energy and drive. Whatever she did, she did wholeheartedly. I can so clearly picture her in the basement of Q Lane, intently tapping away on her typewriter at her big desk, stacks of manuscript piled around her. It was the early 60's, and she was working on Forever the Wild Mare, her award-winning book for young people that is set here in Washington at the National Zoo. Many years later, as a young teacher in California, I read the book aloud to my students. They loved it and so did I. It was only then, on reflection, that I truly appreciated what a remarkable story it was, skillfully blending together Ann's passion for animals and nature with her interest in Asian cultures, her Scottish heritage, and her love for poetry. Forever the Wild Mare also expresses Ann's special understanding of the concerns and problems of youth, and this too was a leitmotif in her life. I still remember a quote that was taped to a mirror above Elissa's bureau when we were teens. It was a short poem, written by Ann in Chinese epigrammatic style: "Youth! So precious. // Lasts so short a time."
Ann loved young people! Whenever I visited the Frees as a teenager and college student, the house was always filled with Elissa's friends. After issuing a warm welcome, Ann by turns would challenge, charm, shock, and delight us with her irreverent and refreshingly frank opinions on just about everything. She wanted to know what we were thinking, and for us to know that she cared about what we thought. In the turbulent early 70's, with its rapidly shifting social and cultural norms, Ann was different from other people's parents. No controversial subject was off limits. From women's lib to the beef industry, if you didn't talk about it, she would!
There are many animal stories I could tell about Ann, but two stand out. The first occurred when Elissa and I were about seven. We were playing outside on Q Lane when a small dog ran by. We called it, it came, we petted it. No owner was to be seen. Ann, always interested in the fate of a stray, leapt into action. Excitedly, she called the number on the tags and reported it found. A few minutes later we were surprised to see a limousine pull up. We giggled as a uniformed chauffeur walked to the door in a dignified manner to claim the runaway, who had wandered over from Embassy Row.
The other occasion was in January of l977, during a particularly cold winter in the northeast. I had recently finished college and had come to Washington to look for work. Elissa was home for the holidays and preparing to leave for England to study abroad. It was shortly before Jimmy Carter's inauguration. A good deal of snow was on the ground and it was bitter cold. With characteristic zeal, Ann was in the midst of investigating guard dog conditions. Together, Ann, Elissa, and I went around to used car lots and junkyards, peering through chain link fences and rusty gates to check on dogs who were standing sentry in extremely cold conditions. Ann took notes, recording whether the dogs' water had frozen in the bowl, or if they had water at all, and if there were signs of shelter, food, or appropriate care being given.
There were so many facets of Ann's personality. I feel I've touched on only a few. She encouraged me with my writing from a young age and over the years was truly generous with support and practical advice. I loved her zaniness! Life was never dull around Ann. She had a keen wit and intellect, great zest for life, and left the world a better place by her extraordinary work on behalf of animals. But it is as the intense, generous, loving and uniquely spirited mother of one of my oldest friends that I will miss her.
Don Larrabee - Mathile Kearny-Kibble recalls meeting Ann in the early 1970s when, which working on her master's degree at the University of Maryland, she found a job as a shelter worker at the Montgomery County Humane Society where Ann was on the Board. She says Ann steered her into a newly funded position in Humane Education and from that became her friend for life. She married an Australian veterinarian Bob Kibble and moved to Sydney and a lifetime of work in animal welfare to her current chairmanship of the Delta Society of Australia, a human/animal interaction organization. Mathilde Kearny-Kibble developed a strong bond with Ann Free, as she will tell you.
Mathilde Kearny-Kibble, Chairman of the Board, Delta Society Australia: Ann Free has been my mentor and friend since the early 70's when I first came to work at the Montgomery County Humane Society shelter in Silver Spring, a graduate student taking time off to think about her life. Ann was a Board member with a newly funded humane education program to supervise.
I did not come from an animal welfare background and after a brief introduction and the words, "you'll do", Ann began my crash course in animal welfare and humane education. She gave me stacks of reading and we held long conversations on the phone or in her 3 rd floor office in her home. She gave me time to think and much to think about. I wrote articles for the shelter newsletters, letters to schools and community groups and snippets for the local paper - all of which received Ann's consideration and a hefty dose of her red editing pen.
Gradually I improved but Ann was relentless - there was always more to learn. She was patient and perceptive during this time, carefully taking me through concepts and issues that were second nature to her, until I grasped what was needed. Frequently I found myself in awe of her knowledge and accomplishments. I loved what I was learning and doing.
From the very first I came to know Ann's family, patient Jim who always welcomed me with open arms and kindly southern charm and the dark haired beauty, Elissa, Ann's daughter and favorite sparring partner whom she loved without measure. Ann tested her child daily, both women and girl iron fists in kid gloves. Elissa's passion for animals has been passed to her daughter Amanda just as Ann came to hers at her own mother's knee.
There came a day when Ann felt I needed a new challenge and suggested I apply to David Claflin at the MassSPCA for a job with its sister organization, the American Humane Education Society, an old and venerable institution. I moved to Boston in 1975 and Ann came with me in spirit.
The week before Easter in 1976 Jean Goldenberg came to stay so she could spend some time with the Inspectorate of the MSPCA. On Thursday of that same week an Australian veterinarian, Bob Kibble, poked his head into my office because someone at Angell Memorial Animal Hospital where he had spent the week suggested AHES could answer his enquiries regarding animal welfare and humane education. I remember explaining to him that Mass. was a special case and he really needed to spend time talking to my house guest from Washington so I invited him for dinner.
Ann's influence must have been stamped on my forehead. When Bob decided his interest in me went beyond the professional he drove from Ohio to Boston via Bethesda to meet and speak with her. How like Ann to welcome a stranger into her home and give him a day of her busy life just so they could get to know each other. Neither Bob nor Ann ever talked about that day's agenda but Bob was given Ann's seal of approval and they shared a private friendship until the end of their days.
Ann continued to give me the benefit of her guidance and friendship for the years that followed my move to Australia. She kept me informed of her interests as her oyster was still the world while mine largely receded to the local animal welfare issues of Sydney's North Shore.
Remembering visits to see Ann reminds me of the constancy of this remarkable woman. The doorbell's ring was answered by a modest pack of small barking dogs, none more than 8 inches high. This would be followed by Ann's screams of discipline and encouragement to dogs, family members and visitors as she approached the front door. Food, drink and exchanges of information followed in close order, Ann's raised voice expounding on the latest crisis, political, social or personal followed by twinkling eyes and a half smile as she shifted to her conspiratorial confidential voice to give her private thoughts on the matter.
Her journalist's curiosity led her to digest what the world had on offer. She was a keen and critical observer, never satisfied until she understood the undercurrents, connections, hidden meanings and ramifications of the item at hand. She would rant in frustration at her limitations of time and resources that prevented her from doing the more thorough job of investigation of which she was capable.
Her home was a clutter of books, folders, magazines and journals, the result of a lifetime's work and interests. She read three newspapers a day and more news magazines. Clippings became the confetti of her life, festooning every available space. It may have been a blessing that her computer skills never amounted to much as her hard drive would have quickly succumbed to overload had the wealth of the web been open to her.
Ann took her inspiration from the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt and Albert Schweitzer. She admired the struggles and successes of her friends and colleagues such as Rachel Carson, Ruth Harrison and Christine Stevens to name but a few. Issues such as pound seizure, factory farming, humane slaughter, animal dealers, the planet, wild life, stray, unwanted and abused animals formed one part of her life but time and effort were also devoted to exploring her family history, politics and the other affairs of man. All were her daily bread.
Ann took me under her wing and guided my way. A product of her time, environment and experiences she was unique and imperfect. Ann was tempestuous and endearing, honest and open. Her expectations from others were the same she demanded of herself - question what you learn, defend your beliefs, act with integrity and embrace your life.
In my mind I can hear Ann telling me the things I left out that I should have been said just as I can see her taking up that red pen to improve on my script and for me this is how it should be. Ann has been at home in my mind and heart for the past 30 years and I don't think she intends to move out anytime soon.
Don Larrabee - Leila Zakhirova and Ann became fast friends in the summer of 1999 when Leila lived with Elissa Free and her husband Bill Nooter while interning at the Embassy of Turkmenistan. They first met through Peace Corps volunteer, Rose Forney, a long-time friend of Ann. Leila says she was fascinated by Ann's free spiritedness and rich life experiences, unbound by customs and traditions. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in political science at Indiana University.
Leila Zakhirova, Student from Turkmenistan: I met Ann the summer of 1999 through our mutual Peace Corps friend Rose J. Forney, who lived with my family for two years in Turkmenistan. In the five years I've known Ann, she has often reminded me of a small earthquake - the kind that shakes up everybody and everything. She had so much vibrancy about her that she violated the laws of nature by remaining the youngest 88 year old spirit I've ever encountered. She had so much energy that when energy was first dispensed to the world, she must have stood in line a dozen times before everybody else got theirs.
Ann was fascinated by Central Asia and its connection to the Silk Road. To her, this region was exotic. As we all know too well, Ann was obsessed with things exotic. She couldn't get enough of it - not surprising, for someone whose life was filled with exotic adventures.
Ann's obsession with the exotic brought us together a couple of years ago when I was applying to graduate schools. A part of the graduate application process was to submit a statement of purpose in which I had to identify my objectives for pursuing graduate school. So, I wrote a statement, which I thought was a masterpiece until I made a mistake of sharing it with Ann. By the time Ann was through with my statement, there was nothing left of the masterpiece. She was convinced that with my original statement I was going to "bore my admissions committee to death." It was neither interesting, nor exotic (which is infinitely worse!). Several revisions later - with Ann's version of what my objectives ought to be - a true masterpiece was born. To this day, I honestly believe that thanks to Ann's refusal to settle for the average, the ordinary, and the simple plain, I am in a position to be the first one in my entire clan of some two thousands relatives to get a PhD.
I often wonder... what if Ann and Rose had never met based on their mutual interest in animals. Would I ever have had a chance to meet Ann? If not, what a loss it would have been to me. Ann is honest. Ann is straightforward! Ann is my hero!
Don Larrabee - Now we will hear from family members:
First, Nancy Ingram Nooter, mother of the Frees' son-in-law, William Ward Nooter, then granddaughter Amanda Blake Nooter, and finally son-in-law Bill Nooter.
Nancy Ingram Nooter, Mother of William Ward Nooter: Throughout our lives, we sometimes are fortunate enough to meet persons who are unforgettable in some way, who touch our intellects or our hearts in some significant manner. For me, Ann Free was such a person. She was both a relative by marriage and a good friend. Ann and her late husband, Jim Free, were the parents of lovely Elissa, who married our son Bill. A beautiful daughter, Amanda, has come of this marriage, and thus the Frees and the Nooters have shared a treasured granddaughter.
We admired and loved Ann for many things. She was a person who was truly dedicated to helping all beings in need, both human and animal, and succeeded in accomplishing most of her goals. She was energetic, tireless, and persistent in working for the common good. She was also fun to be with, combining the talents of wit, good humor, candor, and a genuine interest in others. She always wanted to know the opinions of her family members and friends, and even casual acquaintances, sometimes to their great surprise.
Sometimes she did not agree with their opinions, in which case she always made her own views known. But she always did so in a spirit of seeking the best solution for all, and with respect for her adversary's right to hold his or her views.
In a time when "values" have taken on a political as well as a personal meaning, it is reassuring to recall that Ann had her full share of them long before the current debate began. She had not only a strong sense of values, but she truly lived by them and imbued her family with them as well. We had great love and admiration for her, and will miss her more than our words can say.
Amanda Nooter, Granddaughter:
Bittersweet
My feelings for my dear Grand-ma-ma cannot be expressed,
But I will try to explain to you the way that I know best.
A poet, writer, a journalist,
She was all these things and more.
But the way I knew her was quite different,
I can remember since age four.
She stole my toys on my birthday,
Harassed me when I was ill.
She made me scream and holler,
And she'd chase me up the Hill.
These things I've said sound oh so horrid,
But of course they were all fun and games.
No, our relationship was much deeper than that,
An unspoken love that does not have a name.
The more she poked and teased me,
My resistance to her grew.
I secretly admired her,
And now I wish she knew.
All that I can hope for,
Is to ensure her legacy.
Surely all that endless spirit,
Lives on inside of me.
William Ward Nooter, Son-in-law: On Elissa's and my behalf, I would like to express our deepest appreciation to the National Press Club for sponsoring and hosting this Celebration of Ann's Life; they not only provided this beautiful space, but the programs and the luncheon reception as well. Our dear friend, Evangeline Pappas, created the obit folder you received and Morris Coburn prepared the beautiful photo boards on display. In addition, I want to thank all the fabulous speakers today for sharing your thoughts and memories of Ann (I am so grateful to my mother and especially proud of my daughter). And, of course, Don Larrabee deserves our gratitude for leading us today, just as he did at Jim's service here 8 and a half years ago. But most of all, thanks to all of you for coming, some from great distances (including the Midwest, the West Coast and, even, Australia) to join us here today. In Ann's instructions (of course, she left detailed written instructions!), she wrote: "any ceremony is up to you - less, better." Despite those words, Elissa and I know how pleased and delighted she would be by the turnout today. Thanks to each of you.
I wanted to share with you the other instructions Ann left us regarding her death. She wanted to be cremated and have her ashes scattered in the wild meadow of her beloved farmhouse in Lantz's Mill, VA. We are to place a stone or bronze plaque in her family plot at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA with the following words: "I am not here, Save for my legacy of love, For those nearby and those left behind, But look to meadows, woodlands and streams, Running into the sea. You will find me there - Life all about me, I am not alone." We have followed those instructions (of course!), and will be scattering the ashes and arranging for the plaque later next year.
We have heard eloquent words here today about Ann's many accomplishments, the impact she has had on so many people and of the different roles she played throughout her life: journalist, animal and environmental activist, author, poet, hell-raiser, friend and grandmother, to name a few. For me, she was known as the "mother of all mothers-in-law". But in these last minutes today, I would like to focus on Ann the person and personality - the many characteristics she displayed during the 25 years I had the privilege to know her.
In trying to capture Ann's personality, there are so many descriptions that come to mind - strong, both physically and mentally, strong in personality and strong, especially in will. She was so educated and well-read, so ahead of her time in the causes she championed, for women, minorities and animals. But as I thought about her characteristics, I found many opposite and contrasting traits that were so strongly dominant in the way she related to those around her. For instance, she could be incredibly generous at times, and yet she wouldn't want to tip the waiter or pay much of anything. Last year, as she was being taken by stretcher from a nursing home back to Sibley Hospital for the second time, she yelled out, in front of everybody, for me to grab some Darvocet (her favorite painkiller) from the nurses, because they charged too much for it at the hospital.
At times, she was the most charming, genteel Richmond lady you would ever want to meet. But most of the time, she reveled in being outrageous. One of her last big fights was with the Virginia Dep't of Transportation (VDOT), which wanted to build a larger bridge and pave the road in front her country place. VDOT hosted a "community meeting", but would not allow any discussion. To get everyone's attention, and start a real discussion, she found a piano in the room and banged loudly on the keys, creating a cacophony of sound, which brought everyone's eyes on her. She then was able to hold the floor for some time, before being shut down by the "authorities", who clearly had never encountered anyone like her.
Ann was a whistleblower throughout her life, bringing sometimes ugly truths into the light. She was also truthful to the point of being blunt at times. For instance, if she didn't like the way you looked or dressed, she would tell you, even if she didn't know you too well. But she also had a way of manipulating the truth, when it suited it her, at least in her personal relationships. She was incredibly manipulative when she wanted to be, which probably served her well in all of the adventures she had as a young woman. Although she displayed incredible kindness to others, and especially to those who could not defend themselves, such as the animals, she also had a very difficult side to her personality. When I accompanied her to the Animal Rescue League a few years ago to get the "Top Dog Award", I told her that, in her case, it should have been named the "Top Female Dog Award". She heartily agreed and was, in fact, very proud of this side of her personality.
Her dear old Richmond friend, Sally Patton Pittard, described her as being "a devil", which is a very polite way of putting it. While this characteristic probably resulted in her being able to accomplish much more than a "milk toast" like me (that was just one of the pet names I heard), it sometimes got displaced upon innocent victims. Not too long ago, a friend of ours who is the mother of one of Amanda's close friends and who, luckily, knew Ann pretty well, got a call. The first words she heard on the line were, in a loud Southern shout: "You lazy bastard! Why haven't you gone to pick up Elissa?" Our friend immediately recognized the voice and responded: "Ann, Ann, it's me, Charlotte!" "Oh. I thought I was calling Bill!" Click!
Of course, Ann was a brilliant person. Few others could match her knowledge on so many subjects and in analyzing situations. She kept her superior intelligence up to her last days. Two days before she died, she was on the telephone with her good friend, Rose Forney. She used the word "amanuensis", in referring to another friend, Joan Rooks, who was also her helpmate at home. When asked what it meant, she said, in her usual fashion: "Look it up!" I had never heard this word before and I wasn't sure if it was real or a result of delirium. When I got home, I got out the Oxford English Dictionary and found out that it means "one who takes dictation from another."
But she was also rather stupid in some ways, especially with anything mechanical. She went through more TVs and remote controls than anyone in history. She also was a messy klutz. When we traveled together in Morocco back in the 80's, she mistakenly brushed her teeth with Icy Hot, a muscle relaxant that heats up upon contact with skin. She panicked, thinking she was poisoned, so we found a pharmacy and tried to explain the situation in very bad French. It took quite awhile for the poor pharmacist to figure what we were talking about, but finally he assured Ann that it was nothing to worry about. Well, by chance, about a week later we happened to see the same pharmacist on a mountain pass in the High Atlas Mountains. He looked at us, made a brushing motion and said "Icy Hot". On this same trip, she more than once carried a half open bottle of Maalox in her purse, with foreseeable consequences.
Ann was a serious person and a serious thinker. But she also had the most amazing sense of humor. One of my early experiences with her ways was when I visited their house while Ann was laid up in bed with back problems. She was upstairs in the bedroom. She said: "I'll get Jim" and proceeded to pull out this beaten up old bugle. She blew on it and a horrible noise came out. A few minutes later, Jim appeared dutifully at the door. Her humor stayed with her, even in her last days of life. As we parted to go home one evening that last week, Elissa said "Be good!", which of course was not something you would take for granted with Ann. She responded; "I'm always good!"
Ann also showed contrasts in addressing fears and worries. She would constantly express ridiculous worries about Elissa and Amanda: "Don't drive at night!", "Don't let Amanda cross the street!" She also had phobias about going up steep hills and such. But she was probably the bravest woman I have met in many other ways. She had no fear in trying to help an animal or a person in need. She would not be cowed by any authority figure whatsoever. And I felt very privileged to watch her meet her own death with incredible bravery and dignity. She knew she was dying that last week. When the doctors came and asked her how she was doing, she replied in a matter-of-fact tone: "I'm dying, how are you?" She appeared to drink in the beauty around her, the flowers in the room, Amanda and Elissa and the friends who were present. I think she found it difficult to let go, but was not afraid to face death. It was a powerful lesson to me that I shall never forget.
As a person, Ann was many things and displayed many different and opposing characteristics. The lines from the famous Longfellow poem aptly apply to her: "when she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid." Not only in her life accomplishments and professionally did Ann Cottrell Free push the envelope, but as a person she did so also. I don't think I have ever met, or ever will meet again, such a fully human human being.
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