A New Tribute to our friend Fanny

Poet Bea Lazarus was a nurse at Pawtucket hospital when she met Fanny. She'd often stop by Slater Park in Pawtucket to visit her friend after work, when the sun was golden and Fanny was at her best.
When it was time for the elephant to leave home in 1993, Bea was moved to write a delicate and heartfelt poem to her. She's taped it for us. You can see it at
► 3:41► 3:41 www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAnM1mnDnig

Ashaway and a huge surprise!.

Thursday was National Elephant Appreciation Day (for those of you who didn't know) and I celebrated by giving a talk about (what else?) Elephants in Rhode Island at the Ashaway Free Library in SW RI. The kind library staff there enthusiastically hostd the talk. They even made a batch of "Elephant Ear" cookies that disappeared from the table in minutes... The RI Council on the Humanities sponsored the program.
What fun!
We talked about the big elephant stories, I played The Ballad of Baby Roger and both adults and kiddies had some good questions. I had to do a bunch of research when I got home to send them...
Yesterday I checked the email and found an utra-exciting note from a fan who actually visited Fanny the Elephant in her final home at the sanctuary and had video of her there, as well as an interview with her keepers! I'm looking forward to meeting her and seeing what comes up. This has been a big area that I've been missing in the film- footage of her final years, and this would be perfect!
More as things develop....

She's still the one...

Folks are still in love with Fanny.
Even kids who never met her showed up last night at the library to hear stories, see the trailer, and learn more about Pawtucket's Sweetheart who left town almost 20 years ago.
One of them is going to be an official fundraiser at her school when it opens this fall.
There were 35 people there in all, including some of the original players, like Former Mayor Metivier who brought a priceless bit of tape. It followed Fanny on her last night in Pawtucket.
"We were all in tears that night," he and Aaron Wishnevsky agreed.
Aaron, who visited Fanny in Texas a lot with his wife Pat, brought a stash of pictures of the Black Beauty Ranch, and a full sized footprint.
Add to that Eclipse Neilsen of the "Free Fanny" coalition, the assistant zookeeper who took care of Fanny, and lots of people who knew and loved her.
Even Chris Kane, who made the sculpture of Fanny that stands in the park now, popped in, as did Jen Warmbold, lead elephant keeper Roger Williams Park Zoo. I could go on and on.
The pictures and memories that people shared are going to be invaluable as we go into high gear until this movie is done.
There was just one fly in the ointment- my business cards hadn't come in yet, and I didn't have a handout with our contact information for everyone.
So please- please- contact us through our email address (elephantsinri@gmail.com) or Facebook page (Uproar in Pawtucket)and we promise to keep in touch!
Ultimate conclusion? I'm positive this is the right story to tell and, once again, am gratified by the passion Fanny evokes, even today.

Another Bombshell!

I heard today from David Bottai of the band The Hometown Rockers. They were the ones that wrote and performed Fanny's song that you can hear in the trailer, but there was much more to the song than the clip I had.
I am blown away!
Because we're going to Pawtucket tomorrow to meet everyone and have had some publicity, people are coming out with the greatest stuff.
I can hardly wait!
David also had a picture of himself as a kiddo riding on Fanny, which will definitely be in the film.
I am humbled to be telling her story- really-

Good news and disappointing....

We've been working steadily, Producer Gennie and I, to move Fanny along.
This Tuesday we'll celebrate her life at Pawtucket Library, and have asked people to bring their stories and pictures of her to be included in the film.
I have plenty of tape, and hope to capture as much great stuff as possible.
We'll also be filming former Mayor Robert Metivier who was head honcho during the Uproar. It should be pretty amazing to get his side of the story.
We also hope to get plenty of pix of the event as there will be more than one "star" there.
One of the main reasons we're doing this event is to act as a spur for the main thrust of editing the film and filling in footage to make it more complete.
On the disappointing side, our indiegogo.com fundraising didn't net what we had hoped, though we're entirely grateful for those who did contribute to the cause. We'll use the money we raised for transportation, publicity, and, when we're ready, to compensate a musician and voice over actor.
More as things progress.

Tragic

I'm not sure whether to thank my contact in Denmark or not with his links about Baby Roger. They included a trove of newspaper clippings that it astounds me I hadn't found during my year's research on Roger.
They chronicle his deteriorating circumstances at the zoo and are ripping my heart out. Although the city was aware of how bad things were, they didn't know what to do with their "Baby" and life became unbearable all the way around.
The articles that I had read only referred to the famous fishook incident, but there was so much more going on.
This, of course, means the end of the booklet has to be changed, and the movie has to be recut as well.
More when I recover...

Bombshell!!!

I had an unexpected email from Joachim Endres of the European Elephant group asking for info on all the Alices at RWP Zoo here in Providence. I told him I would go through my info as soon as I returned home. But, in our conversation he was able to give me some dynamite info on Baby Roger that I hadn't tracked down.
According to him, the species survival plan studbook shows- Baby Roger (from 12.05.1893 to 1903; transfer to Sig. > Soutelle Circus due to aggression)
. I had no idea what happened to him after he went to Wm. Bartel's exotic animal holding pens in Yonkers, NY.
In his next email, Endres gave me this bombshell link fingering Roger's last days... They came sooner than I had thought.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=inVcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=M1cNAAAAIBAJ&pg=4625,2091275&dq=elephant+roger&hl=en
Providence's "Evening Tribune" announced that "Baby Roger now listed as Murderer".
He also listed a number of links with records of Roger's misbehavior before the incident. Obviously this will require revising the Roger book and even the end of the film...
More as the story progresses...