![]() ![]() She helps guide Violet on the long walk to the zoo, but not without mishap. It is 1940, and so many young men have been called up that Hettie, now 20, has gained her life’s dream to be a zookeeper, a career not usually available to women at that time. Hettie had never seen so many people at the docks it was as if British royalty or a famous screen actress were among the steamer’s passengers arriving that morning.” The crowd - women, men, children, sailors, dockworkers - let out a collective gasp, their gazes following the orchestrated movements of the hoisting operation. The elephant’s trunk coiled up and then unfurled like an opening fist. “A crane and a system of chains and pulleys elevated the animal from the deck of the moored steamship. Hettie Quin, a zookeeper at the Belleview Zoo and Gardens, waits with her boss, zoo director Mr. Violet, a 3-year-old elephant weighing 3,000 pounds, is lowered to the ground at the Belfast docks after a long sea voyage from Ceylon. ![]()
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