The Lady and the Panda (41 page)

Down roads established in Harkness's time, now paved, if poorly so, it seemed we were four-wheeling through classical Chinese landscape paintings as we made our way to the Chaopo Valley where Harkness had found Su-Lin. On October 29, our SUVs were grinding and tearing, even sliding crashingly into one another, up rutted mud roads till they could go no farther. We emerged from the vehicles into the cool mountain air to begin a treacherous climb on foot, up a thousand-foot bluff that seemed to lead straight into the sky. The trail often had us panting and scrambling on all fours, up just the kind of slick, mossy vertical ground that Harkness had known so well. With little time before sunset, we paused, taking in the expansive view of the valley—the raging yellows, reds, and oranges of autumn below. It was here, before a magnificent old Chinese elm bearing characters that someone had artfully carved in the trunk, that Mary Lobisco unpacked a small ceramic container with the image of giant pandas on the top. Inside were the ashes and soil from Ruth Harkness's grave site in Titusville.

Mary recited a short prayer, then returned Harkness's remains to the country she so loved, to the mountains where she had laid Bill to rest and where she herself had contemplated with deep joy the thought of spending eternity. It was the valley, she had always said, of “her complete happiness.” We knew it was the perfect spot—high up, serene, and exactly where Harkness had roamed so long ago.

Just miles away, appropriately, was China's most famous—and, at 785 square miles, largest—panda reserve, Wolong. The preserve is on the front lines in the battle to save the giant panda, at the center of worldwide efforts to ensure that there will always be a place for them.

There are still great problems in the fight to save giant pandas. Logging and human encroachment have gobbled up much of the animal's range. In Sichuan Province alone, between 1974 and 1989, panda habitat was reduced by 50 percent. Some of the threats are long-standing ones, having been around since Harkness's time: the animals are so popular,
and displaying them so lucrative, that the motives and methods of those who do so must be closely monitored.

Today China is struggling to protect the giant panda and to preserve its home. While dozens of reserves in six mountain ranges have been established in western China, the world of the giant panda is fragmented. More restricted than that of any other bear, panda populations have become isolated from one another. Inbreeding in circumstances like this can lead to many physical problems, including an inability to fight disease.

Throughout the world, Harkness's gift can be seen in the care and concern given to the preservation of the giant panda. But here in this wild corner of China, which folds forever into Tibet, we saw what we hoped was her legacy in the flesh.

Our little group was able to see dozens of giant pandas here, and even to cuddle a young one, laying our hands gently on his wiry, deep-pile coat.

Scientists today say that Harkness's Su-Sen might very well have survived after her release in 1938 and could have lived long enough to reproduce, right here in the mountain range we were visiting. As we met one magnificent giant panda after another at Wolong, we hoped that a few were her descendants.

Even if we hadn't actually met them, we could content ourselves with a sweet dream—that somewhere in these green, fog-bound slopes before us, there might just live the great-great-grandchildren of one little panda whom Ruth Harkness had, against all odds, and in a moment of pure bliss, set free.

PERHAPS SURPRISINGLY
, writing a book is a terrifically humbling experience—not least because an author of nonfiction arrives at the finish line on the strong shoulders of friends and strangers alike who have amply given of their time and expertise.
The Lady and the Panda,
it seems, has been particularly blessed by this kind generosity.

So much of the spirit and substance of this book can be traced to the kindness of two families.

Ruth Harkness's niece, Mary Lobisco, along with her husband, Vincent, and their daughter, Nicole, opened the family photo albums, archives, and history to me, and, of course, so much more. Mary, who is enviably intuitive and pragmatic, provided insights and sometimes even lodging as I traveled and conducted research. Always patient with inquiries and eager to do some sleuthing herself, Mary plunged into wild excursions to cities as different as Chicago and Chengdu for the cause.

Equally important was the contribution of the Perkins family, descendants of Ruth's best friend, Hazel Perkins. Robin Perkins Ugurlu, Hazel's globe-trotting granddaughter, was always on call, ready to roll up her sleeves or pack her bags, to do the dusty work of archival sifting, or to secure us entry to the world of exclusive clubs, such as the one at the
Ritz-Carlton in Shanghai (in the name of inquiry). She has kept Ruth Harkness's story close to her heart her whole life, and I am touched by how much she shared with me. Robin's parents, Bruce and Alice Perkins, opened their astonishing collection of the correspondence between Ruth and her “dear friend Perkie,” which turned out to be the master key that unlocked so many of the mysteries of this complicated adventurer. Three generations of Perkinses now have remained loyal to Ruth Harkness, and her memory lives on with vividness and clarity because of them.

While this book has provided me with immeasurable gifts, highest among them has been the chance to know these deeply good people. The families of Ruth Harkness and Hazel Perkins embody the American ideals of honesty, integrity, kindness, strength, and spirit. I am honored to count them as friends, and hope this work at least in some small way reflects their virtues.

Although Quentin Young chose not to be interviewed for this book, members of his family and his biographer, Michael Kiefer, author of
Chasing the Panda,
helped unstintingly. By any logic, Michael should be something of a rival, yet he has always offered information, advice, and friendship. I couldn't ask for a better or more principled colleague. And through his insightful book, I have come to know Quentin Young. Quentin Young's sister-in-law, Su-Lin Young, an explorer herself, and the woman for whom Ruth Harkness named America's first panda, graciously presented her memories of the book's main characters. Her daughter Jialing “Jolly” Young, who has carefully chronicled the family's storied past, particularly that of her dashing father, Jack Young, has provided me again and again with information and understanding, and more than that, a raucous friendship. In helping with this book, both she and her brother, Jack Young, Jr., have drawn me a modern portrait of the swashbuckling their father was famous for.

I am indebted to Linda Ash and the late Peggy McCleskey, who knew Ruth Harkness at very different stages of her life. Over the telephone and in many conversations, they offered stories about Harkness in heartstirring detail. Linda also—without hesitation—offered to share her
store of mementos (including photos and Tibetan prayer cards) saved from her friendship with Harkness.

Dan Reib's daughter, Jane Pollock, kept me spellbound one evening with wonderful stories about her larger-than-life father. And Reib's grandson Edward Reib has been of enormous help with information and my first glimpse of a photograph of Harkness's great and steadfast friend.

I continue to feel happily stunned by the caliber of those willing to read this manuscript and lend their expertise: George Schaller, director of science, Wildlife Conservation Society, who is simply and unarguably the greatest naturalist of our time; Stella Dong, author of the wonderful, wise, and rollicking
Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City 1842– 1949;
playwright Yin-Yin Zeng and her husband, Tony Saich, the Daewoo Professor of International Affairs and faculty chair of Asia Programs and the China Public Policy Program, Harvard University.

Thanks especially to my friend Sarah Queen, professor of Chinese history at Connecticut College, who not only read the final manuscript but helped shape it through many probing discussions over meals, around crying babies, and during hikes with dogs. It was only because of Sarah and her canny reading of a Chinese map that I was able to reach the old village of Wenchuan and find Harkness's lost ghost temple. I will forever be grateful for her intellectual drive and her knack for asking simple questions that launched weeklong ruminations.

In this same regard, I thank two of my dearest friends, both talented writers and editors—Louise Kennedy and Jan Freeman. Despite being immersed in their own work and lives, they have unfailingly reported for duty as muses, witty scolds, experts, Scotch-sipping companions, and twenty-four-hour emergency copy doctors. During the polishing phase of this project Jan helped me find light at the end of some kinked and collapsed sentences. Every chapter bears the graceful touch of these punctuation-toting guardian angels.

Thanks, also, to Tess Johnson, an American resident of Shanghai who has written extensively about its history. Tess has more than a dash of Ruth Harkness's salty panache and was generous in lending books
and spending an evening over an edifying, fun-filled dinner in the territory that was, in Harkness's time, the French Concession.

I am beholden to an army of kind and brilliant librarians at Cornell University, Harvard University (particularly Yenching and Widener), and the Shanghai municipal library. To Raymond Lum at Yenching, Armand Esai at the archives of the Field Museum in Chicago; Christel Schmidt and Janet W. McKee of the Library of Congress; Julia Innes, former archivist at the Brookfield Zoo; Steven Johnson at the Wildlife Conservation Society's library at the Bronx Zoo; the library staff at the American Museum of Natural History; and David Dressing and Erika Hosselkus of the Latin American Library at Tulane University.

I am grateful to A. J. Joyce, whose skilled computer searching revealed the pathway to the details of Harkness's last years. To documentary filmmaker Jessica Louchheim for both her charity and proficiency in helping with research in Washington, D.C. To Richard J. Reynolds III for sharing his illuminating correspondence with Gerald Russell from the 1960s. And to Devin Hollands for generously providing key Harkness family documents.

Specialists who weighed in on issues large and small include panda expert Devra Klein; Tibetologist Per Kvaerne;
Port of Last Resort
author Marcia Reynders Ristaino; and Asia chronicler Harry Rolnick.

Thanks also to
Washington Post Magazine
editor David Rowell and
Gourmet
magazine editors John Willoughby and Barry Estabrook, for material used here that originally appeared in those publications. I am appreciative of their fine work.

I will never be able to thank editor Jonathan Karp properly. His vision, spirit, and skill have been as singular as they are sure. I am most indebted for his ability to banish the reams of nonessential details and anecdotes that threatened to weigh down the vitality of this adventure story. It is through his stewardship that this galloping work came up to speed and stayed on track. He is also the kindest champion a writer could hope for.

Working closely with Jon has been another remarkable editor— Jonathan Jao. Jonathan is as kind in his manner as he is exacting in his
expectations. The pages have become lean and clean from Jonathan running them hard and taking a good stiff-bristled brush to them.

None of this would even have come into existence without the drive of my extraordinary agent, Laura Blake Peterson. Laura understood Ruth Harkness from the start, and she believed in the story when not everyone did. This project has been elevated by Laura's own elegance and conviction.

I thank my talented and resolute nephew John Biando for his help in researching archival material from Standard Oil's days in Shanghai, and for his Herculean effort to organize the unruly endnotes. I look forward to reading his first book, whenever that comes (and I only hope I won't have to help with his endnotes).

My parents too, as usual, did all they could. In this case, that included loading me and their standard poodle, Portia, into the backseat of the Lincoln for a ten-hour drive up from Florida to meet Su-Lin Young.

I am indebted to a cast of characters who have walked wolfhounds for me, made me laugh, been patient with my obsessions, or even been willing to leave me alone so I could keep working: Kathleen Shinnick, Amy Macdonald, Mary Crowley, Ellen Maggio, Michael and Marissa Barrile, Linda Carmichael, Brian Kilcommons, Sarah Wilson, Richard Buell, Boyd Estus, Edith McBean, Paula Abend, Alice Turner, and Jennifer Clifford.

Although, as Ruth Harkness would say, this journey has been one grand thrill, sadly, three close friends, who all led large, joyful lives in the Harkness style, could not finish it with me. How I wish I were invoking the lives and not the memories of Dorothy Greelis, John Castagnetti, and Franklin Loew. Dorothy, my old pal, I will definitely drink one for you.

Finally, with all my heart, too many thanks to count for my love, Scott Beckman.

Dominating the citations in these endnotes are the hundreds of letters written from Ruth Harkness to her best friend, Hazel Perkins, mainly from 1936 to 1939, often typed out on Harkness's portable. Access to the correspondence was generously provided by the Perkins family—Bruce and Alice, and their daughter, Robin Perkins Ugurlu. In the text, I have cleaned up obvious typographical errors contained in the letters, which were often rushed and written under less-than-optimal field conditions, but I have not altered them in any other way.

Some newspaper and magazine clippings taken from Ruth Harkness's family's archives, the files at the Brookfield Zoo, the papers of Floyd Tangier Smith from the Library of Congress, and some others contained no identification of the publication and/or the date. Occasionally, I could puzzle out the date or rough time period from information within the text or from the stories on the reverse. Sometimes I could identify the headline fonts as that of a particular paper. And often enough I found the articles themselves during microfilm research. But not always, and in those cases where clippings remain as orphans, endnotes appear with incomplete information.

Along with the citations, I have also included some rather lengthy informational notes. There just wasn't enough room in the main story itself for background details on a number of topics (Ruth's relationship to Bill Harkness's family, for instance), but because so much of it has never been published anywhere else, I have provided it here in note form.

xv
Something one newspaperman
Ruth Harkness, travel club speech, 1939.

xv
No animal in history Field Museum News
9, no. 7 (July 1938), Field Museum archives.

xvi
“making the world panda conscious” Washington Post,
26 June 1938;
Field Museum News
9, no. 7 (July 1938), Field Museum archives.

xvii
getting baby-panda formula right
“Improved Nutrition and Infant Survival,” “Panda 2000 Conservation Priorities for the New Millennium,” workshop at the San Diego Zoo, Oct. 2000,
www.sandiegozoo.org/conservation/fieldproject_panda2000.html.

xvii
“little was known”
World Wildlife Fund website:
www.wwfchina.org.

xviii
“a very important nail”
Ramona and Desmond Morris,
Men and Pandas
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 83.

xix
Su-Lin “was virtually changing”
Ibid., p. 82.

xix
“In a few brief moments”
Chris Catton,
Pandas
(New York: Facts on File, 1990), p. 17.

xix
“evoke universal sympathy”
“Giant Pandas in the Wild,” World Wide Fund for Nature website,
http://www.panda.org
, printed 11 July 2001.

xix
“part in giving the animal world”
Ruth Harkness to Hazel Perkins, likely 13 Sept. 1940.

3
It was a bitter winter night
“Explorer Harkness Dies of a Cancer,”
Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury,
20 Feb. 1936; “Harkness Dies of a Throat Cancer,”
Shanghai Times,
21 Feb. 1936, p. 7; “W. H. Harkness Jr. Is Dead in Shanghai,”
New York Times
20 Feb. 1936, which describes the Shanghai sanitarium as a “Seventh Day Adventist institution.”

3
sunny notes
Ruth Harkness,
The Lady and the Panda: An Adventure
(New York: Carrick & Evans, 1938), p. 20.

3
But, finally
Floyd Tangier Smith to Keith Spalding, 5 Mar. 1936, Field Museum archives.

4
A world away
“Cold to Continue Over Week-end,”
New York Times,
1 Feb. 1936.

4
Late in the afternoon
Harkness,
Lady and the Panda,
p. 19.

4
along icy sidewalks
“Near-Zero Cold Returns to City; 33 on Ship Saved,”
New York Times,
19 Feb. 1936, p. 1; letter to the editor, dated 13 Feb. 1936, from “taxpayer,” complains about snowy, icy sidewalks in New York City,
New York Times,
15 Feb. 1936.

4
“pretty little mulatto maid”
Harkness,
Lady and the Panda,
p. 19.

4
The devastation of that loss
Siglinde Ash, conversation with author, interview, 12 Sept. 2002.

4
“Do you have that”
Harkness to Perkins, 20 May 1936.

5
Handsome, short, and wiry
Lawrence Griswold,
Tombs, Trouble and Travel,
Resnick's Library of Worldwide Adventure (1937; reprint, Alexander, N.C.: Alexander Books, 1999), p. 167.

5
He was not a member Wall Street Journal,
10 Feb. 1915; “Mrs. Harkness Aids College,” giving $150,000 to Connecticut College for Women, 14 Dec. 1933.

5
But Bill had graduated from Harvard
“Harvard Graduates Its Largest Class,”
New York Times,
20 June 1924. Bill Harkness listed under Bachelor of Arts (also in next year's list under “Bachelors of Law”). See also “Florence Rhein Picks Bridal Party,” 3 Oct. 1928.

5
scion of a wealthy New York family Shanghai Times,
21 Feb. 1936, p. 7.

5
The Harknesses were powerfully connected
Bill Harkness's records from Harvard indicate connections to government officials and the FAO Schwarz family, as well as a sense of entitlement.

5
Never arrogant
Bill Harkness always let his companions do the talking to the press when he was on expedition; he didn't care about being given credit or seeing his name in print, as is clear from treks with Griswold and Smith.

6
She could fill a room
“Su Lin, Panda Baby, Checks in at Biltmore,”
New York Herald Tribune,
24 Dec. 1936.

6
She had, according
Adelaide Hawley, editor of “The Woman's Page,” MGM Newsreels Chairman, Town Hall Round Table Luncheon Club, as quoted in Ruth Harkness lecture brochure from William B. Freakins, Inc.

6
Born on September 21, 1900
“Mrs. Harkness Dies Suddenly in Pittsburgh,”
Titusville
(
Penn.
)
Herald,
21 July 1947.

7
temporary move to nearby Erie
“Woman Explorer, Former Erieite, Is Found Dead,”
Erie Daily Times,
21 July 1947.

7
After a semester
Greg Swenson, news office, University of Colorado, e-mail correspondence with author. Ruth McCombs is listed as a freshman in the College of Liberal Arts for the 1920–1921 academic year.

7
twenty-five dollars as her war chest
Ruth Harkness to family, Jan. 1939, from Bombay.

7
Powdered and dressed up
Jill Carey, professor of fashion history, LaSalle College, Newton, Mass., conversation with author.

7
as quintessential a flapper
“Appreciating the Flapper,”
New York Times,
13 June 1999.

8
her face was not her fortune
Ruth Harkness to family, Jan. 1939, from Bombay.

8
“had to work like the devil”
Harkness to Perkins, 12 Aug. 1936.

9
“a bare derriere”
Harkness to Perkins, 12 July 1936.

10
slugging back bootleg booze
Mary Lobisco, conversation with author, 12 April 2003. Ruth Harkness's niece, Lobisco recalls a story of her mother's. When
Harriet McCombs came to visit Ruth, she took up smoking just to keep her hands busy while socializing with Bill and Ruth and their friends, who were always drinking.

10
Sitting together in the haze
Harkness,
Lady and the Panda,
p. 56.

10
“game trails in remote corners”
Ruth Harkness, as told to Hans Christian Adamson, “How I Caught the Rare Giant Panda,” part 2, “Mrs. Harkness' Thrilling Story of Her Hunt in Asian Wilds,”
New York American,
14 Feb. 1937.

10
college-entrance examinations
Undergraduate Registrar's Office, Harvard University.

10
author
U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1930, Washington, D.C.

10
a man of letters
Harvard College Class of 1924 Sexennial Report, 1930, p. 95.

10
“Big Medicine” .405 rifle
Griswold,
Tombs, Travel,
pp. 180, 194.

10
at his family's estate in Connecticut
William senior, a widower, thought his son was a bit reckless, but the two men were close, and soon enough Ruth was folded into the Harkness family. She and Bill served as bridesmaid and best man at William senior's wedding, to a much younger woman in 1928. From then on, weekends were a time for the foursome at the family estate in Danbury, a handsome manor enviably outfitted with an in-ground swimming pool (it would later be purchased by contralto Marian Anderson). Despite finding the country life of swimming and tennis a bit of a bore, Ruth went along with it all, even trying to befriend Bill's stepmother, Jane GreenPenfold, who was close to her own age but nothing like Ruth in outlook or philosophy. Jane always seemed to squelch Ruth's exuberance and naturalness, sometimes exploding in anger over petty matters such as the time Ruth arrived late to the farm. At least Ruth had a confidante and ally in Danbury— someone close to the family who felt the same exasperation over Jane's dampening ways. Hazel Perkins, an industrious and ambitious woman raising two boys alone, had worked in the real estate office handling matters for the Harkness estate. She would become Ruth's closest friend forever after.

Throughout the years of Danbury visits, Jane and William senior eroded Ruth's confidence, always implying, she said, that she had no common sense and lacked good judgment. They had the same concerns about Bill, which was made clear in the patriarch's will. William senior had designated that upon his death, all his worldly goods and fortune would be left to his new wife to use as she pleased. Should she predecease him, the estate would go to Bill, but with the proviso that it would be managed by a trust, administered by overseers presumably with more sober perspectives.

Even after the stock market crash of 1929, Bill's family-fed bank account proved Depression-proof, and he continued to live as he pleased. See “Jane Green-Penfold Weds W. H. Harkness,”
New York Times,
27 June 1928, p. 25; Bill's
New York Times
obituary, 20 Feb. 1936; “William H. Harkness to
Marry,”
New York Times,
19 June 1928; Bruce Perkins, son of Hazel Perkins, conversation with; Ruth Harkness to Hazel Perkins, 22 Aug. 1936; Last Will and Testament of William H. Harkness, of Danbury, Fairfield County, Conn., 21 Dec. 1931, From files of Probate Court, District of Danbury, District no. 034.

10
tropical romantic getaways
Ruth Harkness to family, postcard from Virgin Islands, 1925.

10
“A dash of absinthe”
Harkness to Perkins, 28 May 1936.

11
Each of them was haunted
Griswold says this in
Tombs, Travel,
and Ruth's personal correspondence is filled with ruminations on loneliness.

11
Her intuition
Harkness to Perkins, 8 July 1936.

11
“He had a divine faith”
Harkness to Perkins, 8 July 1936.

11
She felt in a fog
Harkness to Perkins, 1 June 1936.

12
She was to receive about $20,000
This is what she said she spent on the first expedition, and it had to have come from Bill.

12
not enough to last much more than a year
Paul A. Samuelson,
Economics
(1948; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997), p. 64.

12
She left it
Harkness to Perkins, 16 June and 22 Aug. 1936.

12
his mother's jewelry
Harkness to Perkins, misdated 12 July 1936, should be 12 Aug. 1936.

12
Over many chilly days
“I was drinking because I felt that I needed it,” Harkness said in a letter to Perkins, 6 Aug. 1936.

13
As she sent instructions Shanghai Times,
21 Feb. 1936, p. 7.

13
“brown lean men”
Theodore and Kermit Roosevelt,
Trailing the Giant Panda
, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929), p. 1.

14
“Whenever one arrives”
From the 1931 fifty-cent
Popular Official Guide
to the New York Zoological Park, by William T. Hornaday.

14
Demand for animals was strong
Arthur de Carle Sowerby, “The Lure of the Giant Panda,”
China Journal,
May 1938, p. 251.

15
Adult elephants
Vicki Constantine Croke,
The Modern Ark: The Story of Zoos: Past, Present, and Future
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1997).

15
Over the course of his career
Ibid.

15
Since Bill was the obvious
Griswold,
Tombs, Travel.

15
“was fortunately furnished”
Ibid.

16
Ruth Harkness wasn't impressed
Harkness to Perkins, 27 Aug. 1936. In another letter to Perkins, 17 Oct. 1936, Harkness calls assertions of Griswold's in an article he wrote, or was in, a “pack of lies,” and she wonders what he is doing, “besides being supported by his actress wife.”

16
a scientific paper the decade before
Mark Cheater, “Chasing the Magic Dragon,”
National Wildlife Magazine,
Aug./Sept. 2003.

16
“Bill's own invention”
Griswold,
Tombs, Travel.

17
“a yearning desire”
Harkness, “How I Caught the Rare Giant Panda,” part 1, 14 Feb. 1937.

17
It was a living mystery National Geographic
devoted pages and pages to articles on China from the late 1920s throughout the '30s.

17
When he noticed
George Bishop,
Travels in Imperial China: The Intrepid Explorations and Discoveries of Père Armand David
(London: Cassell, 1996), pp. 158–59.

18
He wrote in his diary
George Schaller,
The Last Panda
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 135.

18
“easily the prettiest kind”
Morris and Morris,
Men and Pandas,
pp. 37–46.