Sol Stephan

From St. Louis I went to Cincinnati, Ohio, to visit Sol Stephan, once our representative and now in charge of the local zoo. I found a fine veteran at the game, whose great-grandparents had settled in America. Sol Stephan was a great friend of my father's and I always called him 'my American father.' The friendship continued till 1949, when at the fine age of a hundred old Sol died. In his youth he had travelled with a menagerie, and it was to this that he owed his later position as zoo curator. In those days, nobody in the United States bothered about diplomas or suchlike papers. The man who could collar a job and hold it down was the man they wanted. Sol's little office at the entrance to his zoo became a great meeting-place for American zoo owner-proprietors, who were always glad to discuss things with the old man and do business with him too. When on this occasion I went to see him, he was still our representative.
Lorenz Hagenbeck, Animals Are My Life