This childless cat lady, born in Austria in 1910, studied art and music in Vienna and married an ornithologist in 1935. As Europe became more frightening, her Jewish husband sent her ahead to Kenya to find a safer place to live. But on the ship she met a botanist who became her second husband. As that marriage faded she went on safari and met a game warden whom she married in 1944. When he shot a lioness in self-defense, the couple raised the young cubs and the author wrote about their experiences teaching the smallest cub, Elsa, how to survive in the wild. This book led to more books, a movie and a song. The author was murdered just before she turned 70, stabbed to death by an angry former employee. This was Joy Adamson and her 1960 book was Born Free. Her husband was killed by poachers 9 years later. The Elsa Conservation Trust which the couple founded continues to aid wildlife.
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