Jungle Jenny

Before his death in January of 1948, Art Foehl sends his foster daughter, Genevieve Cuprys, a letter from Malaysia. 'Make me proud,' are his last words. A month later, Genevieve is on a Dutch cargo ship, the Borneo, headed for Singapore. On that day, this twenty-three-year-old woman doesn't realize what barriers she is breaking. She's young; she's a woman; she's embarking on a career as a collector of wild animalsin a time when most women, even though they had taken on men's jobs during World War II, have returned to being stenographers, teachers, and nurses, mothers, and housewives. She escapes being crushed between elephants; she captures a twenty-five-foot python that has slithered out of its cage; she corrals tiger cubs on the loose; she is mauled by a leopard. The female Frank Buck of her generation, she becomes Jungle Jenny. This is her story.