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ANIMAL LOVER RESCUES A MENAGERIE OF CRITTERS
3-6-09
Frances "Kitten" Jones has been rescuing animals
since she was three years old when a driver deliberately ran off the
road and killed her cat. She says, "I haven't had much use for humans
ever since" and decided to dedicate her life to saving animals.
Both of her parents loved animals so they always surrounded her with
them. It was no big thing to Mama and Papa when she started dragging
more homeless mutts through the door.
When she and her husband, Bruce ran Shady Grove Harbor here, Elise
Norman and I went up there one night for a home-cooked meal (she rescues
hairy legged guitar pickers, too). I had never seen such a variety of
animals in my life as she had that day in her fenced in areas. Over the
decades I have known her, it is not unusual to see her drive hundreds of
miles to bring home an abused homeless animal. Not just dogs and cats -
she takes in rabbits, squirrels, possums, raccoons and birds. You'd have
to see it to believe it.
As far as I know, no person nor organization has ever supported her
rescue efforts and her current monthly bill for feed is running around
$200. She simply says, "God told me to do it."
Kitten is a fine singer and entertainer and worked the major chain motel
lounges for several years. Even while she was on the road, she
constantly picked up stray animals and hid them out in her room until
she could talk someone into taking them.
When she and Bruce lived here she called her work "Lighthouse Animal
Rescue" and explained there were similar rescue operations all over the
country. She said, "We animal rescue people had what we called the
'Underground Railroad.' If one rescue group in Florida had a dog and a
group in Washington wanted to adopt it, we set up a railroad for the
dog. Volunteers would drive 100 to 150 miles to hand off the animal to
another volunteer who drove it to another meeting point. I guess the
most distant travel I have done in a rescue operation was from Costa
Rica to the states and back. I have done that three times."
She fell in love with Costa Rica and moved down there a few years ago.
They recently had an earthquake and I was shocked to see pictures of the
devastation on her website (www.mrbudbud.blogspot.com). I suppose Costa
Rican officials didn't report the extent of the damage for fear tourism
would suffer. Most of the rescue efforts were aimed at humans but Kitten
went into damaged areas daily to bring out injured and homeless animals.
Speaking of the earthquake aftermath, Kitten says, "This has been a
nightmare. Everybody cares about the humans who were victims but once
they are rescued or declared dead, everybody stops caring. We
desperately need a helicopter to get into the final area where there are
more animals trapped." When it comes to her endangered animals, Kitten
can become quite persuasive and I am betting she will gain access to a
helicopter.
If you want to keep up with her work and read fascinating reports of
animal rescues, email Kitten to put you on her email list (imissebony@yahoo.com).
I asked, "Do you ever wonder who will carry on your work after you're
gone?" and she answered, "Often. I worry about that all the time. But
God put me here to do it so I have to have faith that He'll replace me
when it's my time to go. I also have to have faith God will punish the
abusers. If I didn't believe that I would be in prison because I would
do the same thing to the abusers that they have done to the animals."
It would be heaven on earth to be a dog if everybody in the world was
half as good as Kitten Jones.
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