When the Los Angeles Zoo got six chickens, zookeeper Ginger Paschall hatched a plan. It seems Ms. Paschall, who has never been to Martha’s Vineyard, stumbled upon a book about Island folk hero Nancy Luce, known as “the Hen Lady,” in a thrift store five years ago. She loved the story about Ms. Luce and her chickens, and so she started to do more research and came across Susan Branch’s blog about Ms. Luce.
“I fell in love with her story,” Ms. Paschall said. “I told people at the zoo about her. I told my friends and my boyfriend. I couldn’t tell the story without getting teary-eyed.”
If you don’t know the story, you’re in for a brood awakening. The story of Nancy Luce isn’t all chickens and sunshine. She was a tortured soul, teased and tormented by Islanders and tourists who thought she was crazy, but seemingly couldn’t get enough of her eccentricities, according to “Consider Poor I,” a book by Walter Magnes Teller about the life, poetry, art, and, of course, chickens of Ms. Luce.
“Viewing her life in the perspective of time, let us give Nancy Luce her due,” Mr. Teller wrote. “From early on she was an entrepreneur. Though feminism was not in her vocabulary, she practiced social and economic equality of the sexes … In an environment where few women lived alone, she did; self-reliant and fearless — writing, publishing, and selling her booklets.”
Ms. Luce was born in 1814, the child of older parents, and both had died by the time she was 26 years old. The family had a farm in what is present-day West Tisbury where she raised chickens, which she gave peculiar names. When they died, she buried them in a cemetery next to her house, complete with engraved headstones. (Some of the stones are on display at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in Edgartown.) Her poultry passion became a Vineyard attraction.
“Exploiting her own peculiarities, since it was clear people were interested, she tried to pay her way (taxes, wood for the fire) by selling the little books,” Ms. Branch wrote on her blog. “She also had photographs taken of herself and her chickens (which is saying something for the 1860s in nowheresville, USA). Others made money on her too; hundreds of picture postcards of her were sold, of which she got not a cent.”
But it was those silly names that caught the eye of Ms. Paschall. Her supervisor Barbara Grisham supported the idea of naming the zoo’s two barred Plymouth Rocks, two Rhode Island Reds, and two Buff Orpingtons after Ms. Luce’s brood. Levendy Ludandy (nicknamed Lavender), Speackekey Lepurlyo (originally nicknamed Pearl until they realized he was a rooster and changed it to Earl), Pondy Lily, Tweedle Dedel, Lebootie Ticktuzy, and Teeddla Toona are all part of the barnyard gang at the zoo.
“Even though her gravestone is on display at the museum, Tweedle Dedel lives,” Bow Van Riper, Martha’s Vineyard Museum historian, wrote in an email to The Times.
The museum, which has an exhibit dedicated to Ms. Luce, provided an image of her holding chickens for a story about the zoo’s new collection of cluckers in the July 5th issue of the zoo’s Gnus newsletter, Mr. Van Riper wrote.
Having a fowl ball, wish you were here
Visitors to the zoo are also hearing the story of Ms. Luce. The chickens are part of the zoo’s outreach program, and docents have made the names and the origin of those names part of the repertoire, Ms. Grisham said.
Even the zoo’s top donors have gotten to know Ms. Luce’s story, she said.
“I worked the Beastly Ball; it’s one of our major fundraisers, and I took the chickens,” Ms. Paschall said. “We have celebrities who are donating millions of dollars learning about Ms. Luce. I said, ‘If I’m working the event, I’m bringing the chickens.’”
The chickens are part of the zoo’s ambassador program going out to hospitals, special-needs schools, and even family court to cheer up children whose parents are getting divorced, Ms. Grisham said.
“Our favorite place to go is the nursing home,” she said. “This brings back a nostalgic time for them, remembering when they had chickens. It’s a fun experience.”
Ms. Grisham, who has a brood of her own at home, said it’s easy to understand how Ms. Luce got so attached to her chickens.
“They make fantastic pets,” she said. “They have their own personalities … I love to watch the lives of chickens. They’re always busy, always moving around the yard.”
Neither woman has ever been to Martha’s Vineyard, but both Ms. Paschall and Ms. Grisham said they hope to visit some day and pay homage to Ms. Luce.
And, get this, in an interesting twist, when Ms. Grisham was talking about incorporating a Nancy Luce Day at the zoo, she suggested holding the event on August 23, Ms. Luce’s birthday.
“We share a birthday,” Ms. Paschall said. She had no idea, but doesn’t mind the coincidence: “It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling, that’s for sure.”