Happy and Mom
The Passing of Two Matriarchs
Welcome back to Person Place or Thing! We’ve been away from substack for over a year. But before we explain our absence and our future plans, we wanted to share something about Happy and my mom.
This past May, Happy was euthanized at the Bronx Zoo ending more than 50 years of captivity. We were devastated by the news. But we’re responding to the loss of our own matriarch, my mother, Martha Machado.
If you are new to us, Happy was the subject of our graphic novel Thing. Our graphic novel followed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, brought on her behalf by the Nonhuman Rights Project.
When we re-read the first chapter of the book it feels more like an obituary than it did when we first wrote it. You can check out the first five pages of the book below if you haven’t read the graphic novel.
START HERE About Thing: Inside the Struggle for Animal Personhood
Welcome to Person Place or Thing (PPT)! Our Esiner nominated graphic novel Thing: Inside the Struggle for Animal Personhood from Island Press follows the work the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) efforts to free Happy, an Asian elephant, from the Bronx Zoo. Though Happy never won her freedom, her case was the first time a US court considered if an elepha…
Our chapters contained key portions of unrebutted evidence that the NhRP presented the courts regarding Happy’s autonomy. We delved into an array of research into the neurological architecture facilitating her autonomy, and our own. These same neurological structures also support mourning, loss, and empathy. These behaviors manifest in species with similar anatomy in culturally distinct ways.
But separated from her family and habitat, Happy has no family to stand over her, to shade her, and mourn her.
Joyce Poole, the director of Elephant Voices, provided the foreword to Thing, and we echo her sentiments here:
“We can not continue to treat autonomous beings as if they exist for our education or entertainment.”
Happy deserved to be free!
If you want to support the Nonhuman Rights Project and their efforts to fight for the civil rights of nonhuman animals like Happy follow the link below.
About Mom:
Personally, I am deeply influenced by mother. It is not at all an exaggeration to say that my values for the landscape and animals come directly from mom’s ministry. When I was young mom and dad (Gilbert) were the sponsors of our church’s youth group. While dad was quick to organize, it was mom that often-encouraged dad to take the kids out into nature. We camped in the keys, they ran the Christmas tree lot back when it used to get cold in Miami. They bought property in Arcadia Florida when I was still young. Until I was in high school the two of them would drag me from Miami to Arcadia every other weekend. Long car rides through sugar cane fields off 27, and the cattle ranches up 31 with the sun setting in the distance. During these drives I was a captive audience, this was one of her favorite places for a story about our family history, and her beliefs about god’s creation.
While I am sure my father would have been proud to see me become an anthropologist, it was my mom who taught me my subject, Florida. Those trips, and the endless weekends of planting tree’s, cutting fields, and library outings gave me a sense of my place, while reminding me of where our family comes from. When she returned to Miami after dad died, mom wanted to embark on a new journey: Tai chi, vegetarianism and community. She pushed my family to eat less meat, live closer to the land and get involved. Her pressure led me to tai chi and my time as a volunteer instructor at the Taoist Tai Chi Society. Since then, I have learned and taught many forms of taiji bringing home a bronze medal for Taiji Sword in 2023.
Many who knew mom especially late in her life saw her as a kindly grandmother. She crocheted and knitted, but was mostly known for her quilts. However, as many of my friends would come to learn mom was more like beatnik grandma. Her musical taste included the classics of her youth but also a strong bluegrass and folk influence with The Beatles, especially George Harrison, rounding out her playlists. She encouraged my friends and her granddaughters to take their careers seriously especially if they wanted to have families. And importance of protecting a women’s right to make her own choices.
We have been gifted to have had her with us for as long as we did and I hope all of us who have been touched by her carry what she gave us forward.
Our matriarch, Martha Jane Hicks Machado was the daughter of Venita Nutter Hicks and George Samuel Hicks. Martha and her mothers before her came from what today call Greenbrier county, West Virginia. The Nutter family are one of earliest settler names in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. In Greenbrier West Virginia their family name can be found at Nutterville, Nutterville Quinwood Road, and Nutter Fort. In 1964 Martha met her husband Gilbert Machado. Together they opened the Heritage House in Lewisburg, WV. The first of two business they would start together. Martha is survived by her sister, five children, four grandchildren and many nieces and nephews.
If you want to help our family recover we could use the help:
If you’d like buy a copy of Thing you can do so at either of the links below. And don’t forget to subscribe.