Dr. Estella Jones - Polished Admiral Shoes

 

 

Thank you. I was born into a world of poverty, where my parents weren't even allowed to vote. My mother scrubbed floors on her hands and knees, just so I could learn to play the piano. And my dad served as an aide to a one star General, which meant that he kept his shoes polished for the General, ever since I could remember. And my mom says from four years old, all I ever talked about was wanting to be an animal doctor. No one told me I couldn't do it. But my neighborhood said something different. 

 

See, I was in a public school in Columbus, Ohio, that was built for 700 students, but it housed 1,600 students. And at 12, I have to admit, I was going down the wrong path. I had a teacher by the name of Dr. Charles Tennant, and he noticed it and he really pulled me off of the wrong road. He said, “You can do better. And remember, nothing is impossible unless you succumb to it.” So, I remembered that. 

 

And by age 14, I had turned everything around and I won a scholarship to a school right here in Troy, New York called Emma Willard. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

So, Emma Willard was great fun. I graduated. Leaving home at 14, a lot of responsibility, you grow up fast. But I still had to figure out a way to work my way through undergrad. And I had a lot of jobs. I can't name them all, but to name a few, bartender, skycap. When I was working as a slaughter inspector, I met Dr. John Malone, who was collecting tissues at the slaughterhouse. And he said, “Estella, you really need to apply to vet school in Louisiana.” That's where I was working. He said, “You can go to vet school. I don't see you doing this as a career.”

 

So, a little fear took over, because I knew the odds of getting in vet school 10 to 1 at that time. But I applied and I got in. And in vet school, we were doing so many amazing things at LSU, because they have a wonderful exotic animal medicine department. It was at that time, I said, I am going to be a primate veterinarian after I graduate. I'm going to specialize in primate medicine. 

 

Then we got an invitation to go to the Baton Rouge Zoo to do a polar bear root canal. [audience laughter] So, I don't know how many of you have ever done a polar bear root canal. [audience laughter] So, the zoo vet comes out and he scares the life out of us. He goes, “Look, the drugs we use here, you students aren't even allowed near them, because one little finger prick and you're dead. Polar bear will see you as a snack, so don't let them wake up.” You know, we got these kind of instructions. And then, I thought, oh, boy, where's my career going?” And the primates, they looked a little sad. They were in cages. And I said, wow, I wonder what it would be to work with them in their environment, not in the zoo environment. 

 

So, at that moment, I said, you know what? I'm going to go study primate medicine in Africa in their environment. Okay. Crazy, right? Here I am a student with no money. I have a little girl. I started vet school when she was 14 months old and I was married. I had a difficult marriage. So, my ex-husband at the time, now ex, followed me around with a gun in his car and was leaving threatening death threats on my car windows. So, my daughter's safety was my very first priority. How am I going to get her safe if I can make this trip? 

 

I wrote to this place called Institute for Primate Research. They wrote me back and said, “If you can get here, sure, you can do your preceptorship here.” So, I called my family in Ohio. They said, “Sure, we'll take your daughter.” She's three by then, and “we'll watch after her while you're in Africa.” So, how I got there, I used all my sky cat miles [audience laughter] to fly to Africa and back. 

 

So, I'm on this plane, of course, the flight is very long. I'm sitting next to this reporter. The whole time, we're chattering. And she was so cool. But when that plane landed, she exclaimed, “Oh, my God, I can't believe we're in Africa.” And I said, oh, my goodness, this is really surreal. So, I get to IPR. It's very beautiful. They take me to my hut that I'm going to live in while I'm there. It had running water and a thatched roof. So, that night, I go to bed and I'm still excited under my mosquito net, and I hear these loud thunks on my roof, just jumps and pounding all night long. So, I really couldn't sleep. And I'm like, “What is that?” I'm not going to go outside and look.

 

So, the next morning, a few employees came to pick me up to walk me to work down this dirt road and they said, “Look, that's just the wild primates. They're having fun and they're looking for food.” You know, we hear that all the time. I said, okay. Then I saw this fence along where were walking, and it had holes in it. And I said, what's that? And they said, “Ah, that's just the national park next door. And occasionally, you know, animal strays over here. Usually, it's old lions, and they're looking for slow prey.” [audience laughter] I said, okay. And then, they said, “Oh, yeah, that's why we walk to work together. We advise you, when you walk to work, don't walk to work with people who are faster than you.” [audience laughter] They weren't kidding. 

 

So, IPR really educated me, showed me a good time. I work with conservationists. I worked in tropical medicine. They let me rotate through the whole facility, pathologists. They were doing some really cool research. Then I remembered I had this note from the curator at the Baton Rouge Zoo. He said, “You need to look up my friend, Mr. Don Hunt, when you get to Africa.” I was in southern Africa, in Kenya, Nairobi. Mr. Hunt was in Nanyuki, which is Central Kenya. So, I call him up on the phone and he goes, “Sure, you can come here and visit my conservatory as long as you find a way here.” 

 

So, I found a way there. I jumped on that public bus and I was off in my little trench coat, looking weird. [audience laughter] When I got to the conservatory, Mr. Hunt showed me the best of the world. I was given a guest house, this time with a picture window so wide and you could see all the animals in the conservatory at 1,200 acres. It's beautiful. But I stood in that window and I had an epiphany, I said, wow, physicians are responsible for one species, male and female. All the rest of the burden falls on the veterinarian. And no two species are alike and no two zebras are even alike. 

 

So, we would go out in the evening in Mr. Hunt's jeeps and look for sick animals, antelope, deer, gazelle, anything that was injured and distressed and we would treat it. Then one evening, he said, “Have you ever been on safari, Estella?” I said, no. He said, “I'm going to send you on your first safari.” Wow. I was so excited. So, he did that. I didn't really know what a safari was. [laughs] 

 

When I got on safari and saw the beauty, we were in a little jeep when we went to the wilderness. Now, I knew what it was like to be caged. They were free in their environment. That did something for my heart. Even though it's dangerous, tour guides were excellent. They knew the land. They were local. And then, they educated me about the deadly species of snakes. I saw mother elephants with their young under their belly. That's where they stand over them to protect them from the sun, and I thought about my daughter that I had to protect. So, the animal kingdom is a lot like our kingdom, but I also felt that they were free. And even though it's not always safe, they knew freedom. 

 

So, when I came back from Africa, I had a sense of taking my freedom back, because I left afraid, and I was no longer afraid of that bully ex-husband. I passed the freedom for my daughter on to be whatever she wanted to be. So, remember I told you, my dad once shined the one-star General's shoes, well, he lived to see me become the first black female veterinary one-star Admiral in the US Public Health Service and Assistant Surgeon General. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

So, I found that teacher in seventh grade, I went back. I hadn't talked to him for 45 years, and I told him thank you. If you have a teacher like that, find him and say thank you. I now have my dad's shoes, because I lost my dad last year to COVID, but he saw me pin on that star and he was so proud. So, I now am wearing the shoes that he once polished, and I'm going to pass these shoes on to those who once thought their dreams were impossible. Thank you.