Species | Blue and Gold Macaw |
---|---|
Sex | Male |
Born | South America |
Hatched | Between 1860-1880 |
Nation from | Canada |
Owner | Victoria Wilson, Yue Wah Wong |
Louis was a well-known parrot from Victoria, British Columbia. [1] From the time of his reclusive owner's death in 1949 until 1966, he continued to live on his owner's estate, well-provided for in her will, and preventing development of the prime real estate.
Victoria Jane Wilson (1878–1949) was born in Victoria to wealthy European-Canadian parents. Her father Keith Wilson was manager of the Bank of BC, and dabbled in real estate. Her mother Mary Wilson was the daughter of Alexander Munro, a fur trader.
The Wilson home was a three-story mansion at 730 Burdett Street. At the age of five, Victoria received a Blue-and-yellow macaw as a pet whom she named Louis. From this point she began to obtain many other birds, and later converted the entire top floor floor of the mansion into an aviary. In 1911, Victoria asked her father to buy her a luxury Hupp-Yeats electric car in order to take Louis on short drives. [2]
Wilson led a reclusive life with her birds at the mansion on Courtney Street where she had been raised until her death in 1949 at the age of seventy-two. Her will also included the electric car, and provided a large amount of funds to take care of her fifty-three birds, in which Mr. Yue Wah Wong, Wilson's trusted gardener, was to be paid $250 a month (equivalent to $2,700 today) to be the birds' caretaker. [3] [1] [4] [5]
Life magazine featured a one-page article on Louis in the August 9, 1963 issue, titled "The Old Bird Won't Sell". Magazine writer Russell Sackett had first written about Louis in 1957, and returned to Victoria in 1963 for a welfare checkup. Sackett reported that “Louis callously recovered from the pain of his mistress’s passing and, to Abrams’s rueful astonishment, seemed to take a new lease on life” in Mr. Wong's care. Louis was a well-known local resident at this point in his life for not only enjoying a typical diet of seeds, nuts, and fruit, but also enjoying hard-boiled eggs, walnuts, and two bottles of brandy per year, doled out daily in small dollops. For his alcohol consumption, news reports at the time liked to humorously refer to him as a lush. [6] [7] [8]
In 1966, the lawyer administering the Wilson estate transferred ownership of the bird to Mr. Wong, and Louis went to live with him and his family. Wong was delighted, but he unfortunately died in 1967 shortly after taking Louis in. Mr. Wong's family continued to care for Louis until his death in 1985, at over 100 years old.
Louis' relocation allowed the Wilson property be developed as the Chauteau Victoria hotel in 1975, with a restaurant called the Parrot House on the top floor (later renamed "Vista 18"). [1] [9] [10]
Today, Louis has been described as a folk hero to Victoria's city heritage preservationists. Victoria Daily Times columnist Arthur Mayse noted that Louis “is regarded…as a jewel in the city’s crown." The top award of Hallmark Society of the Capital Regional District is called the Louis Award, awarded for exceptional heritage building restoration. [11] [1]
The "Dead Parrot Sketch", alternatively and originally known as the "Pet Shop Sketch" or "Parrot Sketch", is a sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus about a non-existent species of parrot, called a "Norwegian Blue". A satire on poor customer service, it was written by John Cleese and Graham Chapman and initially performed in the show's first series, in the eighth episode.
The red-rumped parrot, also known as the red-backed parrot or grass parrot, is a common bird of south-eastern Australia, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin.
Louis Dearborn L'Amour was an American novelist and short story writer. His books consisted primarily of Western novels, though he called his work "frontier stories". His most widely known Western fiction works include Last of the Breed, The Walking Drum, Hondo, Shalako, and the Sackett series. L'Amour also wrote historical fiction, science fiction, non-fiction (Frontier), and poetry and short-story collections. Many of his stories were made into films. His books remain popular and most have gone through multiple printings. At the time of his death, almost all of his 105 existing works were still in print, and he was "one of the world's most popular writers".
Hearst Castle, known formally as La Cuesta Encantada, is a historic estate in San Simeon, located on the Central Coast of California. Conceived by William Randolph Hearst, the publishing tycoon, and his architect Julia Morgan, the castle was built between 1919 and 1947. Today, Hearst Castle is a museum open to the public as a California State Park and registered as a National Historic Landmark and California Historical Landmark.
Leon Ames was an American film and television actor. He is best remembered for playing father figures in such films as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) with Lucille Bremer, Margaret O'Brien and Judy Garland as his daughters, Little Women (1949), On Moonlight Bay (1951) and By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953). His best-known dramatic role may have been as DA Kyle Sackett in the crime film The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).
Gordon Hill Jenkins was an American arranger, composer, and pianist who was influential in popular music in the 1940s and 1950s. Jenkins worked with The Andrews Sisters, Johnny Cash, The Weavers, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, Harry Nilsson, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald.
Claremont, also known historically as 'Clermont', is an 18th-century Palladian mansion less than a mile south of the centre of Esher in Surrey, England. The buildings are now occupied by Claremont Fan Court School, and its landscaped gardens are owned and managed by the National Trust. Claremont House is a Grade I listed building.
Frederick Herman Korth served as the 56th U.S. Secretary of the Navy during 1962–63; he was also an Assistant Secretary of the Army in 1952–53.
The James Hornsby School is a co-educational secondary school located in Laindon, in the Borough of Basildon, Essex, England. It was formed from the merger in 1998 of the Laindon School and Nicholas Comprehensive, and occupies the site of the latter.
Talking birds are birds that can mimic the speech of humans. There is debate within the scientific community over whether some talking parrots also have some cognitive understanding of the language. Birds have varying degrees of talking ability: some, like the corvids, are able to mimic only a few words and phrases, while some budgerigars have been observed to have a vocabulary of almost 2,000 words. The hill myna, a common pet, is well known for its talking ability and its relative, the European starling, is also adept at mimicry. Wild cockatoos in Australia have been reported to have learned human speech by cultural transmission from ex-captive birds that have integrated into the flock.
Roundhay School is a mixed, all-through and sixth form community school in Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. In 2020, the school received a World Class Schools Quality Mark, which requires an 'Outstanding' Ofsted assessment as well as further assessments.
The Ramsay-Durfee Estate, also known as Durfee Mansion, Durfee House or Villa Maria, is a historic Tudor Revival style mansion on Western Avenue in Los Angeles, California. It has been designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Grey Gardens is a 2009 American biographical drama television film about the lives of Edith Bouvier Beale/"Little Edie", played by Drew Barrymore, and her mother Edith Ewing Bouvier/"Big Edie", played by Jessica Lange. Co-stars include Jeanne Tripplehorn as Jacqueline Kennedy and Ken Howard as Phelan Beale. The film, directed by Michael Sucsy and co-written by Sucsy and Patricia Rozema, flashes back and forth between various events and dates ranging from Little Edie as a young débutante in 1936 moving with her mother to their Grey Gardens estate through the filming and premiere of the actual 1975 documentary Grey Gardens.
Huguette Marcelle Clark was an American painter, heiress, and philanthropist, who became well known again late in life as a recluse, living in hospitals for more than 20 years while her various mansions remained unoccupied.
The Patterson Mansion is a historic Neoclassical-style mansion located at 15 Dupont Circle NW in Washington, D.C., in the United States.
Florence Trevelyan (1852–1907) of Taormina, Sicily, was an English gardener, builder of follies and pioneering wildlife conservationist.
Wilton Graff was an American actor.
The Bellosguardo Foundation is a philanthropic organization and private foundation for the arts located at the oceanside estate in Santa Barbara, California, known as Bellosguardo, one of the empty mansions of the reclusive copper heiress Huguette Clark.