P.Exarriiar M

AR

5 1

972

A N

ew K

itten, A -"sew

Life for M

ary Ann

By W

ill Ellsw

orth-Jones

Tw

o m

onth

s ago M

ary

A n

n H

arbert w

as world

new

s. Now

she is h

istory

-a 26-year-old girl trying to pick

up th

e thread

s of h

er life after alm

ost four years of captivity in C

hina.

And y

esterday

she w

as giv

en so

meth

ing to

mak

e th

at difficu

lt task a little

easier — a fo

ur m

onth

old

R

ag D

oll cat to

keep

her

company in her new

apart-m

ent in Santa C

lara.

1968 Capture

The k

itten, w

hite w

ith

black

eartips, w

ill be fed

w

ith Clinicare dietary ani-

mal fo

od at 4

2 cen

ts a can

and Purina dry cat chow

. A

very

differen

t diet fro

m

what M

ary —nn could feed

her cats in China —

scraps from

her own plate and all

the snakes and rats it could catch, and there w

e :e many.

Mary A

nn had to leave her cat in C

hina when she w

as finally allow

ed to go home

last Decem

ber. S

h e h

ad

been captured in 1968 while

sailing w

ith a frien

d o

f tie C

hina coast. Her friend com

-m

itted suicide while still in

captivity. M

ary Ann had been a cat

lover since childhood and it w

as obvio

us y

esterday

, as she greeted her new

-found friend, how

much her cat in

Chin

a must h

ave m

eant to

her. T

he cat w

as &liv

ered

to h

er at San

Fran

cisco In

-tern

ational airp

ort b

y M

r. and M

rs. Dennis D

ayton of T

housand Oaks w

ho breed R

ag Dolls and heard of her

love for cats.

Lives A

lone

Mary A

nn will have tir

to think of a new nam

e for

her cat as she tries to write

a book on her experiences. M

ary Ann prefers to live

alone w

ith h

er cat not b

e-cause she had grow

n so used to life alone in C

hina I ut be-cau

se "I'm alw

ays th

e tyr.

who lived by m

yself." In fact in the tw

o months

she has been back one of her greatest jo

ys h

as been

"to

go o

ut, b

eing w

ith p

eople

again and talking to them,"

even

though,m

ost o

f her

old

friends are "s p

r e a d

around." S

he is learning to hai.dle again the m

echanics of the A

merican

way

of lif S

he

puts th

e soap

in th

e dish

-w

aSher then "shut m

y eyes an

d ru

n aw

ay." N

ext sh

e says, she w

ill tackle the vac-uum

sweeper.

T h

e Am

erica she h

as com

e back to she finds has ch

anged

only

grad

ually

from

the Am

erica she knew.

Bob D

ylan, she was sad to

find, h

as gone in

to sem

i-retirem

ent. L

ong h

air has

grown a little longer.

Speak

ing lip

She says she sees less cen-

sorship here now —

"more

peo

ple are sp

eakin

g u

p o

n

any subject" and the coun-try is "m

oving towards solu-

tions' to problems that "be-

fore were never even spoken

about." W

hat o

f the fu

ture after

her book? She is a graduate

in psychiatry, specialiizng in crim

inology, from the U

ni-v er sit y

of U

tah. S

he h

ad

plan

ned

to g

o in

to so

cial w

ork. B

ut M

ary A

nn h

as had

more than her share of trag-

edy. "I d

on't w

ant to

work

in

a priso

n rig

ht n

ow

," she

says, "I w

ant to make m

y life som

ewhere else."

A L

IVE

GIF

T T

O E

AS

E A

CO

ME

BA

CK

M

ary Ann H

arbert- and her new R

ag Doll kitten