Sara Gruen’s best-selling novel, Water for Elephants, opens as 93-year-old Jacob Jankowski, sits dejected in an assisted living home, verbally sparring with a retired lawyer. As the story flashes back to 1931, we learn that veterinary student Jankowski is about to take his final exams at Cornell University when his parents are killed in an auto accident. Jacob is disconsolate because his father―also a veterinarian―had mortgaged his practice to pay the Ivy League tuition. He abandons Cornell and joins the circus.
Centenarian Dr. Lawrence Waitz is a real member of the Veterinary Class of ’31. He graduated along with 35 other men―sorry, there were no women in the class like the sensuous Catherine who sat beside Jacob with her thighs provocatively touching his―and began his practice on Long Island in the depths of the Depression. Dr. Waitz settled in Hempstead from which he could drive in all directions to riding academies, stables and dairy farms.
