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LE MARS WOMAN'S PARROT SPEAKS LATIN, TALKS IN MILITARY LINGO, AND ASKS HIS VISITORS TO PRAY

Miss Mona Hoard and Gypsy Boy

50-Year-Old Bird Has Many Remarkable Gifts of Gab

~~~~

By R. F. Starzl

Sioux City Journal
Saturday, May 31, 1930

[Headline Above & Published Photograph in the Journal]

Le Mars Globe-Post, June 2, 1930
A REPORTER VISITS MISS HOARD'S BIRD

As the visitor went up the steps of John Ruble's home to interview Gypsy
Boy, Miss Mona Hoard's famous parrot, he heard a sweet boyish voice chanting
in stately Gregorian measures:
"Ora pro nobis; Ora pro nobis! Laus Del Ora pro nobis!"

A second later came a harsh squawk.

"All hands on deck! Stand by to repel boarders! Awk!" Then a flutelike
whistle, and, "Monaah! Monnah!"

Miss Hoard came downstairs, called by the bird and her mother, Mrs. Virginia
Ruble. Mr. Ruble, veteran of the civil war, lifted his hand in greeting.

As Miss Hoard also is president of the W. R. C., the soldierly greeting
added note of a military atmosphere to the house, which is a repository of
military history, holding a fine collection of photographs of friends and
relatives who served in the civil, the Spanish-American and the world war.
The parrot sensed this, and sliding out with the broken arched, pigeon toed
gait peculiar to parrots, cocked an eye at the visitor and barked:

"Attention! Pre - e - t t y boy! Good boy!"

"He refers to himself," Miss Hoard explained.

"Yes, I know," said the visitor, somewhat stiffly.

"Dominus vobiscum," remarked the parrot.

"He seems to be talking Latin.”

"Yes, he belonged to a priest before I got him. He knows many pious things.

The parrot shrieked, "Hey, big boy. You go to heck!"

His owner bent a stern eye on him, and Gypsy Boy broke all records getting
under the table. He peeped out with one beady eye end whined:

"No washing! No washing! Pretty Boy!"

"He expects to get his beak washed out with soap and water after that
remark," Miss Hoard explained grimly. "He will, too, when you're gone.”

"Awk Let us pray!" Gypsy Boy came out again, and climbed expertly to his
owner's shoulder, where he nibbled at one of his toenails. He ruffled his
feathers, rather pale after the long winter, and closed one eye.

"Blessed be they," he rasped solemnly "who sit on a red hot stove." Again
that sweet-flutelike whistle, Gypsy Boy is about 50 years old, and his
normal life expectancy in this climate is about 25 years more, although in
the jungles of his native South America he easily could live to be 100. He
has lived well and tolerantly, has spoken his mind freely, and has no
suppressed desire.

"Gypsy Boy,'" said the visitor as he prepared to leave, "what would you
recommend for this South American parrot fever, psittacosis, that everybody
is talking about?"

"Whusky!" the bird husked hopefully.

LeMars Sentinel
Feb. 9, 1955

LeMars and Vicinity—
NEWS OF YOUR NEIGHBORS.
Monnah Hord of LeMars is now living at the Plymouth County Home here instead of at Cherokee.  She moved Jan. 12.

Monnah Hord 1876-1958 Her Obituary Link

Link to the Tombstone for Gypsy Boy & Monnah

LeMars Memorial Cemetery, Block 16-S

**The cemetery records state that the bird died age 78 years.**

 

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