(Afghan Hound Database and Breed Information Exchange)
13 June 1902 - 20 July 1976 Five Mile Afghan hounds USA, (By Steve Tillotson and Lyall Payne Jan 2016 Updated Aug 2017) "FASTER" FOSTER Apparently Marion had a nickname "Faster Foster), allthough we dont know why she got that name. One of our correspondents Loriann Ulich Bradley has provided a photo signed by Faster Foster, see below - ***UPDATE JULY 2017. We have received a stunning photo of Marion Foster Florsheim (see below). The photo came from Loriann Ulich Bradley's Father's archives and was originally the property of Loriann's Great Uncle and Aunt. Loriann explains the photo has the inscription... " To Carl & Jimmy - Love from Faster Foster"...."Carl" was Dad's uncle and "Jimmy" was Dad's aunt's nickname. Dad did not know of Faster Foster's connection to the Afghan Hound world. Dad thought she might be an actress because of the style of the photograph! Loriann explains that her great-uncle Carl was a dog show judge and he and her great-aunt Jimmy bred and showed Cocker Spaniels. After some discussion about the "Faster Florsheim" inscription in Marions hand on the photo, our consensus view is that most likely Marion got the title "Fastest" because she was an Aviator (thats fast). An hiterhto unpublished photo, we are most grateful to Loriann for sharing this beautiful photograph with us.
MARION FLORSHEIM and AHCA The first two AHCA sanction matches were held on the Florsheim Estate in September 1941 and September 1942. In the photo below, Marion is second from the left, and to her right is the Judge John Hill
MARION FLORSHEIM TRAVELLER As well as flying all around the USA delivering airplanes, Marion travelled overseas in 1947 and in 1948.
Marion had arranged to export two hounds to Ms Pauptit, who wrote about it in 1993 - "A male I imported from the U.S. had some brindle, although he was mostly fawn I did not want brindle at all. I had bought two black-masked red Afghans from the well known breeder Marion Florsheim in the U.S. but we later found out that Mrs Florsheim had sold these particular pups to someone else because it took so long at the time (1947?) before the shipment could be arranged. Sometimes it took months before there was space available on a ship. When we went to Antwerp to meet the puppies, two quite different Afghans arrived, a fawn-brindle male and a white bitch, both approximatley three months old. The white bitch had fallen into a hold and broken both front legs - they wre both in plaster casts. Apparently during the journey the two Afghan hounds had picked up mange and this spread to other hounds in Ms Pauptits kennel resulting in some catastrophic losses. Understandably Ms Pauptit was very distressed about this. A couple of names of these hounds have popped up in some research notes, but we are not confident and thus we seek validation before publishing the names. Further, the hounds named in the research note don't fit the timescales. Eta states the hounds were both approximately 3 months old upon arrival, whereas the reference note hounds were born in 1941 and 1945. So we have a mystery to solve sometime in the future
Updae August 2017 - We can confirm that the mystery US visitor above was Marion Florsheim. We find her in the manifest for a BOAC flight out of London to New York on 18th October 1948 (Crufts, normally held in February, but we believe this was the first Crufts show after WWII and was held in October, before resuming to the usual schedule of February), So we know for sure Marion was in London as described above. We need a time machne! Molly Sharpe (Chaman) was also at Crufts, and oh how we would have loved to be a fly on the wall and listen to their discussions on Afghan hounds, and Rana in particular. Must have been a great thrill for these two great Afghan hound ladies to have met, particularly with Rana Of Chaman currently then so successfull in the USA. Related content LIFE magazine, November 26, 1945 Maion Florsheim, Rudiki and the Five Mile Afghan hounds Rana of Chaman (in Molly Sharpe Section) Mr Mrs Hoyt (Blakeen, USA) Previous Florsheim Page Library Of Articles/Main Menu Toolbar |
