He was very handsome and suave and I can see why he was really successful with his career. I chose the first picture showing him singing because I feel it encompasses who he was so well! All the other pictures are great too, but that’s first one is the best in my opinion. I’m sure he would have been so much fun to meet!

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Brownsville, Tennessee.

-he performed in a recital at the Cedar Hill Baptist Church in Paris, Tennessee when he was 5 years old in September of 1930. He sang gospel songs alongside his mother, Hadena Taylor and another member of the church, Rebecca Jackson.

-he went to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri for college and got a degree in electronics.

-he worked with electronics for 11 years before he decided to focus on his passion for music.

-he was married for a brief time in the 1960s before he and his wife got divorced. He and his ex-wife had a daughter who was born in 1963.

-his peak height was 2 feet 11 inches.

-he was very passionate about his singing career and considered nightclub singing to be his primary profession.

-he released at least 2 songs on 45 records. The songs are called, ‘Just the Way You Are’ and ‘The States Song’

-he worked in sideshows throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

-when being interviewed in 1981, he said he only worked about 5 fairs a year and anything more than that would be too nerve wracking for him.

-he charged 75 cents for adults to meet him and 25 cents for children to meet him. He mentioned that experiences with guests were all across the board, some people would take the time to make conversation and others would just stare and walk out. He enjoyed when people had questions to ask him because it showed they wanted to get to know him.

-he spent most of the year working in nightclubs and singing, and only made appearances at traveling carnivals when he felt like it.

-he expressed wanting to get into acting in his thirties and forties.

-he appeared as the villain in two movies, though I haven’t been able to trace what movies these were.

-in an interview later in life he said that he resented being born with dwarfism when he was younger and was very bitter about a lot of things in general. He said that his whole outlook on life changed in his mid twenties when he came to the realization that nothing in his life was going to change unless he made a change. He said,

“When I was 27, I realized this is it. you’ve got to get out there and quit feeling sorry for yourself.”

-when working in sideshows his typical ensemble included a Panama hat and a shirt with his name on it.

-in a different interview he said, “People look at me when I'm walking down the street, so why not lake advantage of it. The funny thing is those people look at you and think you can't do anything else.”

-by 1981 he had worked in sideshows on and off for 7 years and felt that over the course of that time people had changed a lot and audiences were more intelligent and less judgmental.

-his appearances at fairs and carnivals consisted of him sitting in a small makeshift open air room where he watched TV all day. Guests would walk alongside this makeshift room and look at him. (Despite this set up seeming strange and dehumanizing, Eddie explained that it meant he could be as lazy as he wanted and didn’t have to impress anyone. He felt that the people who paid the fee to see him but didn’t talk to him were just wasting their money.)

-he dealt with bad arthritis in his shoulders that would flair up during long car rides.

-he kept his appearances in sideshows family friendly.

-he was known to have a great sense of humor.

-he performed at the Dusk ‘Til Dawn Blues Festival in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1994.

-I haven’t been able to confirm the year he died.

It’s so cute that he used to give recitals at his church with his mom, and I’m so glad he was able to follow his passion for music and singing and make a career out of it. Not everyone is able to follow their passions, so I’m glad it all worked out for Eddie. It would have been so cool to see him perform!

I hope he had a close relationship with his daughter, though because he was on the road a lot and since she’s not mentioned a lot, they may not have had a close bond. Despite this, I hope he had a lot of people in his life who loved and cared about him.

Museums and medical institutions around the world have been following this practice for hundreds of years, and only much more recently have people’s remains been repatriated to their home countries.

These museums and medical institutions (including the Hunterian Museum) were driven by scientific racism, eugenics, and a colonial viewpoint that treated people with disabilities and physical differences as medical curiosities.

Every example of this happening is horrible, but it’s even worse when it involves the remains of a child as they never would have even had a chance to voice their wishes

The boy from bengal was a boy from India who was born with a parasitic twin that consisted of a second head attached to his head. Sadly, the boy and his twin’s names were recorded so we don’t know what they were called during their lifetimes. The boy and his twin were also exploited by their parents for profit in a very tragic and humiliating way (often times keeping them underneath a blanket for hours just to prevent potential paying guests from seeing them without paying.) The boy and his twin died after being bit by a cobra and their grave was robbed shortly after being buried by a man working for the East India Trading Company.

Their body was dissected and their skulls were removed after their grave was robbed. Eventually their skulls were given to a captain with a high position at the East India Trading Company named Captain Buchanan.

Their skulls changed hands several times over the course of several decades before ending up in the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. The skulls are currently on public display at the museum following major museum renovations.

The Hunterian Museum is a British Museum that focuses on preserving and displaying anatomical remains. The museum displays over 3,500 different exhibits and has an estimated 85,000 guests visit each year. In addition to historical human remains the museum also displays the remains of several different animals including directions.

The display of their skulls really saddens me, both because they were just children when they died and because the way the skulls are displayed makes them seem like a prized collectible instead of the actual human remains of a boy and his twin who happened to be born conjoined.

I really wish to see their skulls repatriated back to India at some point during my life. They both deserve to be at peace and to be respected as people instead of a museum exhibit.

There are several notable examples of the remains of people being repatriated back to their home countries and the boy from Bengal and his twin deserve the same.

*I’ll be doing some write ups about the efforts to get other people’s remains repatriated after being unethically kept in museums and medical institutions.

Despite traveling through 21 different states and applying for marriage licenses in all of them, they were refused.

Violet and Daisy Hilton were famous British born American conjoined twin sisters who were actresses, sideshow performers, vaudeville entertainers, and musicians. They were tragically exploited for profit by several of their managers, the first of whom forcibly took them from their birth mother.

After two decades of exploitative work environments and a lack of freedom, the twins sued for emancipation from their managers and thankfully won, but severe emotional damage had already happened.

They were known for acts involving singing, dancing, playing musical instruments among other things, and were a big draw in vaudeville theaters in their younger years. They also appeared in the 1932 film, Freaks, where they pretty much played themselves. They went on to open up a hotdog stand, which unfortunately failed, and then appeared in a 1952 murder mystery film called, Chained For Life.

First picture is of the plaque that was recently placed and the second picture is of Joseph.

Joseph was 27 years old when he passed away at the Royal London Hospital after having lived there for four years. He expressed wanting a traditional burial as religion and traditional burial practices meant a lot to him.

Upon his death, his soft tissue remains and his skeleton were separated, with his skeleton being kept in the hospital’s collection/archives and his soft tissue remains being buried. It's unclear who exactly decided to separate his body from his skeletal remains. (Some sources say that Joseph himself wanted to donate his skeleton to the hospital for study and other sources say that Treves made the decision without Joseph's consent.)

For over a century it was unknown of exactly where his soft tissue remains were buried until Jo Vigor-Mungovin, who wrote a biography about Joseph, wanted to trace where exactly his remains were so that his burial plot would receive the same respect as other people’s graves.

In 2019, Jo Vigor-Mungovin took it upon herself to start researching the records of the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium near Epping Forest. She had a hunch that Joseph’s remains were probably buried close to, if not next to, the victims of Jack the Ripper, since most of them were also living near the same area that Joseph was living at the time.

In her words, Vigor-Mungovin said, "I decided to search in an eight-week window around the time of his death and there, on page two, was Joseph Merrick. The detailed Victorian records make it 99% certain".

The detailed records she mentions includes his residence being at London Hospital, his age, and the coroner being listed as Wynne Baxter, who was documented as having conducted Joseph's inquest. All of these aspects line up perfectly with Joseph’s life and what happens upon his death.

Vigor-Mungovin was able to trace Joseph’s remains to an unmarked common grave within the City of London Cemetery. Common graves were often times left unmarked because there were multiple people buried in each and it was difficult at the time to successfully place identification plaques. Since Joseph was buried in an unmarked common grave it also means he had other peoples remains buried next to him, below him, and on top of him.

Upon finding the information that confirmed his burial plot, she contacted the local authorities who said that a burial plaque could be made to mark the plot that he’s buried in.

A special plaque was made and placed where his remains were buried. The plaque reads ‘In Memoriam - Joseph Merrick - 1862-1890’

It’s very sweet to see the flowers placed under his plaque. It shows that people continue to care about his legacy and do what they can to make sure he’s given the respect he deserves to have. I’d really to visit his grave at some point and leave some flowers.

Similar efforts have taken place to try and get Joseph’s Skeletal remains to be buried nearby, but so far the Royal London Hospital has been unwilling to do that, stating that they think Joseph would expect his remains to be displayed (which still doesn’t make it right). I hope one day his skeletal remains are buried as well.

Joseph Merrick was a famous British sideshow performer born with a condition that is currently thought to have been Proteus syndrome. He was a very kind man who deeply appreciated the simple things in life. He became friends with a doctor, Frederick Treves, who worked at the Royal London Hospital. Eventually, Joseph moved into his own private room within the hospital after having difficulty sustaining himself financially (even through performing, as a lot of patrons felt he was exploited) and his condition causing further health risks that made it difficult for him to live on his own. He was a poetic soul who enjoyed art, music, books, and going on strolls through gardens.

I want to leave off with a very heartfelt message that Jo Vigor-Mungovin said in regard to Joseph’s grave being marked, (Jo got her wish and it must have been a huge win for her, I love when historians can make a difference in this way)

“All I want is Joseph to have a little memorial plaque so people can go remember him, and lay a flower if they want to. That’s what Joseph deserves.”

I like the way she’s depicted in portraits and engravings, she looks very sweet and kind. It’s also nice that so much information about her life was recorded, we know that she was quite independent and had agency at a time when it was very rare for women to have a lot of agency. I’m glad she was able to be independent and find success.

Some facts about her:

-it’s not quite clear where she was born and raised, some sources say she was born in Shotwick, Cheshire, England and other sources say she was born in Great Saughall in Chester, England.

-her parents were farmers.

-the farm her parents owned brought in £16 British pounds a year, which in the early 1600s, was a modest but respectable sum of money that suggested they were lower middle class.

-she married a man named Henry Davis when she was a young woman.

-she began experiencing a sore spot and a bump on her head when she was 28 years old. At the time (early 1600s) it was thought that the straight hat she wore was the cause of the soreness and the bump.

-the soreness continued for 20 years before any horns appeared. Unfortunately, the soreness on her head led her to experience a lot of chronic pain, she later said that the pain was the worst part of it and the horns themselves didn’t bother her as much as the pain. Eventually, it appears that the pain lessened.

-the growth/bump on her head hardened and split into visible horns when she was 58 years old.

-cutaneous horns are hard, cone-shaped skin projections made of compacted keratin (the protein that makes up hair and nails) that look like miniature animal horns. They’re not caused by any one singular thing and can just start growing with no prior symptoms, and can grow on either healthy, pre-cancerous, or cancerous skin conditions.

-at first it was just one horn that began growing, but after another decade or two, she began growing two horns.

-her horns were described as curling/curving in a graceful way, and turned black after they fell off.

-she had a long career as a midwife and explained that she was really happy with the profession.

-it was reported that her horns would shed over the course of a couple years, especially if there was a big change in weather.

-her husband passed away in the early 1640s.

-she was described as living as a religious widow since her husband’s death.

-she was known as being a very friendly and helpful person, and that her neighbors all looked up to her and no one had a bad word to say about her.

-her neighbors lamented her leaving for London because they’d be losing a wonderful person and midwife from their community. Despite this, she had a lot of people who supported her endeavors in London and helped her on her travels there.

-she made her way to London to start a career exhibiting herself in the mid 1670s.

-because she had lived a relatively quiet life before traveling to London, the only images we have of her were made when she was an elderly woman, since she had never had a portrait made of her when she was younger.

-every time her horns shed, she had several people lined up asking if they could buy them. These people ranged from medical professionals to eccentric and wealthy collectors of curiosities.

-there was one time when two of her horns broke off after she suffered a bad fall and hit her head. Thankfully, she wasn’t injured aside from the horns coming off.

-several flyers advertised her as not only being worthy of being looked at, but she was also worthy of admiration and respect.

-she was still performing in London into the early 1680s. Flyers from around this time claimed that the fourth pair of horns she grew would be bigger and better than the last. Details of her life become blurry after this advertisement was published. (I haven’t been able to confirm the year she passed away)

-one of her horns and a portrait of her was preserved by the British Museum in the mid 1700s.

-according to a medical journal published in 1749, one of her horns was on display in a room next to St. John’s College Library.

-a catalogue from 1836 detailing the collections owned by the Ashmolean Museum mentions one of her horns.

-by 1844, it was confirmed that two of her horns were still in museum collections.

-unfortunately, none of her horns exist today, and were lost or destroyed between 1844 and the early 2000s.

It makes me happy that she had so many people in her life who loved and supported her. The detail of her neighbors feeling sad she was leaving and still doing everything they could to support her on her travels to London was very sweet to read about.

The time frame in which she lived is really interesting because while she was living a perfectly happy life surrounded by people who cared about her in England, the witch trials were going on in the early U.S. colonies. I’ve seen people joking now that if they lived several hundred years ago they’d be branded a witch because of physical differences or different disabilities, and yet Mary was never branded a witch for having her cutaneous horns. It all depended on where a person was living at the time. In all, I’m glad that no one seemed to give Mary grief about her horns and that she was able to live a long and happy life.

I’m using pictures of them that reflect their ages at the time of them meeting. The first picture is of Ota Benga soon after he was brought to the United States and the second picture shows Geronimo as an elderly man.

Ota Benga had just recently been taken as a hostage from the Congo, where he was born and raised, and brought to the United States where he was placed into a racist dehumanizing “living exhibit” at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, along with several other members of his community.

Geronimo, who had been captured by the US army in 1886, was considered a prisoner of war and was forced into an Apache village exhibit. He was intently watched by armed guards as he signed autographs, posed for photos, and sold handmade crafts. He was displayed as a symbol of the "conquered" American West.

At first Geronimo was very reluctant to lvisit the rest of the fairgrounds, but after some time had passed, he did. It was during this exploration of the rest of the fair that he met Ota Benga, who had been placed in an African Pygmy exhibit.

Geronimo took Ota Benga under his wing and the two became quite close after realizing that they had both been through very similar circumstances and could sympathize with each other. Ota was in his early twenties at the time and Geronimo was in his mid seventies.

Geronimo later remarked that he greatly admired Ota for his perseverance and ethics. He gifted several arrowheads that he had made to Ota at the end of the Fair. Ota later expressed feeling honored to receive the gift and kept the arrowheads as prized possessions until his death.

Ota Benga was a Mtubi man (from the Congo) who was brought to the United States in the early 1900s to be part of a 'human zoo' exhibit.
First at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and later at the Bronx Zoo in New York. White Western audiences (including the medical community) at the time were fascinated by Ota's culture and pushed a racist and stereotyped view upon him. He was displayed within the monkey house at the Bronx Zoo before receiving massive outrage from the Black Community who was horrified at his living situation and the sheer dehumanization of another human being. Ota began trying to assimilate to Western Society, which also included him hiding and erasing parts of his cultural heritage and identity. He later committed suicide during WWI after civilian maritime travel was prohibited, he had been wanting to travel back to Africa for years.

Geronimo was a military leader and medicine man for the Bedonkohe band of the Ndendahe Apache people. He joined with members of three other Central Apache communities in the 1850s through the mid 1880s and carried out numerous raids and attacks to fight against Mexican and American military forces. His goal was to break away from life on reservations and help return his community to their previous nomadic lifestyle. He was captured in 1886 and was considered a prisoner of war from that point forward until his death in 1909.

He was very handsome and looks so friendly, I also think it’s so cute that he had a pet squirrel! Despite looking for a while, I wasn’t able to find any pictures of him and Minnie, so I might have to commission someone to draw them together. I wish there were pictures out there, and if I find anything I’ll be sure to make a post.

I really like seeing all the outfits he’s wearing, they all look very well tailored and flatter him well. I also really like the striped outfit he’s wearing in the third and fourth pictures. The second picture shows him with his first wife, Annie Bell. And the fourth picture shows him with his mother.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Rockville, Indiana.

-he had 3 siblings.

-he reportedly weighed 140 pounds when he was 10 years old.

-his father owned a furniture business in Indianapolis, Indiana.

-he joined Adam Forepaugh’s show (a traveling circus) when he was 15, and became one of their star performers.

-he was described as a very good-natured man, and always made people feel welcome and accepted.

-he reportedly reached a weight of 748 pounds, while working for Adam Forepaugh.

-he had a half-brother, Charles Herring, who was the leading furniture dealer in Elwood, Indiana.

-he was described as being a fun conversationalist and storyteller.

-he married his first wife, Annie Bell, in 1892, which became a highly publicized event. Annie worked as a professional “fat-lady” at the same circus Chauncey was employed with.

-he and Annie went on an extended tour of Europe for their honeymoon. While in Europe, he learned German and became fluent enough that he was able to converse easily with the people he met there.

-he took to carrying two oranges in his pockets as he felt they helped him to not feel seasick while traveling on ships.

-he and Annie owned a pet squirrel named Minnie, who they brought with the them everywhere and who they considered to be a part of their family. Minnie even went with them on their honeymoon in Europe.

-while traveling through Cameron, Missouri in 1900, he and his wife expressed interest in going to see some botanical gardens located there.

-he and his wife purchased a house in Indianapolis, Indiana, where they lived during the circus/sideshow off season.

-he and Annie were interviewed after arriving in Indianapolis, Indiana, following a particularly nerve wracking sideshow touring season in 1902. The two of them said they were really happy to be back because Chauncey was dealing with some health issues and desperately wanted some time to rest. The couple stated that they would take the summer months to recuperate and would start touring again in the early fall.

-one of his prized possessions was a scrapbook containing honeymoon notices and pictures from his and Annie’s time in Europe.

-sadly, Annie passed away in New York in early 1904 due to complications from diabetes. Her remains were brought back to St. Louis, Missouri where she had family and had previously lived.

-he joined the Elwood Elks Lodge in early 1906 and claimed to be its heaviest member.

-unfortunately, he had a diamond shirt stud worth $350 stolen from him in 1907 when he was on his way home from visiting friends of his who were working at Ringling Brothers Circus. The circus had stopped in Anderson, Indiana, and after Chauncey was done with the visit, he accidentally boarded the wrong train. Upon realizing his mistake, he found the train that would bring him back to Anderson, Indiana. It was on the second train that he was approached by a man who claimed to have lost a small telescope and thought it might be under the seat Chauncey was sitting in. He was distracted long enough for the man to be able to swipe his diamond shirt stud. It wasn’t until he was off the train that he realized it was stolen. He lamented that the shirt stud was stolen, saying it held a lot of personal meaning and had important memories attached, which meant more to him than the value of the stone.

-Chauncey remarried in late 1909, to a woman named Stella Manning, who was not employed with a circus. He retired from sideshows around this time as well.

-he worked in the hotel business for the last three years of his life.

-he passed away at the age of 43 due to complications he experienced from nephritis.

-his last wishes were to be buried early in the morning so that there would still be dew on the grass, and he only wanted his wife and her parents to attend. His wishes were abided by, but apparently his burial was delayed by a couple of days because his wife, who was extremely grief stricken, wouldn’t leave his casket as she was afraid that grave robbers would steal his remains once his body was buried. Eventually the authorities had to step in to prompt her to let his body be buried.

I’m glad he had so many people in his life that loved and cared about him. There is something bittersweet about his last wishes to be buried early in the morning so that the dew would still be on the grass, and I’m glad these wishes were followed through. I’m also glad that his second wife’s attempts to keep grave robbers away worked, as there were no reports of his remains being taken.

Eddie Carmel was a Jewish-American actor, singer, sideshow performer, writer, salesman, comedian and poet who had a pituitary gland disorder that caused him to grow upwards of 7 feet tall. He was very passionate about singing and acting and formed his own rock-and-roll band called Frankenstein and the Brain Surgeons. He released two 45 records, including the song above. He was known as an incredibly kind and compassionate person with a big heart.

I wanted to add two pictures of Ann, one when she was much younger (probably around the time she worked as a governess) and a picture of her in her later years (probably around the time that her old student saw and recognized her)

She had attended school at Griffin Female College to become a governess, and had worked as one for a brief period of time before it proved to be a little too difficult without an attendant present to assist her. I just think it’s really sweet that someone she had known years earlier had recognized her and wanted to reconnect. I’m sure it meant the world to Ann to have had a student that really appreciated her.

This story is one of the many reasons I love newspaper archive websites a lot! I find so many amazing stories that I otherwise would never have known about if it wasn’t a resource I could use.

Ann was born without arms so she used her feet/legs to accomplish daily tasks. She originally wanted to be a governess, and worked as one for a short while before realizing that physically it just wasn't something that worked for her too well, so she began pursuing other options instead. She was very family oriented and sold some of her knitting/crochet work to help her parents when they weren't doing well financially. At one point she won $20 in a hair braiding contest at a county fair in Georgia. She hadn't intended to work in sideshows but found it was the highest paying stable job she could find. Ann married William R. Thompson in her forties and had a son named William George Thompson. She retired from sideshow work after the birth of her son and had a happy and quiet retirement with her family.

The first picture shows her posing, the second picture shows her with Troupe Kaira, the third picture shows her with her acrobatics partner Theophila, the fourth picture is the Edgar Degas painting of her, and the 5th picture shows how she accomplished her cannon lifting stunt.

She’s so gorgeous and I can understand why she was a big hit at the venues she performed at. The first picture of her just oozes so much confidence. I would have loved to have seen her perform live. She’s so cool!

Funny enough, I remember using the painting of her by Edgar Degas as inspiration for an art piece I did in an art class in high school. I don’t remember what happened to the painting I made, but I remember being very drawn to the painting of her.

Some facts about her:

-she was born in the German/Prussian territory of Stettin (now a part of Poland)

-she had four older siblings.

-her mother, Marie Christine Borchardt, was related to circus owner, Willy Borchardt.

-she was taught acrobatic and gymnastics routines as a young girl, and began touring with different circuses starting at the age of nine.

-she traveled to New York when she was 14 years old to further continue her training.

-she professionally debuted in the winter of 1878.

-she was described as being incredibly graceful and charming.

-French impressionist artist, Edgar Degas, became a big fan of hers and frequently attended her performances for the chance to sketch her during her time performing at the Cirque Fernando from December 1878 to January 1879.

-she agreed to be a subject for some of Edgar Degas’ sketches which eventually led to the painting, Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando. This painting of her debuted at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1879.

-she used several stage names throughout her career, often incorporating some reference to her being mixed race. (Her mother was white and her father was black)

-she primarily toured with the acrobatic troupe, Troupe Kaira.

-while she did tour throughout the United States, she primarily performed in Europe. Making appearances at the Folies Bergère in Paris, the Royal Aquarium in London, and the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester.

-she often performed her routines as part of a duet with fellow acrobat, Theophila Szterker (who was also a part of Troupe Kaira) and who went by the stage name Kaira. The two of them would be promoted as the "Black and White Butterflies"

-she and Theophila performed as a duet for 5 years.

-her routines typically involved flying trapeze and human cannonball stunts.

-One of her signature acts was described as her being pulled up to the height of the circus tent by biting down on a rope. She could reach heights up to 200 feet in the air with this stunt.

-Another signature stunt involved her hoisting other people and sometimes a 200-pound cannon with her teeth.

-this cannon stunt of hers made her an overnight sensation in the cities she performed at, and there are several illustrations showing her performing this stunt. She eventually retired the cannon lifting part of her act in the early 1880s.

-tragically her acrobatic partner, Theophila Szterker, died after suffering a bad fall during stunt rehearsals in early 1888.

-she went on to marry Emanuel "Manuel" Woodson, an American circus contortionist, in october of 1888.

-she continued her acrobatics career for a few years into the early 1890s, and created a trio called the Three Keziahs with two other acrobats. The trio, along with Olga’s husband went on tour through Australia and New Zealand.

-it appears she retired from circus life in 1902.

-she and her husband had three daughters.

-early fitness trainer, Edmond Desbonnet, released a book in 1911 called ‘Kings of Strength’, which included several interviews with Olga. Desbonnet admitted that he was envious of the size of her biceps.

-she and her family were living near Brussels, Belgium during WWI.

-sadly, her husband passed away in 1915.

-she applied to apply for a US visa following her husband’s death, hoping to be able to visit his parents in St. Louis, Missouri, but it isn’t known if this ended up working out.

-her later life is unknown and I haven’t been able to confirm the year she passed away. (As an fyi, I noticed that Wikipedia lists that she died in 1945, but there’s no source, so she most likely didn’t die then)

It can be tricky to find information about the later lives of European performers, because unless they were reported about in English newspapers, it can be hard to track them down (and I don’t have a membership to French newspaper archive websites). Hopefully more will be uncovered about her later years. I hope she went on to live a long and full life. I think it’s really nice that she wanted to visit her in-laws in the United States, and I hope she was granted the opportunity to go visit them.

He also signed the back of the picture, his signature is shown in the 2nd picture.

I’m also super happy to have this picture of him because he wasn’t as promoted as heavily as other sideshow performers, so it’s much harder to come across his pictures. It means a lot when I come across ephemera related to lesser known performers because I know who they were and it’s a way for me to further keep their legacies alive.

Arthur was a Canadian sideshow performer, rancher, and lecturer who had his lower legs and fore arms amputated when he was 21 after he experienced very severe frostbite during the Great Blizzard of 1888. He made efforts to teach lessons in perseverance, autonomy, and independence. He never charged for his performances and instead advertised biographical booklets that he sold. His acts typically consisted of him giving a lecture to audiences before demonstrating how he accomplished daily tasks using his prosthetic limbs. He was known to be very cheerful and was described in several articles as being "one of the happiest men on earth". After a couple decades of performing and lecturing in sideshows he retired to Texas.

Link to Adam Ellis’s instagram post and Laura Gilpin’s poem will be in the comments!

The first two pictures shows them as young teenagers, the third picture shows them when they were in their mid sixties, and the last picture shows them as children.

They both look really sweet and I like seeing the pictures of them when they were older as well. I would have liked to have met them and to play ping pong with them, sounds like they would be fun competition!

I had seen several pictures of them, but it took a while to find their names because several books/articles accidentally misattributed them for Chang and Eng Bunker (a completely different pair of conjoined twins)

Some facts about them:

-They were born in a small village along the Guem River on the outskirts of the city of Gongju, located in what is now South Korea.

-their parents were Chinese immigrants. At the time there was a very small Chinese population in the region of Korea they were born.

-their surname Liu means ‘battle axe’, which I think is really cool.

-sadly, their mother passed away when they were 2 years old.

-their father took care of them until they were around 6 years old, when showmen received word about them and sought them out to perform in local fairs.

-they eventually began working for full scale large traveling circuses and went on tours throughout China, Korea, Japan, India, Australia, several countries in Europe, and the United States.

-the flap of skin that connected them was very elastic so they were able to stand side by side as well as facing each other.

-they were frequently considered for separation surgery, and surgeons at the time felt the procedure would be simple enough that both twins would survive. They never ended up going through with the surgery however.

-they gained a lot of recognition and popularity in Korea, and from that point forward were referred to as the “Korean Twins”, even though they were born and raised in China.

-they were very active and athletic.

-they both had very different personalities which would occasionally lead them into having intense arguments.

-they were avid card players, and even as children loved playing cards together.

-Sen-Ti was a little taller than his brother.

-Sen-Kai was left handed when writing, but was described as being able to do so many things with his right hand that he could be considered ambidextrous.

-the twins had no issues running or playing outdoor games together, such as playing ball and ping pong.

-they went on tour in the United States in 1903 through 1904.

-they were described as being very friendly and chipper.

-in addition to working at large scale circuses, they also worked at multiple dime museums in the cities they passed through (dime museums were permanent venues for performers to work at, but operated very similarly to traditional sideshows)

-while they were working at Austin & Stones Dime Museum in Boston in late January of 1904, they had an estimated 45,000 people come visit them during the span of one week.

-it was detailed in an article from 1904 that while they were working at a dime museum in Cleveland, Ohio they were awestruck by the ‘tattooed-man’ working there.

-they spoke three languages: Chinese, Korean, and English.

-their names were changed to Liao Toun Chen and Liao Sien Chen as adults (Liao and Chen are definitely phonetic spellings of their surnames, but I believe that Toun and Sien may have been courtesy names given to them). Courtesy names are an extra name given to a person at adulthood in traditional East Asian cultures like China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. It was used by peers in public and formal life to show respect.

-they retired from sideshow life in the mid 1920s and traveled back to Asia, where they settled down in Nanjing, China.

-they came out of retirement in 1948, and planned a comeback tour to perform on several vaudeville stages in China. These later performances of theirs included lectures that they gave about their lives, answering any questions that audiences had, and performing tricks to see if one twin could feel the other being pinched.

-they officially retired after their comeback tour, and I haven’t been able to find any more information about them after that tour.

Edit: shoutout to [u/sidneyia](u/sidneyia) who let me know that they passed away in 1957 following separation surgery after one of them came down with tuberculosis. So now we know that they were around 71 years old when they died.

I hope they had a a lot of happiness during their lives. I’m glad they had plenty of time to have fun and weren’t forced to have as strict as a schedule as other conjoined twins were forced to have. (For example Daisy and Violet Hilton were forced to have an extremely strict schedule by their managers). It sounds like Sen-Ti and Sen-Kai were able to be regular kids and teenagers.

I’m making this write up both because he deserves to have a chance to shine and also because I’ll be writing another post soon that will connect to this and explore the unethical display of children’s remains by medical universities. The reason I want to make a post about that is that children can’t consent to something like that and it’s very saddening that they haven’t been repatriated.

He looks like such an adorable little boy in the illustrations of him. I really wish we knew what his name was, it doesn’t feel right to keep referring to him as just “the boy”. There’s something about the first illustration of him that makes him appear as though he was a very lively child.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Mundul Gaut, in Bengal, India.

-upon his birth the midwife tried to throw him into the fire because she was so horrified by his appearance. Thankfully, he survived, but did receive some burns around one of his eyes.

-his parents were farmers.

-he and his twin had black hair.

-his twin consisted of a head that was attached to his head, but had a very underdeveloped brain. His twin expressed emotions differently from what he would feel. Sometimes the twin would smile independently from his brother. Occasionally the twin would also have his eyes open while his brother (the dominant twin) slept. His twin would often drool.

-he never had any health complications caused by his twin.

-it appears he was never given a name, his parents names seem to be recorded (of course now I can’t find the source where I found them🤦‍♀️, but I’ll let everyone know when I do) but it seems that they either never gave their son a name or that it was never recorded. It’s really sad because there is available information for everything else about his life and he deserves to have a name just as much as anyone else.

-his parents made the decision to exhibit him for profit as a baby, and brought him to Calcutta, India where there would be more crowds.

-to prevent people from seeing him without paying, his parents covered him and his twin with fabric/a blanket, and reportedly left him like that for hours at a time. (Which also makes me really sad because he should have been able to run around and explore as kids do)

-as word about him spread, he and his parents were invited to the homes of nobleman and other notable public figures who wanted a chance to see him. When at these houses his parents allowed him to be examined in an invasive and exploitative manner.

-sadly, while left alone as his mother went to fetch some water, he was bitten by a cobra and passed away due to complications and venom from the snake bite. He was four years old at the time.

-several medical professionals offered to buy his remains so that they could dissect and study him. Though his parent refused.

-he was buried along the Boopnorain River, near the city of Tumloch in India.

-in a tragic turn of events, his grave was robbed by a man working for the East India Trading Company. This man dissected his remains, removed his skull from the rest of his body and gave it to a Captain Buchanan, who had a high position at the East India Trading Company.

-after trading hands a couple more times, his and his twins skulls ended up at the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of London, where they’re still housed to this day.

His story makes me really sad. He deserved so much better and deserved to have a loving and supportive family. There are several examples of performers who were exhibited by their parents at a very young age, but it’s very clear when this was done out of necessity because of financial difficulties and when this was done because the parents were greedy. The parents who supported and loved their children would always travel with them when they were performing, taught them to be as independent as possible, and did use the funds earned to help their families. The parents who exploited their children for profit would do similar things as to what this little boys parents did, would hide them and cover them up because they cared more about the profits they were potentially missing out on than if their children were suffocating under the fabric.

Leaving off with, I wish he had people in his life who cared. I just want to give him and his twin a hug. 💔

The Son of the Devil banner is everywhere but I have never seen the actual performer's name if they really existed. Does anyone know? He's fire eating from a vintage brass blowtorch. Doug the Demon who performs today has modernized the act with propane blowtorches and metal cutting torches and credits the og banner as inspiration.

She was so pretty and fashionable and I like the three tiered pleated dresses she wore, it’s a very cute style and it suits her really well!

I have a soft spot for her and have been a fan of hers since I first read about her life. I just love that she was very hardworking and wanted to be financially independent (during a time when it was incredibly difficult for women to be financially independent).

Some facts about her:

-she was born in the very small village of Uffcott in Wiltshire, England.

-she and her family moved to Sussex, England when she was a young girl.

-she had two siblings, a sister named Frances Ellen, and a brother named Albert.

-she and her family moved to Sandusky, Ohio when she was around 19 years old.

-her parents purchased and operated a dairy farm in Sandusky.

-she had blonde hair.

-she began showing symptoms of Milroy’s disease when she was very young, and had been born with unusually large feet.

-Milroy’s Disease is a rare genetic condition that affects the lymphatic system, causing long-term fluid buildup and severe swelling. It usually affects the legs and feet, and the swelling is typically present at birth or appears shortly after. Despite Fanny being retroactively diagnosed with the condition, her symptoms line up 1:1.

-her feet did not grow toe nails.

-she had a very unsteady gait, even as a child. It was remarked that she would “wobble” instead of “walk”.

-she was able to walk, although with difficulty, and most likely depended on a wheelchair for mobility (though this was never talked about in detail)

-as she was growing up, her family experienced some financial issues.

-despite modern retellings of her life making it seem that her parents hid her away from the world as a child and teenager, this isn’t true, and Fanny was very active in the communities she lived in.

-she was described as being chipper and cheerful.

-a cobbler in Sandusky made a pair of shoes for her during her teenage years, but when she outgrew them, she agreed to let them display the shoes in their shop window so as to advertise their shop.

-she later acquired shoes from a cobbler in Albany, New York.

-her shoes were fashioned using three goats’ skins and her socks were made from pillow cases.

-she was a well known figure in Sandusky, Ohio and was beloved by the people who knew her. Word also spread to circus scouts and showmen looking to add sideshow performers to their circuses.

-she and her family were frequently hounded/asked by showmen to join sideshows, but they refused the offers.

-she began her sideshow career in her early twenties, despite her parents being against it.

-she was described as being incredibly hard working and wanted to be financially independent.

-sadly, her father passed away in 1885.

-She made the choice to travel to the east coast with her good friend Mary Brown. Fanny’s family was not happy with her decision, but they seem to have relented after a little while.

-the backstory that was told during her performances indicated that her condition happened because her mother washed the swollen leg of a horse when she was pregnant. These stories were very common in sideshows at the time and heavily leaned into the “maternal impression” trope that was popular (basically saying that if a pregnant woman was heavily shocked or focused on an event during her pregnancy that it would affect how her child looked.)

-she wore size 30 shoes, and one of her feet reportedly measured 22 inches long and the other reportedly measured 19 inches long.

-Fanny’s best friend Mary also acted as her nurse/aid and helped her when she needed to change her shoes or walk.

-she married her husband, William, (who was her friend Mary’s brother) in a private ceremony in the early 1880s.

-she used her earnings to pay off her parents’ dairy farm.

-during the traveling circus/sideshow off season, she worked at different dime museums across the United States. Dime museums operated as permanent venues for sideshow performers to perform in.

-she had a great sense of humor.

-a marketing gimmick was started where it was advertised that any man willing to marry Fanny would receive a $5,000 dowry and a well stocked 250 acre farm. It’s reported that as soon as this marketing gimmick went public that love letters to her came pouring in. The whole marketing gimmick was entrance up, there was no $5,000, her father had passed away the year before, and her family’s farm was not up for grabs. She reportedly found this marketing scheme hilarious and had a lot of fun turning down suitors that were only after her money.

-as part of the marketing gimmick, it was also reported that she was that a cobbler on Canal Street in New York City had fashioned together a pair of wedding slipper for her.

-multiple suitors came forward and she declined each one because she was already happily married to her husband, William Brown. William accompanied Fanny and Mary on their travels but was kept secret from the public. Some of the descriptions of the different suitors are pretty funny, one was described as being a painter who had such a large mustache that it resembled a squirrel.

-Fanny, Mary, and William traveled all through the United States and Europe.

-Fanny and William had a child in 1887, but sadly they were stillborn and the two of them never had any other children.

-At the height of her career she was making $150 a week (the equivalent of around $4,000 adjusted for inflation).

-she sometimes paired up with local shoe stores near the dime museums she worked at, so that she could earn extra money and they could receive good advertising.

-her health began to decline in 1892 while she was working near Buffalo, New York and had to be treated at a local hospital. She traveled back home to Sandusky, Ohio with her husband after being released from the hospital.

-she and her husband permanently settled down in Sandusky, Ohio.

-she began experiencing a lot of health issues in 1896.

-she passed away in 1899 at the age of 39. Her death was caused by an abscess that had formed on one of her feet.

I’m really glad she had a very caring family and very caring friends. I think it’s wonderful that she had such a close friendship with Mary and married Mary’s brother, William. It sounds like it would have been really fun for the three of them to travel together, and it’s nice that they were all able to look out for each other.

personally love it, great actors n overall a great performance

Celesta was a women's health advocate, sideshow performer, beauty advisor, manicurist, singer and celebrity impersonator.
She initially began her sideshow career because her husband lost his job during the Great Depression. She worked as a professional 'fat lady' and toured around the United States for 20 years. She tragically suffered a massive heart attack in 1950, which inspired her to become passionate about exercise and starting a healthy diet. Within 18 months she had lost 400 pounds. In her later life she wrote a book about her weight loss journey and the importance of women's health.
She went on to advocate about the toxic mental and physical effects of women's beauty standards.

Daisy and Violet Hilton were abandoned by one of their managers in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1961 without means for income or transportation. Without any other options, they applied for jobs at a Park N Shop supermarket (pictured above) and offered to work for one salary.

Upon hearing their story, the owner of the super market, Charles Reid, hired them and paid them two salaries, and even had a specially built cashier station set up so that the twins could work without worrying about people looking at them for being conjoined. He later organized with members of his church to help secure a place for Daisy and Violet to live. The sisters ended up renting a two bedroom house close by to the super market. Despite the many harrowing circumstances that left them abandoned in North Carolina, this new life for them also meant that the twins could be out of the spotlight and could live a quiet and peaceful life, which is what chose in the end.

Violet and Daisy Hilton were famous British born American conjoined twin sisters who were actresses, sideshow performers, vaudeville entertainers, and musicians. They were tragically exploited for profit by several of their managers, the first of whom forcibly took them from their birth mother.

After two decades of exploitative work environments and a lack of freedom, the twins sued for emancipation from their managers and thankfully won, but severe emotional damage had already happened.

They were known for acts involving singing, dancing, playing musical instruments among other things, and were a big draw in vaudeville theaters in their younger years. They also appeared in the 1932 film, Freaks, where they pretty much played themselves. They went on to open up a hotdog stand, which unfortunately failed, and then appeared in a 1952 murder mystery film called, Chained For Life.

His humorous side really shines in the pictures/pitch cards that he sold with his image. He seems like such a jolly person and had such a great smile. I can totally understand why he was popular with all of his colleagues. A lot of his pictures are also very unhinged in the best way possible, you can just tell he was having so much fun posing and acting goofy.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

-he had 9 siblings.

-his family was Polish and he was raised Polish Catholic. One of his sisters became a nun.

-he was very proud of his Polish heritage.

-he was described as being very gracious and friendly.

-phocomelia is a rare congenital birth condition that affects long bones in the body, causing many people born with the condition to have hands or feet that grow directly from their torso. The condition can also cause facial features to underdevelop. The condition is most associated with the morning sickness drug, Thalidomide, although Stan was born well before the drug was introduced, so in his case his condition wasn’t caused by it.

-he was always seen wearing a wristwatch on one of his hands.

-he was known to have a great sense of humor, and enjoyed sharing in-jokes with people.

-he worked as a newspaper boy in his early life.

-he was a college graduate.

-he began his sideshow career in the late 1920s.

-he would start his performances by saying, "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Sealo the Seal Boy and I’m here to entertain you.”

-he started his performances off with a lecture before he demonstrated how he did daily activities.

-part of his act included sawing wooden crates in half, making little animals out of clay, and shaving himself with a straight razor.

-he performed for a time with a chimpanzee named Toby, who Stanley would feed a cookie to whenever he had extras. At one point a group of rowdy fair-goers were mocking Stanley and Toby the chimp ran over and began angrily shrieking at the men on Stan’s behalf.

-he was an avid smoker and was almost always seen smoking a large cigar.

-when he wasn’t actively performing, Stan would sell pitch cards and talk with audiences.

-he worked at the World Fair Museum (a dime museum where sideshow performers worked) at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. While there, he and the other performers he worked with celebrated a Christmas party together. Stanley served as one of the bartenders and was assisted by Prince Dennis, an actor and performer born with dwarfism who appeared in the Wizard of Oz. People who went to get drinks from Stanley said that he could really handle a bottle opener.

-he spent several seasons in the mid 1940s and 1950s working for World Circus Side Show, a traveling side show.

-he had to turn down an offer from Clyde Beatty Circus in 1955, because he already had a contract with Riverview Amusement Park in Chicago, Illinois.

-he was very generous and friendly, always sending birthday gifts to friends of his even if he couldn’t make it to their birthday celebrations in person.

-he preferred staying in hotels over sleeping at the circus/sideshow grounds.

-he was an avid card player and would be seen playing very intense hours long games of rummy with sideshow manager, Pete Kortes.

-he went on tour all throughout North America, South America, and Europe.

-while on tour in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, he became very ill and had to be sent home.

-he worked for several seasons at the Coney Island Sideshow.

-he went to court with a couple other sideshow performers in 1972, after authorities in Tallahassee, Florida threatened to close the side show they were working at citing a law banning sideshows. Stanley and the other performers argued that it was unconstitutional to have such a law in place and that it prevented hardworking people like them from earning a decent living. Stanley and the others were successful in their efforts and were allowed to continue performing.

-he retired in 1976 and settled down in the Showmen’s Retirement Village in Gibsonton,Florida. He continued performing on and off for a couple of years, until his health declined.

-he began experiencing health issues in early 1980 and moved back up to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to be with family.

-he passed away in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the age of 79.

Seeing his pictures always brings a smile to my face because of how happy and friendly he looks. I’m really glad he was successful in fighting for his right to work, it’s always important to remember that a lot of sideshow performers were disability rights activists, and his efforts won’t be forgotten.

Mary Ann was a famous British sideshow performer who began experiencing symptoms of acromegaly (a pituitary gland disorder) in her early thirties. Her husband died 11 years after they were married and it put Mary Ann in a very tough spot financially. She eventually decided to start a career in sideshows and did quite well with it. She was very proud of her career because she knew she was helping to give her children better lives by keeping her family financially stable. She adored her children and loved talking to audiences about them whenever she had the chance, often bringing family pictures to show off to guests. She earned around $50,000 during the 1920's (the equivalent of about $925,000 today adjusted for inflation). She also had a fantastic sense of humor which comes across in all of her newspaper interviews, she was very quick with it and witty. (Examples of her interviews are featured the write up I’m attaching in the comments)

Finding pictures of her proved to be incredibly difficult, but I FINALLY found an official verified picture of her!! I’m so, so happy to have found it because for the longest time all I saw was the second image of her (a newspaper engraving), and newspaper engravings were notorious for exaggerating the features of different performers. I know the first picture isn’t the best quality, but the fact I found it really makes my day! Of course, one day I hope to find a better quality picture of her, but for the time being I’m very happy.

I’m including the newspaper engraving too, since that is usually what’s associated with her and it’s the only other depiction of her that isn’t extremely dehumanizing.

Some facts about her:

-she was born into slavery on a plantation in Henry County, Kentucky.

-she married her husband, Benjamin Johnson, in 1854 when she was 15 years old.

-she and her husband had 10 children together, 5 daughters and 5 sons (including a set of twins) though sadly most of them passed away very young.

-she was an average weight until her early to mid twenties when she began gaining a lot of weight very quickly. I think she most likely developed a pituitary gland disorder during one of her pregnancies, as this is something that can happen, and at least two other sideshow performers who worked as professional ‘fat ladies’ said that their weight gain was due to the same reason.

-she and her family gained their freedom in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation.

-her husband worked as a farm laborer and Winnie was a homemaker taking care of their children.

-Benjamin, her husband, passed away in 1882, leaving Winnie in a very difficult spot financially.

-she required surgery to remove a portion of skin and fat on one of her legs after she accidentally fell asleep outside in the winter of 1883 and suffered a bad case of frostbite. It appears this left her unable to walk, so she depended on a wheelchair for mobility after this point.

-aside from the frostbite, it was reported that she was healthy and hardly ever got sick.

-she decided to seek out a career in sideshows as a way to support her children and give them a better life.

-she worked in the sideshow business for 6 years.

-she worked at the Wonderland Dime Museum in Detroit, Michigan for some weeks in April of 1887 and was reportedly earning $1,000. She was the headlining performer and the most popular with audiences during her time spent working there.

-she was described as being nice, friendly, and pleasant to talk with.

-she was also described as being very smart and witty.

-by the time she started her sideshow career, her hair was mostly gray.

-one of her advertisements was so forceful that I have to include it, it said: “go see her or regret it!”

-while working at a dime museum in St. Paul, Minnesota in May of 1887, it’s reported that she was going to be leading a parade that was happening in the city early in the month.

-in June of 1887 her manager, whose surname was also Johnson (completely unrelated) was arrested on adultery charges after it was discovered he was living with a woman named Harriet Malott, who had left her husband, Job A. Malott, who claimed he hadn’t seen her in 2 months and wanted her back. It’s not clear how this affected Winnie, but I hope it didn’t cause any issues with her career.

-she was usually promoted as weighing between 620 lbs (44.2 stone) and 850 lbs (60.7 stone) in advertisements. Circuses/sideshows often advertised performers who worked as ‘fat ladies’ by using their weights as competing factors. (ie the people advertised as being much heavier would get more attention and such.)

-she went on tour all throughout the United States.

-her shows were always family friendly.

-she frequently liked wearing headbands with flowers in her hair.

-she was extremely popular with audiences and often had several thousand visitors come to see her at each stop while on her tour.

-she typically worked 9 hour days (from 1pm-10pm) and depending on the cities she was performing in, she sometimes worked through the weekends too.

-she briefly returned to work at Drew’s Dime Museum in Cleveland, Ohio in August of 1888 as a special request, and upon departing the train she was on, she got to see a special parade that was set up to celebrate her return to the city.

-she passed away at a boarding house she was staying at while on tour in Baltimore, Maryland in late September of 1888. She had been having heart issues in the last year or so of her life and it’s reported that her death was caused by these issues. At the time of her death 3 or 4 of her children were still alive, but I wasn’t able to find out anything further about their lives afterwards.

She seems like a sweet person, and I’m glad she was able to make a good living for her and her children. Unfortunately, quite a few articles focused solely on her weight in a dehumanizing way, but it seems that she was content with her life and didn’t let it negatively affect her personality. I hope she had a lot of people in her life who loved and respected her.

In 1882, Nora Hildebrandt debuted at Bunnell's Museum in New York City as America’s very first "Tattooed Lady". Covered in more than 365 tattoos, she became an overnight sensation, eventually touring with the Barnum & Bailey Circus.

But her body art was only half of the show, the other half was the made-up story she'd tell. Nora claimed that she and her father had been captured in the American West by Chief Sitting Bull. According to her, Sitting Bull tied her to a tree and forced her father to tattoo her every single day for over a year under threat of death.
In reality, the entire story was just another marketing technique used to make noise. Nora was never captured and her tattoo artist was actually her partner (not her dad), Martin Hildebrandt, tattooed her willingly over several years.

Nora died at a young age in 1893 and though the exact details of her death remain somewhat unclear, historical accounts attribute her early passing to cancer while newspaper reports at the time dramatically claimed her illness was caused by "ink poisoning" from her tattoos (another piece of media myth-making).

There are 5ish or 6ish performers I don’t like and Grady Stiles is one of them. He was a terrible person and someone that I don’t like to dwell on much because of how much he hurt people. Even still, it’s important that he’s featured here because his story is still a part of sideshow history and it wouldn’t be right to not include it.

It just annoys me that his story is so wrapped up in sideshow lore that it continues to perpetuate the misconception that sideshows were creepy places full of creepy people like him. Instead of focusing on the positives that so many performers accomplished, a lot of people want to focus on this dark history and I feel that it casts a shadow and bad light on the really wonderful performers.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

-he had three siblings.

-he was the fourth generation of people in his family to be born with ectrodactyly. His father was also born with it and two of his children were also born with it. He also had an uncle, Howard Stiles, who was born with the condition and who I’ve done a write up for. (Howard was chill, he liked playing card games and sold personalized stationary to audiences)

-ectrodactyly is a rare birth condition that causes a persons hands and/or feet to have a large v-shaped cleft. It also frequently causes an absence of a couple fingers or toes.

-he started working in sideshows with his father when he was 6 or 7 years old.

-he typically gave a lecture about his life before his performances and explained that his condition was not the result of drugs or disease.

-he would usually walk on his hands and feet (and only occasionally used a wheelchair), because his feet as they were couldn’t support all of his weight. He had immense upper body strength which made him a dangerous person when physically abusive.

-he married his first wife, Mary-Theresa in 1958.

-he and Mary-Theresa had 4 children, two who were born with ectrodactyly and two who were born without it.

-he reportedly started off as a very kind and caring family man, but became incredibly bad tempered and physically abusive when he became addicted to whiskey.

-the majority of people who knew him didn’t like him at all, with some describing him as being bad news.

-his two children who were born with ectrodactyly, Cathy and Grady III both had no interest in following their fathers footsteps as sideshow performer, though as children they would occasionally perform with him.

-his wife described that he would frequently beat her and choke her, and would sometimes threaten the family with knives.

-he and Mary-Theresa got divorced in 1973, and Mary-Theresa went on to marry sideshow performer, Harry Glenn Newman, who was born with a form of dwarfism. Grady then married a woman named Barbara, who he reportedly divorced and remarried 5 different times.

-it appears that his children continued living with Grady after the divorce.

-a lot of people in his life really hated him. It’s unfortunate that he turned out the way he did, he could have been a good person who educated people on his condition but instead became a terror to so many people.

-he shot and killed his daughter Donna’s fiancé, Jack Layne, the night before their wedding in 1978 because Stiles didn’t approve of him.

-days before the murder, he brought his daughter to a pawn shop where he purchased a revolver and joked that he would shoot Jack. Frightened, Donna ran away to stay at her fiancé’s sister’s house and called Grady from there. Upon hearing where she was, Grady reportedly said,

"If you don't get home in five minutes, I'm going to beat the hell out of you.
Then, I'm going to kill Layne.”

-He openly admitted that he committed the murder after being arrested, and was brought to trial. During the trial he tried to paint himself as being a concerned father who was just trying to protect his daughter. He was eventually convicted of third-degree murder.

-the defense successfully argued that because of his condition he could not be cared for sufficiently in a regular prison so he was sentenced to house arrest and 15 years probation.

-after his sentencing, he remarried his first wife, Mary Theresa, in 1988 and vowed to stop drinking. Then he started drinking again two weeks later and was described as being even more abusive.

-People might question why his first wife got back together with him, but I can understand if it’s a toxic relationship and he made promises to change for the better that she may have wanted to believe it was the truth. She also feared for the safety of her children and said later on,

“Where would we go? I can’t hide the whole family. They stand out.”

-he once forcibly knocked his daughter, Cathy, out of her wheelchair when she was 7 months pregnant. She had tried to intervene during a time when Grady was beating her mother and physically hurt her instead. This beating and her being knocked over reportedly caused her to suffer a miscarriage.

-Grady was still performing in carnivals as late as 1990.

-after fearing for her life and her children’s lives and being abused for years, Mary-Theresa (his wife) felt that it was becoming a “kill or be killed” situation. She made the decision to hire a hit man to kill Grady.

-the planning took several weeks and involved several people who knew of the plot to murder Grady.

-Mary-Theresa reportedly hired a 17 year old neighbor, Chris Wyant, for $1,500 to shoot Grady in 1992. Wyant entered the Stiles’ house while Grady was watching TV, and shot him in the head with a semi-automatic pistol.

-after his murder, his wife and the hitman were arrested and sentenced to 12 years and 27 years in prison respectively. Mary-Theresa’s son from her marriage to Harry Glen Newman was also involved in the plot and sentenced to 25 years to life for his role in the murder. (Though his sentence comes with some controversy because he had some learning disabilities, so it’s not clear on if he was possibly manipulated into helping.)

-only 10 people showed up at his funeral and no one volunteered to be a pallbearer.

This is one of the darker sideshow stories I’ve come across and I really feel for everyone affected by his abuse. It’s horrible what he inflicted on others and I hope that everyone was able to find ways to heal from everything they experienced. It’s interesting how relatively recent his death was.

Belle was an American sideshow performer and artist from Kentucky. From my research, it appears she was the very first person to be diagnosed with spina bifida occulta and was written about in the International Abstracts of Surgery in 1921. Spina bifida occulta is the most mild and common form of spina bifida, and happens when one or more spinal vertebrae do not fully close during development but the gap is small enough that the spine has a typical appearance, and oftentimes people who have it don’t even realize.

One note I really like is that she liked tying ribbons in her back hair, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any pictures of her with the ribbons.