Truevine

by Beth Macy

  “A question that needs to be answered”: Author interviews (via e-mail), Fred Dahlinger, November and December 2014.

  “How are the wonders ‘Eko’ and ‘Iko’ doing?”: Notice posted by C. E. Williams, New York Clipper, Oct. 3, 1914, p. 12.

  Notice possibly dictated by Harriett Muse/Hattie Cooke, saying she wants her sons back: Readers’ Column, Billboard, Dec. 26, 1914.

  Lack of diversity in New Castle: 2010 census figures put the percentage of African Americans in Craig County at 0.2.

  Chapter Five. Some Serious Secrets

  Interviews: Jane Johnston, Lori LeMay, Jerry Jones, Don Charlton, Bernth Lindfors, Jane Nicholas, Nancy Saunders, Bonnie LeRoy, Al Stencell, J. Harry Woody.

  Social history of Fenwick Mines: From “Geologic Wonders of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests,” Pamphlet No. 3 in a series, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Region, 2001.

  Diversity among Fenwick workers: Ibid. and author interview, Jane Johnston, Craig County Historical Society, Nov. 24, 2014.

  Italians’ goal to earn enough money to return home: Lori Barfield, “Fenwick Mine Complex,” for U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Region, June 5, 1990. The quote comes from an interview with Craig County native “Boots” Hutchinson, who attended school in Fenwick. (Researcher’s name is now Lori LeMay.) Author interview, Lori LeMay, May 26, 2015.

  Preponderance of minority labor in mining camps: Michael B. Barber et al., “Industry as Rural Landscape: The Fenwick Iron Mining Complex, Craig County, Virginia,” for Jefferson National Forest, April 1995.

  Recollection of brothers in New Castle as children: Author interview, Jerry Jones, Nov. 25, 2014.

  Recollection of life in New Castle: Author interview, Don Charlton, Nov. 24, 2014.

  Family name misrecorded as Mules instead of Muse: In the 1920 census, a ninety-three-year-old grandmother named America Cook lives with Harriett and Cabell Muse, along with their three youngest children, all of whom are wrongly filed under the Mules surname.

  America Cook’s probable whereabouts in 1870: Found in the 1870 census living in the Maggoddee Creek section of Franklin County, Virginia; the name “America” was likely mistyped as “Avram.”

  “My great-grandfather was a white man”: Author interview, J. Harry Woody, April 1, 2016.

  Race relations in New Castle region: A trusted former colleague who is now retired, JoAnne Poindexter is a lifelong member of Jerusalem Baptist Church and was the same source who helped in Chapter Three by introducing me to Regina “Sweet Sue” Holmes Peeks and Willie Mae (Mother) Ingram and, later, Sarah Showalter.

  Italians had the most dangerous mining jobs: Barber et al., “Industry as Rural Landscape.”

  Child workers at Fenwick: Author interview, Lori LeMay, May 26, 2015.

  Public records for Cookes/Muses, including marriage certificate: Moses and Hattie Cooke lived in the Big Lick magisterial district of Roanoke County in 1900, sans children. But I could find no accounting of Moses Cooke after that in city directories or public records, including marriage records, criminal complaints, and death records. When Harriett married Cabell Muse in 1917 in Franklin County, she used her maiden name, Harriett Dickerson.

  Erratic documentation of Muse children using Cook/Cooke family name: 1930 U.S. Census documents a Virginia-born Thomas Cook living with George and Willie Muse in Manhattan, along with three other nonrelatives; the brothers were all listed as circus employees. (By 1940, Thomas told census takers his name was Thomas Muse; he was living in Roanoke County’s Ballyhack with his mother, listed as Harriett Muse.)

  End of Fenwick Mines: Emmette Milton Sr., “Rise and Fall of Prosperity in Craig County,” New Castle (VA) Record, Aug. 22, 1974.

  Craig County crime that captured public’s attention: Harvey D. Looney broke out of Craig County Jail on April 24, 1914, according to New Castle (VA) Record.

  “the last trace of him being a set of bloody footprints”: Escapee Harvey Looney returned to New Castle a few years later—incognito, dressed as a woman—in order to attend his mother’s funeral. Burks Mountain was later renamed Nutter Mountain. Author interview, Don Charlton, April 22, 2016.

  Remnants of Fenwick: Barfield, “Fenwick Mine Complex,” 20.

  KKK picnic: Laura Fasbach, “Out-of-State KKK Group to Meet Today,” Roanoke Times, July 11, 1998.

  family’s long-accepted timeline: According to the 1910 census, George and Willie were born in 1899 and 1901, respectively. All other official records, including death certificates and employment records, line up with the family’s account that they were born in 1890 and 1893.

  Nancy’s reaction to Hattie Cooke revelation: Author interview, Nancy Saunders, Dec. 5, 2014.

  Black American sideshow acts pretending to be from Africa: Author interview, Bernth Lindfors, Oct. 13, 2014.

  Barnum’s claim of discovering Zip: Bernth Lindfors, Early African Entertainments Abroad: From the Hottentot Venus to Africa’s First Olympians (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014).

  Zip’s being initially coerced to perform: James W. Cook Jr., “Of Men, Missing Links, and Nondescripts: The Strange Career of P. T. Barnum’s ‘What Is It?’ Exhibition,” in Rosemarie Garland Thomson, ed., Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body (New York: New York University Press, 1996).

  More varying accounts of Zip’s early career: When the novelist Charles Dickens asked, “What is it?” P. T. Barnum allegedly replied, “That’s what it is, a What Is It,” as recounted in Fred Bradna, The Big Top: My Forty Years with the Greatest Show on Earth (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952).

  Klein’s description of carnival’s acts, travels, and reception: Ben H. Klein, “Carnival News: Great American Shows,” Billboard, Sept. 5, 1914.

  “strange creatures”: “Completing Arrangements,” Fort Wayne (IN) Daily News, Sept. 10, 1914.

  Description of Austin and Stone’s: The main attractions were plays, operas, and traveling Broadway shows (hired at cut rates for the off-season); the sideshows were supplemental attractions typically housed on the second or third floor, according to author interview, Al Stencell, March 1, 2015.

  “Marvelous, marvelous!”: Fred Allen, Much Ado About Me (Boston: Little, Brown, 1956).

  large blocks of ice: David Kruh, Always Something Doing: Boston’s Infamous Scollay Square (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989).

  Milton Berle’s early career: Ibid., 30.

  Background on Albert R. Bawden: “1925 Officers for Local Pin League Elected,” Davenport (IA) Democrat and Leader, May 1, 1925.

  Eli Bowen’s desire to return to sideshows in old age: “Legless Eli Bowen Dies in Dreamland,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 5, 1924.

  Ads documenting range and popularity of sideshow acts: Classified ads, Billboard, Jan. 22, 1916.

  Nascent child labor laws in Roanoke: Raymond Barnes, A History of the City of Roanoke (Radford, VA: Commonwealth Press, 1968), 515.

  Lewis Hine’s photographs documenting child labor in Roanoke: Taken when he was working for the National Child Labor Committee between 1908 and 1924, now held by Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  “These people are going to stare at me anyway”: Author interview, Jane Nicholas, Feb. 26, 2015.

  How Eli Bowen became a sideshow performer: Robert Bogdan, Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 213, and Susan Burch, ed., Encyclopedia of American Disability History (New York: Facts on File, 2009).

  adults could legally and literally mail children: May Pierstroff, a child of five, was mailed between two Idaho towns in 1914, according to Nancy A. Pope, “100 Years of Parcels, Packages, and Packets,” Feb. 19, 2013, on file at Smithsonian Institution, National Postal Museum, http://postalmuseumblog.si.edu/2013/02/.

  Minik’s railing against American Museum of Natural History: Michael T. Kaufman, “A Museum’s Eskimo Skeletons and Its Own,” About New York, New York Times, Aug.
21, 1993.

  Repatriation of Minik’s father’s remains: Kenn Harper, Give Me My Father’s Body: The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo (Frobisher Bay, NU: Blacklead, 1986), 227–229.

  Minik’s description of loneliness: Ibid., 34.

  Minik’s fear of being returned to museum: Ibid., 44.

  Zip’s career around 1914: “Old Favorites in the Circus Ring,” New York Times, April 5, 1914.

  How Hiram and Barney Davis became sideshow acts: Bogdan, Freak Show, 122.

  “they were not freaks”: Ibid., 126.

  Popularity of “A Long Way to Tipperary”: “Christmas 1914: The Day Even WWI Showed Humanity,” Associated Press, Dec. 20, 2014.

  Chapter Six. A Paying Proposition

  Interviews: Fred Pfening III, Don Nicely, Rand Dotson, Al Stencell, Nancy Saunders, Kinney Rorrer

  throwing his hat into the ring: Fred Bradna, The Big Top: My Forty Years with the Greatest Show on Earth (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952), 118.

  Size of traveling circuses in early 1900s: Janet M. Davis, The Circus Age: Culture and Society Under the American Big Top (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 5–9.

  Timing and plotting of circus routes: Dexter Fellows and Andrew A. Freeman, This Way to the Big Show: The Life of Dexter Fellows (New York: Viking, 1936), 220–221.

  “a nonintellectual activity”: Author interview, Fred Pfening III, Nov. 10, 2014.

  Ringlings recruit drummers: Fellows and Freeman, This Way to the Big Show, 180–182.

  “Quite often the carnivals would change their name”: Author interview, Warren Raymond, Feb. 26, 2015.

  “nature’s greatest mistakes”: “Big Street Fair This Week,” Whitewright (TX) Sun, Aug. 10, 1917.

  Shelton’s rise in carnival hierarchy: The first press mentions of Shelton were “Deep Water Jubilee” notice, New York Clipper, May 23, 1914 (Shelton is listed as a candy butcher), and “Carnival Rosters,” Billboard, March 18, 1916 (Shelton was listed as an announcer for Paul’s United Shows).

  Description of Shelton’s hand deformity: Author interview, Don Nicely, Feb. 26, 2015.

  Biographical details for Shelton: Billboard directories have him first listed in 1916 as an “announcer.” He was born on April 6, 1897, in Grainger County, Tennessee, according to census records.

  Origin of “candy butcher”: Joe McKennon, Circus Lingo (Sarasota, FL: Carnival Publishers of Sarasota, 1980), 23.

  Pinkard’s developing black subdivision: Reginald Shareef, The Roanoke Valley’s African American Heritage: A Pictorial History (Virginia Beach, VA: Donning, 1996), 39–40, and Kevin Kittredge, “Recalling the ‘Yarb Doctor,’” Roanoke Times, July 19, 2006.

  Pinkard’s fashion flair: When Pinkard’s Court was razed in 1998 to make room for a Lowe’s and a Walmart, one former resident lamented, “They should have left that arch”; Christina Nuckols, “The Life and Times of Pinkard Court,” Roanoke Times, Nov. 9, 1997.

  shortly after marrying Cabell Muse, in 1917: Harriett’s 1917 marriage certificate is on file at the Franklin County courthouse. For it, Harriett gives her maiden name as Dickerson. No mention was ever made of her marriage to Moses Cook, and no courthouse marriage records for Moses Cook and Harriett Dickerson could be found.

  the right to live without fear of being lynched: Author interview, Rand Dotson, Jan. 12, 2015, and Isabel Wilkerson, “When Will the North Face Its Racism?,” New York Times, Jan. 10, 2015.

  Examples of Jim Crow restriction: Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the Making of America (New York: Macmillan, 1964), 129–130.

  Virginia poll taxes: “Virginia Constitutional Convention (1901–1902),” Encyclopedia of Virginia, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Constitutional_Convention_Virginia_1901-1902.

  Brothers as “big money getters”: “Metropolitan and Loos Shows Open 1917 Season,” Billboard, March 3, 1917, p. 34.

  Booger Red’s Congress of Rough Riders: “Big Crowd at Carnival,” Corsicana (TX) Daily Sun, Oct. 3, 1916. Ad copy from Billboard, Jan. 31, 1920.

  “the shows are all clean and meritorious”: “Big Grist of Indictments,” Corsicana (TX) Daily Sun, Oct. 28, 1919.

  they oddly shared a left-hand deformity: “Second and third fingers of left hand grown together,” according to John George Loos’s World War I draft registration card.

  Freak- and talker-seeking ad for J. George Loos Shows: Billboard, June 10, 1916.

  Comparison of Muses’ and other performers’ contracts: Copies of contracts for Zip, George Bell, and James G. Tarver (the white giant) were provided by collector and sideshow researcher Fred Pfening III.

  “I am sure Bell was of at least average intelligence”: Author interview, Pfening.

  George Bell, “the colored giant” and minstrel: Bell died in 1919 at sixty-five, after being shot by a fellow circus worker, Maceo Ealy, according to “Negro Giant Dead,” Evening Telegraph (IL), March 25, 1919.

  plant shows: Author interview, Al Stencell, March 18, 2015.

  Shelton exaggerates his position: “Circus Men Are Hetterich’s Guests,” Journal News (OH), May 1, 1923.

  shortchanger’s code of honor: Harry Lewiston, Freak Show Man: The Autobiography of Harry Lewiston as Told to Jerry Holtman (Los Angeles: Holloway House, 1968), 89.

  Shortchanging was frequent: Author interviews, Al Stencell (via phone and e-mail), December 2014–January 2015.

  Wives were “time-wasters”: Henry Ringling North and Alden Hatch, The Circus Kings: Our Ringling Family Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960), 102.

  Preponderance of gay men in circus: Author interviews, Stencell, and Fellows and Freeman, This Way to the Big Show, 183.

  Stockholm syndrome: “When someone holds you totally powerless, totally isolated and has complete power of life and death over you, and then he lets you live, you think, ‘He could have killed me but he didn’t,’” the psychiatrist Martin Symonds told reporter Erik Eckholm, “Out of Captivity; Hostage Bond of Captors Is Common,” New York Times, July 1, 1985.

  Shelton’s reputation: Multiple ads the summer of 1920, including on p. 93 of Billboard, July 31, 1920.

  Barnes’s dog-and-pony show: Dave Robeson, Al G. Barnes, Master Showman (Caldwell, ID: Caxton, 1936), 30.

  Showmen’s cashing in on America’s fascination with the exotic: To hone his tribal knowledge for the spieling of Wu Foo, supposedly a Ghanian tribal chief but actually a black native New Yorker, Harry Lewiston bought books on Africa and memorized country names, according to Lewiston, Freak Show Man, 187–189.

  Barnes “quickly realized [the Muses’] possibilities”: Robeson, Al G. Barnes, Master Showman, 276–277.

  the Muse brothers morphed: Various ads from the Barnes sideshow of that era also cast them as Ecuadorian Twins and/or Ecuadorian Cannibals.

  Mabel Stark’s prowess: Miss Cellania, “Mabel Stark: The Lady with the Tigers,” Feb. 7, 2013, http://mentalfloss.com/article/48808/mabel-stark-lady-tigers.

  fireworks would emanate from her head: Robeson, Al G. Barnes, text and photographs, and “Barnes’ Circus Scores a Hit in Cincinnati,” Billboard, Sept. 20, 1919.

  Barnes dedicates lion: Billboard, May 10, 1919, p. 84.

  Tusko’s death at forty-two: “Death Takes Tusko, Big Elephant That Lived Stormy Life,” Chicago Tribune, June 11, 1933.

  “Displays of sex, horror, and strangeness”: A. W. Stencell, Seeing Is Believing: America’s Sideshows (Toronto: ECW Press, 2002), 4.

  Barnes show described as “all beauty and muscle”: Billboard, Sept. 20, 1919, pp. 48, 68.

  “too much for one pair of eyes to see”: “Deming Was Out En Masse to See the Big Circus,” Deming (NM) Highlight, Nov. 9, 1923.

  “Bodies of Zanzibar Youths”: Scranton (PA) Republican, June 23, 1923.

  Coverage, with brothers’ picture, in Scranton: “Barnes Big Circus Will Be in This City Today,” Scranton (PA) Republican, June 26, 1923.

  Shelton may have been co-managing the Muses earlier: There
are brief descriptions of Barnum’s Monkey Men being managed by “Messrs. Shelton and Stone,” Billboard, March 3, 1917, p. 34, and New York Clipper, March 14, 1917. The “Shelton” is presumably Candy Shelton. Judging by 1918 Billboard ads, Shelton is their sole manager.

  Barnes’s stormy marriage record: “Al G. Barnes Dies,” Around the White Tops (Circus Fans of America publication), September 1931; on file at Circus World Museum, Baraboo, WI.

  “his zest for life”: “Al G. Barnes Dies; Noted Circus Man,” New York Times, July 25, 1931.

  George and Willie feigned servitude: Stanley Elkins’s views were influential during the development of affirmative-action programs designed to counteract the lingering effects of slavery on black culture; Quarles, Negro in the Making of America, 74–75, and Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959).

  frustration behind a façade of happiness: Paul Laurence Dunbar, “We Wear the Mask,” Lyrics of Lowly Life (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1896). Dunbar’s poem inspired Maya Angelou’s “The Mask.”

  “It’s still not uncommon for people to misdiagnose albinism”: Author interview, Bonnie LeRoy, June 4, 2015.

  “rigid caste system of the circus”: Lewiston, Freak Show Man, 213–214.

  Freaks said to be moody and illiterate: Bradna, Big Top, 236.

  Novelty was always the goal: “Curiosities as Drawing Cards,” Billboard, May 24, 1901.

  But as Willie himself told the story: Author interview, Nancy Saunders, Nov. 5, 2015.

  “Eko and Iko could play anything”: Author interviews, Al Stencell (via phone and e-mail), December 2014–January 2015, with primary source Charlie Roark, as noted in Stencell, Circus and Carnival Ballyhoo: Sideshow Freaks, Jabbers and Blade Box Queens (Toronto: ECW Press, 2010).

  Background on minstrelsy: Jan Harold Brunvand, ed., American Folklore: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 1998), 122.

  Barnum’s jig-dancing contests: Stencell, Seeing Is Believing, 174. In his memoir, The Life of P. T. Barnum (Buffalo, NY: Courier, 1888), Barnum himself described John Diamond as a “Negro break-down dancer” and said Diamond occasionally swindled him.