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Part 2 Circus Story
Home life during those early years gave Tillie great security. She loved her little bunk bed in the camper cottage, where she climbed up a ladder on the wall to reach. Her little brother had arrived when Tillie was 3 years old – he had been born deaf. She and her brother had their own communication system; it was up to her to keep him out of mischief. He was called “dumb” by outsiders and considered stupid by anyone who didn’t know about deafness in those days. They didn’t even try to understand, mostly out of fear of the unknown. Well, Tillie knew better and if anyone ever made a comment about her brother she spoke right up and told them they were badly mistaken and should learn more about people themselves before making judgments on anyone. She never had any problem with circus friends because as a group, circus people were the most understanding of all when it came to people and their animal friends working together, with a big difference between the two.
Tillie’s method of communication with her brother was mostly by thought and gestures. Sign language of today had only recently been introduced to America in the East at that time and was not well know in the Midwest yet. Circus folk in general knew how to get things accomplished no matter what. For this reason the circus was a safe place for anyone with a disability of any kind because there was always a job available and understanding people to work with, who didn’t waste time on trivialities.
Changes
When Tillie was about 12 years old, circuses started losing their audiences. Many of the Midwest audiences were getting over the thrill of seeing new exotic animals, and would not pay anymore, some when they realized the larger ones such as lions and tigers were not happy living in fear inside small cages and paraded through towns. People stopped coming to see these displays, and there were no zoos like nowadays, where the animal can live somewhat like they are supposed to. In those early days, wild animals were captured as babies after their parents were killed. The orphaned babies would be shipped to America on big sailing ships, and many died en route, so of course many more were kidnapped than necessary so at least a few would stay alive after reaching this country. Those animals that lived would then were sold to the highest bidder. Taking care of these confused animals was a miserable job and it was difficult to find people who were willing to work with them. It was hard work with the possibility of being injured or eaten on a daily basis. No wonder, the things were probably still mad about what humans had done to them. The thousands of local Native Americans living in the area would not work with the animals either — they were horrified that any of the Creator’s beasts would be treated as anything less than a fellow inhabitant of mother earth and did not think well of humans mistreating them in any way. The only time Indians would come around to see the exotic animals was when the animal needed their assistance and encouragement. One of these occasions took place in the town of Delavan, Wisconsin, the original winter quarters and birthplace of many original small circuses.
Hired hands were in charge of feeding and caring for the animals. They came from surrounding areas or came along when a show would do a tour in another area. In these early days, not much was understood regarding the treatment and care of exotic animals. The giraffe in particular had special needs and one of the giraffes in Delavan was in distress ~ cause unknown.) For some reason, the men thought they should throw ropes around its neck to help it because they didn’t know what else to do. They must have thought if it lay down it would die and they tried to hold it up by the neck with these ropes. During this process the local Indian population stood around the scene as it occurred, praying for the giraffe. The giraffe ended up dying in agony, in front of everyone and there was much sorrow, especially from the Indians. The circus owner ranted and raved about his lost income. Tillie was a witness to this and it made quite an impact on her. She was very sad at the ignorance and greed of humans and the degradation of once proud animals. She also understood the Indians upset about the spiritual travail of the giraffe. She wished she could go to them and tell them thank you for their support of the giraffe and how sorry she was that her own people were displaying them in this way, but she couldn’t because not only could she not speak their language, but she had been warned to stay away from them by her papa and others who had told her Indians were bad, though she never believed it.
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