Circus story from Delavan, Wisconsin

[Judy]

A few years ago, I wrote a short story about a Delavan circus family during the early 1800's. It is based on lore, no proof.

The story has not been published or circulated in any way, doesn't even have a title yet. It is too long to post here, but I would gladly send an attachment of the story via email to you.

I would love to find local reviewers who could verify whether certain items are correct so that the story flows well and easily understood?

Delavan is the primary location; however the main character does travel and her experiences might be of interest to some readers.

Judy

[keith]

Who said it's too long to post here? You could post it in a few parts, all in the same thread. C'mon, you can do it!



Regards,
Keith

[Judy]

Aw gosh why didn't I think of that! Well, I really wanted to see if anyone was interested. Thank you!

Ok, so I am fine tuning the thing; actually gathering more data from a historian in Texas, matter of fact!

The first part will be up in a bit. (week or so)

Judy

[Judy]

A Midwest Circus Girl Story - written for amusement the way I do best.


During the mid eighteen hundreds, circuses consisted of acts of courage and ability by artists and athletes who were capable of accomplishments most people could only wonder about. It was a lifestyle of choice by those who were not content with the average daily existence. They were happy-go-lucky; so different from those who thought life should be a tedious, serious ritual. Performers were admired for accomplishing things others only dreamed of! For instance:

Walking on a tightly pulled rope high up off the ground was one of the feats that made spectators wonder and exclaim out loud. Holding their breath in case someone missed a step. Entire circus families participated in these shows, down to the youngest child, who may have started out only as a babe in a basket on the back of a horseback rider, or held up in one hand by an athlete father as he balanced on a ball.
Swinging from ropes and hoops, riding, jumping, and doing flips on horses, dancing bears and dogs were common shows offered by the entertainers, which gave them enough money or bartered goods to feed themselves and their animal partners until the next show. It was a simple and happy lifestyle for these early artists in America.
Traveling circuses were home to a small cross section of people whose lives and hearts were most comfortable communicating with animals, nature and each other – making a living and livelihood from something they loved most of all.

It was in those early days of expansion in our country, west towards the Mississippi River by new European immigrants to this country that the tiny, bald, screaming Mathilde was born. She was the first child to this new family - her father was the tall, blond haired horse trainer and manager of the first Sells traveling circus. He had grown up in the Delavan, Wisconsin area. However, for circus work he lived with his family in a small trailer cottage, forerunner of the motor home and travel trailer of today. The small trailer had just enough room for built in beds and a bench for sleeping-main meals were made and served elsewhere for the entire group of performers but some of the little trailers had their own small kitchens for snacks and family meetings.
Mathilde learned to ride horses at an early age, before she could even walk. She loved performing with her papa – first by sitting with him on his horse, sometimes sitting on his shoulder and then riding a pony alone while he did tricks on his horse just in front of her as the ponies ran in circles, counterclockwise around the ring. This thrilled the crowd to see such small child on a large beast, completely calm and at ease, while still wearing diapers herself! What a life it was. And, very shocking to some.

When Mathilde was about 5 years old, some of the older women in the public crowds protested that since she was a little girl, she should be doing more sedate activities like playing with dolls and learning how to cook with her mother. But Tillie didn’t care for such things. She was more interested in the exciting circus way of life, lots of people, fun, adventure and travel. Her mother was not a key figure in her life, having had a much more conservative upbringing and coming from the severe religious background in Pennsylvania. Mother spent more and more time with her family in the east, riding the train back and forth a few times a year and leaving Tillie in Wisconsin to stay with her grandmother in Delavan. Her family disapproved of the circus lifestyle and put a lot of pressure on her to leave her husband and bring Tillie to live with them – this she did not want to do, as she loved her husband and there was a place for her behind the scenes with the other women creating costumes and sewing for the performers. She also wanted her daughter to be a daredevil the way she had never been allowed when she grew up herself, not so long before. It was sort of a rebellious nature of her own that she could live vicariously through her daughter without having to be the rebel herself. She encouraged her daughter to excel in whatever she did, and to ignore the old ladies and anyone making her wrong for doing what she liked.

When Tillie was about 8 years old and her curly white-blond hair had grown quite long, at one of the performances was uproar from some local ladies in town, about this young girl riding a horse! Young girls should not ride horses with their legs apart, they complained! They threatened to call authorities and file a complaint. Tillies papa realized it was because his daughter was so pretty that in fact one of the ladies had formed a scheme to have her taken away so this woman could raise her, as she could not have children herself and healthy happy children available for adoption on the orphan trains were hard to come by. So, from that time on and in the next town they performed, Tillie put her hair up under a cap and rode the ponies dressed as a boy! She wore leathers just like her papa, pants and all and they advertised her as Tommy the Boy Wonder. Nobody would complain about a boy – one day she was wrong as a girl, the next day she was right as a boy. Amazing, she thought.
Those ladies would faint if they knew!
Now nobody complained about a boy riding ponies, and this allowed Tillie to accomplish a lot more than she had before. She was able to jump and do flips, hang upside down and hop lightly along the backs of all the ponies, cart wheeling as they ran inside the circle under the tent to the music of Charlie O’Donnell; “My Pony Boy”. A live Oompha band performed this music for the spectators.
If Tillie fell off or somehow made a mistake, she learned to jump back up quickly, brush herself off, smile and jump back on the pony as if nothing had happened. It was a smooth show all the way. Papa had taught her early on that you never show pain or upset with anything to anyone, because it was all for the entertainment of an audience and an audience wants to be happy! She loved performing and watching the people react to her daring show. They cheered and clapped! It was a very happy life for Tillie and her family working as a team with all their friends in the circus.

[Judy]

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.

[Judy]

The rest of the story is posted in my journal in one piece. Certain details and sequences may be off, this is rough but hey it won't be read sitting in the drawer now will it?

Judy