Mom and Pop were very strict and protective of all their children. But Pop sometimes went to extremes.
In Minneapolis, Dolly went ice skating and when she returned to the hotel her girl friend, who worked on the same bill with us, had the room next door. She overheard Dolly answer the telephone late that night and must have known who she was talking to, because the next morning this girl mentioned the phone call to Pop. He confronted the young man who called and punched him in the nose, saying “That will teach you to call young girls late at night.” Then Dolly, sitting in the lobby, got a lecture.
While we were working in Key West, I made friends with some children my age, which I seldom had a chance to do. The friendships were terminated very suddenly when Mom discovered I had “cooties” and she had to cut my hair to about one inch in length.
We had a collie, Laddie, and a large striped cat that looked like a tiger, Teddy, and they usually rode on the trucks. But Teddy had a peculiar habit of disappearing as soon as we hit a new town. Then, showing some remarkable ESP, he would always reappear when the trucks were being loaded for the next jump. Except for two occasions – everyone was frantically searching for him when it was time to leave. One of the local people suggested that we leave word with the police department, in the event that he was found. When my brothers went to the police station and explained the problem, an officer said “Come with me” and proceeded down a long corridor, past several jail cells. On reaching the last one, he unlocked it and motioned my brothers inside. They were a little nervous, naturally! But when they looked around, there was Teddy sitting in the corner.
The next time we were not so lucky. Teddy had left as usual and never returned. We all hoped – maybe he was just tired of traveling and had finally found a home he liked.
* * *
Bill dared Pop to grow a mustache and he liked it so much he kept it. And now he decided to grow a goatee. It made his appearance even more commanding. He was also beginning to have a drinking problem. He used to boast that he never took a drink or smoked until he was thirty. But then he must have tried to make up for lost time.
One of my earliest memories (I was three) was my father waking me in a hotel room, telling me he wanted to say goodbye because he was going to kill himself. I remember running down the hotel hallway looking for Mom and finding her with my brother Al. Pop never hurt himself. In Shanghai he tried to hang himself on a doorknob with a necktie. But first he telephoned Mom in the restaurant where we were having lunch. And that was the pattern, he always made sure someone knew when he made these threats.
Pop had the willpower to stop drinking for as long as six months. So he refused to believe that he had a drinking problem. He was a very different man when he was sober.
I have other, happier memories when I was a child. He would always bring me a doll when he returned from a trip. My favorites were Raggedy Ann and Andy. I would wake up some mornings to find them in the act of climbing a light fixture or curtain rod. I knew by the twinkle in Pop’s eye, how they got there.
One Christmas we were in Portland, Oregon, and Pop and I had been out for a walk. We paused in front of a department store window, where there were hundreds of Raggedy Anns and Andys with an Andy about three feet tall sitting in the midst of them. Of course I wanted it. And hoped Santa Claus would bring it.
We were on the Pantages Circuit at the time and half of the program was made up of variety acts. All the dressing rooms were around one large room or hall in the basement of the theatre. Some of the acts on the bill with us were George and Geraldine Spaulding, comedy skits, the Daimler Family acrobats, Chikita a dancer and Paule Paquita, also a dancer. Emily Darrell also performed with her little Boston Bulldog, Tilly.
Many years later I learned that my mother-in-law had been a famous musical comedy star and a headliner in vaudeville. She was a singer and she and Arthur Dunn were well known for the comedy skits they did. They toured mostly on the Pantages circuit.
She and Emily Darrell were close friends and Emily even knew my husband when he was a baby.
Marie married Jack Glazier [father of John Glazier, who later wed Mary Jansen, the author] when she was fifteen. She was not happy living with his parents while his job as traveling salesman took him away so much. After ten years she got a divorce and started her singing career.
Six years later Jack went after her and courted her lavishly with gifts and attention. It wasn’t until they were remarried that she found out that he had spent every nickel he had on winning her back! As far as I know her path never crossed with my parents. She retired from show business in 1911.
On that Christmas Eve, in Portland, there was an enormous tree and hundreds of presents for everyone. I did very well since it was also my birthday, but my best present was from Santa, Raggedy Andy. It was years before I learned the full story of my father returning to the department store and the problem he had buying the doll because they said it was not for sale, only a display item.
* * *
The early years were probably the happiest for my family as a whole. Maybe just because Pop was more of a father than a boss. We had much to be thankful for. No illnesses to speak of. We children were well disciplined and well behaved. Though I confess to being more than a little spoiled being the baby and Bill seven years older.
I was standing by the stage door one day, in Raleigh, North Carolina (about five years old) when a stranger offered to buy me an ice cream cone at the corner drug store, if I would tell him how “Sawing a Woman in Half” was done. I told him and with my ice-cream cone in hand went promptly backstage and told Mom and Pop! My Father didn’t get angry but explained very clearly why I should never do that again. And I never did.
Along about this time there were a few weeks when Bill went to work for Thurston. He was called upon to do “Sawing” for a few nights when the girl who usually did it was taken ill. When people from the audience were invited up on stage to examine the feet of the lady cut in half, Thurston would remove the shoe and taking scissors would cut one of the stockings off. Bill knew he was supposed to bathe his feet before each performance but he was overheard asking one night, “Which foot should I wash?”
When I was eight I began working the bottom half of “Sawing” and continued until I outgrew it, five years later. I soon learned how annoying, if not downright cruel, some of the audience participants could be. Pop always invited two or three people to come up on stage and watch everything very closely. There was always one “plant,” a member of our company, who looked very legitimate but would get a few laughs.
Al was exceptionally good at that. By wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, a different haircomb and a suit one size too small, most people couldn’t recognize him, in fact he looked a lot like [silent film actor] Harold Lloyd.
But the strangers on stage would, when asked to examine the feet, pinch, twist, pull and sometimes whip out a pin and jab. My brothers knew how to take care of such a person.
The next illusion was always the “Spirit Cabinet” because we still needed the audience participants. This illusion was a large (about six feet square) cabinet, double doors on three sides and a curtain in front, raised off the floor about two feet. The cabinet was first shown open and empty. Doors were closed and two stools were set inside, then the obnoxious foot stabber and my father were seated. The lights dimmed and Pop called on the “Spirits” to appear.
Objects began floating around in the cabinet and ghostly figures were seen. Until the final moment when the “Spirits” got very rowdy with the tambourines and one of them would boot the offending person out of the cabinet! This was done with Pop’s approval. He made sure no one was hurt and always helped them off the stage and back to their seat. Bill, who was one of the “Spirits,” was known at one time to use a hat-pin on the offending person.