Ernest M. Criss was born on September 24, 1880, in Lawrence, Kansas. He was the second child of Swaze and Minerva Criss.
Ernest Criss, circa 1900
In 1898, when the Spanish-American War broke out, Ernest enlisted in the US Army and served in the Philippines with the 20th Kansas Volunteer Infantry. Although the war ended by the end of that year, Ernest did not immediately return home. Instead, he joined other veterans to volunteer to fight on the side of the Boers in South Africa. He was shot in the shoulder soon after arriving but, after healing, remained in service until the end of the war in 1902.
Upon learning of the need for security at the upcoming 1904 World’s Fair in Saint Louis, and their desire to employ mostly honorably discharged soldiers from the Spanish-American War, Ernest signed up to serve in the Fair’s Jefferson Guards. He left Lawrence for Saint Louis in March 1904, arriving in time for training and to get fit for his uniform.
He served the Fair well until November 11 when, ironically, his assigned beat had him at the Boer War Exhibit (daily reenactments of key Boer War battles). A quarrel between a Boer and a Brit named John Backhouse turned into a violent scuffle. Criss charged in to break up the fight, but soon found himself entangled in the donnybrook, … and in danger. Ultimately and sadly, he shot Mr. Backhouse in the abdomen, resulting in his death two hours later. Mr. Backhouse was a newlywed, having met another fair employee, Kitty Tatch, on the fairgrounds that summer and marrying her soon thereafter. [1]
Boer War Reenactment Program (one of many formats)
Criss was arrested and detained to await action by the coroner. Two weeks later, a coroner’s jury exonerated him, determining that he had shot Mr. Backhouse in self-defense. [The Jefferson Guards were not generally issued firearms, but they were allowed to carry their own.]
The Spanish-American War had a significant impact on the US. The victory liberated Cuba (the main goal) as well as Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines from Spain. The US kept Puerto Rico and Guam as strategic territories, while setting Cuba and the Philippines on the path to independence. The Army and government administration staff were required to support, protect, and guide the Philippines, and Ernest re-enlisted and went over to help. He only occasionally returned home over the next few decades — to renew his passport and visit his family.
Along the way Criss met and married a Filipina named Isidra Quintos. They had five children together, all girls. Isidra died in 1929.
Criss’s military record kind of dries up around 1919, yet he remained in Manila. I assume he left the military (age 39, and perhaps already having about a 20-year career). It seems he went to work for the US Government, helping the Philippines set up their government administration. Ernest served in the Philippines until December 1941— December 8 to be exact — when the Japanese launched their surprise attacks all across the central and western Pacific Ocean. [2]
Ernest joined many Americans and Filipinos who fled to the Bataan Peninsula. They held out against the army of the Rising Sun until April 9, 1942. That’s when they ultimately surrendered, and the notorious Bataan Death March began. Ernest, weakened by the privations of months in the jungle at the age of 61, did not even survive until the end of the March’s first day. Unfortunately, his remains have not been found.
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[1] (a) At least one newspaper source has the incident occurring when Criss was off duty, at around 4:30 PM.
(b)Among the reenactments, the Battle of the Transvaal was reenacted twice daily on a 15-acre for the War exhibit. The Spanish-American War was represented also, with daily reenactments of the Battle of Manila Bay.
[2] Note that the Day of Infamy, December 7, was December 8 in the Philippines. Dateline. The surprise there was nearly coincident with Pearl Harbor, occurring just a few hours later as dawn approached, as well as Wake Island, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Midway.
Military record. Sparse, but there are muster rolls that one can scroll through, if one has time.
[3] Boer is Afrikaans for farmer. Closely related to the German word: Bauer.
Author notes: Back story: while perusing very old newspaper clippings in the reference section of the old and extraordinarily beautiful St Louis downtown library I came across the faintest thread of this story. Intrigued, I dug for more when I had time. Then: I dug and dug and dug. Getting anything close to a full story was quite an adventure. This story has almost completely faded into history’s mists and fogs. Here’s what I could cobble together.
“There’s no tick tock on your electric clock,
But still your life runs down.” from “Halfway to Heaven”
— composed and sung by Harry Chapin
Prologue
Among many conspicuous factoids that jump out at me as I observe the world in all its splendor is the astounding number of people who have achieved extraordinarily at young ages.
Usually I come across these individuals while doing research for some other thread. The Internet has made such research endeavors almost unbelievably easy, especially for one who grew up seeking information with only one option: going to the library and fumbling through frayed catalog cards and struggling with the Dewey Decimal system. And, the internet has also made it easy to drift off onto tangents.
Book Cover: Chernow’s excellent and thorough biography on Hamilton
Examples are many. Alexander Hamilton and the young Lafayette of America’s birthing years. Isaac Newton, at age 22 and on leave from university during the plague, whiled away his time musing about sundry things, like gravity, light, and fascinating aspects of mathematics. This led him to the theory of gravity, and a whole new class of mathematics, integral calculus, to prove it. And the nature of light. And a method to compute Pi to many digits quite quickly. Then the plague ended. He returned to school.
Even a partial list is imposing. Alexander the Great pretty much conquered and ruled the world in his 20s; his accomplishments even intimidated Julius Caesar. Joan of Arc was in her teens when she led the French to victory over the English. Nadia Comaneci, at age 14, was the first to score a perfect 10 in Olympics gymnastics. The Beatles were 20-24 years old when they rode the wave of Beatlemania to #1 … in the world.
Speaking of music. This realm is not without more than a few other names, particularly those of the “27 Club”; great musical artists who perished at that age, including Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. They all passed on from drug abuse complications. Clean living is no guarantee however — JP Richardson, The Big Bopper, made it to 28, only to go down in a Beech Bonanza, in a foggy snowstorm in a field in Iowa, “the day the music died.”
Following are three short bios of individuals who lived and played with elan, achieved greatly — and left the scene — relatively young. The Comet, The Sweet Georgian, and The Paderewski of Rag.
The Comet
My dad was born and raised in Chicago; I was born there. Although we moved to near Milwaukee when I was but an innocent lad of 6 years old, we remained loyal to “Da Bears” and the Cubs for decades, despite all my new friends’ allegiance to the Braves (who dumped Milwaukee for Atlanta in 1966), later the Brewers, and of course, “the Pack.”
50s and 60s style rabbit ears, with aluminum foil
I remember trying to watch televised games from Chicago, some 90 miles away. We’d string wire through the trees in the back yard, or sometimes I’d stand beside the TV, holding the rabbit-ear antennae just right, usually with aluminum foil wrapped around them in odd shapes (most called it “tin foil”).
“Got it! Don’t move Joe!”
Usually we failed, or the blurry images were barely visible through the “snow”; then we’d give up and listen to a Chicago radio station – that would be WGN, at 720 kHz on AM. As a historic Clear Channel, and at 50 kilowatts, a good reception was a high likelihood.
Gale Sayers, looks like rookie or sophomore pic
In 1965 a rookie arrived on the scene for our beloved Bears: Gale Sayers. An exciting running back — fast, shifty and elusive — who could also return kicks. Raised in Omaha, Nebraska, he attended and played football for Kansas University. There he was a two time All-American, picking up the nickname “Kansas Comet.” Of course, as a youngster I didn’t know any of that; I learned that years later by reading his autobiography.
But I did know he was very, very exciting… and annoying to Packers’ fans. I was into my teens — cleaning zit ejecta from the bathroom mirror — before I stopped drawing his number (“40”) on my shirts to wear during pick-up football games.
During a game against San Francisco, in his rookie season of 1965, my dad and I followed probably the most remarkable game a rookie ever had, or ever will have. Sayers scored six touchdowns, 4 by rushing, 1 on a pass (80 yards), and another on a punt return (85 yards). It was a late season game, so Sayers’ skills were now well-known, and the 49ers had redesigned their defense and kick coverage specifically to stop Sayers. To no avail. [video highlights here]
We were of course aware the mighty Packers were playing an important game across the country, in Baltimore, that same day. Their most glamorous player, Paul Hornung, had been struggling for quite some time with injuries; most notably a neck injury that caused a pinched nerve, accompanied by numbness and “stingers” running down his arms. He was having a mediocre season and had been forced to sit out a few games. That he was playing at all is testament to his mental and physical toughness … and to the stupidity of American Football.
Paul Hornung scored five touchdowns that day, a Packer single-game record that still stands. The next few days all my excited Milwaukee friends wanted to tell me about those five touchdowns. In a voice that probably failed to conceal my satisfaction, despite its soft tone (I had a bad stammer, and it was not cool to be a Bears fan in Wisconsin, even way back then) I replied: you know, Sayers scored six.
In 1965, Sayers set the NFL single season record of 22 touchdowns, coincidently at age 22. It’s been surpassed eleven times now, but he did that in only 14 games. The rest, except OJ Simpson in 1975, had the benefit of 16 game seasons. (Last year, ridiculously, and inviting further brain damage to players, they expanded to 17 games).
The next season Sayers led the league in rushing. Then disaster. He suffered repeated knee injuries, the first while playing against, ironically, the same San Francisco 49ers against whom he set the touchdown record. He gamely came back after each knee injury and surgery (remember, this is way before arthroscopic surgery … the rehab was just brutal) and an ankle injury as well. He still showed flashes of brilliance, but he’d never be the same Gale Sayers, again.
Comets light up our skies and provide us with something to marvel at, but they come and go quickly. The same with Gale Sayers, the Kansas Comet. He retired at age 28, leaving fans with great memories from a career that spanned just a few years.
So phenomenal were those few years, that Sayers was named to 4 Pro Bowl games (the NFL All-Star game), twice earning Game MVP [link]. Remarkable: he only played four full seasons. In a fifth partial season, he was limited to only 9 games after two more knee injures — he still rushed for 856 yards with an astounding average of 6.2 yards per carry. He was inducted into the NFL Football Hall of Fame at the age of just 34 years old, the youngest ever to be so honored.
Sayers used his injury down time to get additional education, eventually earning a Masters Degree, as well as rehab. After retirement he first moved into sports management, picking up duties as Athletic Director at alma mater Kansas University and then AD over at Southern Illinois University. Thereafter, he started his own very successful computer company, which he then ran until retirement.
Brian Piccolo — gone too soon
We can’t talk about Sayers without at least briefly mentioning Brian Piccolo, and the friendship they shared. Piccolo and Sayers came up together, both finishing their college football careers in 1964. Piccolo, playing for Wake Forest, led the NCAA in rushing that year; he actually nudged out Sayers in the Heisman Trophy voting. (10th and 11th).
A tough hard running back, Piccolo was not as speedy or flashy as Sayers. He went undrafted. Signing a free agent deal with the Bears, Piccolo eventually worked his way up from the Practice Squad to regular roster player, often teamed up alongside Sayers in the backfield.
Coach George Halas decided it was a good idea to have teammates who played similar positions room together when the team traveled. A budding friendship further bloomed: the black Gale Sayers roomed with the lily-white Brian Piccolo. The first such roommate pairing in the NFL. They even had sequential numbers: Sayers #40, Piccolo #41.
As anyone who’s seen the gut-wrenching movie “Brian’s Song” knows, Piccolo soon contracted a rare form of cancer and passed away, aged only 26.
Final link: Sayers and Hornung. Probably not coincidentally, except perhaps the timing, these stars passed away recently, within a few weeks of each other, in the autumn of 2020. Both struggled mightily with cognitive decline, then dementia, in their later years. Although no investigations were performed, it’s highly likely each suffered from CTE – chronic traumatic encephalopathy – the worst curse of American football.
Sweet Georgian: Bobby
I enjoy the sport of golf. It can be relaxing and wonderfully distracting. The exercise and fresh air one gets from playing are healthy, and so are the companionships that develop. I’ve made a study of the game, including the physics and the history. I may not play well, but I can understand physics and history. One name all golf historians recognize is Bobby Jones.
Born in 1902 in Atlanta, Jones was blessed in many ways: coordinated, intelligent, self-driven and well-reared in a well-off family. But as a youth he had severe health problems. For example, he was unable to eat solid food until age 5, which probably stunted his growth in these important years.
Doctors prescribed golf to young Bobby. He lived across the street from a golf course (now the famous East Lake) which provided plenty of opportunity to play and learn. He took well to the game, and by age 14 was playing – and doing well – in national tournaments.
While playing golf competitively at the highest levels, Jones attended nearby Georgia Tech, earning a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Then, he went off to Harvard University, earning another degree, this in English Literature. [during his most competitive golf years, Jones would relax in the clubhouse before matches by reading Milton, Shakespeare and Chaucer]. Then, back home to Atlanta-based Emory University to study law. Jones never fully completed his law studies at Emory, as he passed the Georgia Bar exam after his third semester, aged only 25. He immediately began practicing law.
Along the way, he married his high school sweetheart and became a head of household: they had three children.
One can only marvel that through all this Bobby Jones compiled one of the most extraordinary golf careers in all of history, and certainly by far the greatest of any amateur golfer.
At age 21, Jones won the US Open. Over the next 7 years he’d win another 12 major tournaments, culminating with the Grand Slam – all four majors – in 1930.
After the Grand Slam (also called “The Impregnable Quadrilateral” at the time) Jones promptly retired, without warning — shocking the sports world. Like Sayers, he was only 28 years old. He had proved what he needed to. He reached heights fans and historians still marvel at.
Robert “Bobby” Tyre Jones — in his prime
Was he the greatest, the so-called GOAT? It’s so hard to compare eras. For example, Jones accomplished all this with hickory shafted clubs and golf balls that couldn’t be trusted to behave the same from one to another – even from the same box of balls! Greens weren’t smooth. He did all this while studying Engineering, Literature and then Law – and then practicing Law and raising a family. [It is said that during an exhibition match at San Francisco’s Olympic Lake course, Jones reached the green of the 600 yard 16th hole in two shots — a prodigious feat by any era’s standards; he did it with hickory shafted clubs. His reaction? A sheepish smile.] If Jones isn’t the GOAT, he’s near the top.
Although his career as golf competitor was over after 1930, Jones’ involvement with golf continued. Working with the Spalding Company he helped design and promote the first steel-shafted matched clubs. He founded the Augusta Golf Club, which hosted the tournament he founded, now called The Masters. He made a series of golf instructional videos – lost for decades; recently found – which are probably the most famous ever, using high speed cameras and special lighting. Ironic, but it was for these instructional and technical ventures that Jones gave up his golf amateur status; he never accepted a dime for any of his many achievements playing golf.
In the 1940s Jones was still a vibrant and intellectual man. But soon something was wrong. He was weakening too fast, and in pain. In 1948 he was diagnosed with a rare condition called Syringomyelia, in which cysts form and grow in the spinal cord, impinging the nerve channels. It had been developing for decades, perhaps since birth.
President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower’s painting of Bobby Jones
Jones’ life on earth lasted until 1971. Those final decades were marked by extreme pain and progressing paralysis. Starting in the ‘40s he became acquaintances with a man who would become President: Dwight D “Ike” Eisenhower. Theirs would grow to a great friendship of mutual admiration. Ike was like many other world leaders, from Churchill, to Prince Charles, to Franco and even George W Bush — he enjoyed painting . Ike, also like many of us, really enjoyed golf. He fell in love with Jones’ Augusta Golf Club and course. In 1953 Ike presented Jones with a painting of his good friend: a younger and healthier Bobby Jones. [1]
Paderewski of Ragtime [2]
This final tale of Ticks and Tocks is the story that started the germination of this entire essay. I learned about it in a recent newsletter of the 1904 World’s Fair Society, of which my wife and I are members.
For the threads of many gleaned tidbits, I must give credit to newsletter regular contributor Jim Wiemers, the society’s Music Collector.
Ragtime music is certainly a historic throwback; its golden era was around the last turn of the century, from the 1890s to the mid-1910s. But it’s certainly still enjoyed today. It’s cheery. It’s jaunty. Its syncopated rhythms are catchy. Personally, I’ve enjoyed it since watching the 1973 film “The Sting,” which featured Scott Joplin’s ragtime classic The Entertainer throughout the movie. [Confession: The Entertainer is the only specific Rag tune I can confidently identify].
Rag was not considered respectable music from its beginning, not for at least 10-15 years. No doubt that’s because its roots lie in the African-American communities of that era, most notably in Saint Louis.
In 1904, the leadership of the Saint Louis World’s Fair (officially “The Louisiana Purchase Exposition”) denigrated the music form and wouldn’t permit it to be played on the main Fair Grounds. Some Rag was played along The Pike, which, in many ways, was sort of a “side show” to the Fair. {Pike description}
This was a great loss to anyone seeking a combination of contemporary culture and art. And it was most unfortunate, since the acclaimed all-time king of Rag and Rag Composition, Scott Joplin, lived in Saint Louis at the time. [You can still visit the house he lived in, on the edge of downtown Saint Louis, just a few miles from Forrest Park, site of the Fair.]
Although most of us today are hard-pressed to name Rag stars of that era besides Joplin, there certainly were many.
According to Fair and music historians, at least three contemporary stars of Rag played on the Fair’s Pike: Louis Chauvin, Sam Patterson, and Arthur Marshall.
Marshall played at the Spanish Café, in the Streets of Seville exhibit, for $12/week (he could’ve made $25 over at the Rosebud Bar, but not on the Fairgrounds). The job lasted less than a month, as his music was too often drowned out by the bands playing at Hagenbeck’s Animal Show (well, the Pike was sort of a collection of sideshows and odd exhibits, displays and experiences). Marshall was replaced by an Iberian Orchestra. [3] He outlived most the era’s Ragtimers, and was able to provide firsthand testimony on many of the personalities and events to historians decades later.
Sam Patterson and Louis Chauvin played two-piano Rag at the Old St Louis Restaurant and Bar on the Pike [for a great map of the Pike at the 1904 World’s Fair, go to bottom of this page: click here. For a great interactive zoomable map of the entire Fair, here]. [4]
Patterson and Chauvin grew up together in Saint Louis, which was rather a Rag hotbed. They dropped out of school at 15 and 13, respectively, formed a musical touring group, and traveled the country. Later, they returned to Saint Louis, studying and performing – including at the 1904 Fair – before setting off again.
Louis Chauvin (1881-1908) — just not any good photos of him on the internet
Patterson held various musical jobs and even joined Joplin in New York City for a while, helping him complete the ragtime opera “Treemonisha” before Joplin’s untimely death in 1917, aged 58.
And then there was the prodigy, Louis Chauvin, often called “Paderewski of Ragtime.” [2] A true superstar of the original Ragtime era. He was a regular performer at Tom Turpin’s Ruby Bar in Saint Louis, a nexus for Ragtime talent. [Quick aside: we note that Turpin himself was an early Ragtime leader, not only through his bar as a Rag performance venue, but through his talent: his works include the very first published Ragtime piece: Harlem Rag.]
Chauvin played only by ear and could re-create any piece he heard; if it wasn’t Rag, he put his own Rag-spin on it. He could adapt any melody to Rag, including a Sousa march. Contemporaries pretty much agreed: Chauvin was the best. They were all in awe. But none of his creations were ever written down. His only published work was a team effort with Scott Joplin: Heliotrope Bouquet.
Sadly for him and the music world, Chauvin’s lifestyle was terrible for his health. According to Patterson “He stayed up, drank, and made lots of love … he only seemed to be living when he was at the piano. It’s authentic that he smoked opium at the last.” Chauvin passed away at age 27. Various causes were listed, but modern assessments would largely pin it on neurosyphilis … that’s a long term case of the STD syphilis, resulting in coma and, ultimately, starvation.
Epilogue
Sayer’s career was over at 28. Injuries. Jones also at 28, by choice; other things to do. Piccolo gone at 26.
Chauvin, perhaps the first member of the great “27 Club.”
I really wanted this to be upbeat. To be a tribute to so many who accomplished so much, and so young. Alexander Hamilton setting up a new nation’s finances and banking system at age 32. Leading a charge at the battle that cinched American independence at 24. Dead in a duel at 47.
Sorry that this took a bit of a dour turn. That’s why it took me so long to finish and publish. I was looking for a cheery way out.
Hey, it’s never too late to do something! Harland Sanders founded Kentucky Fried Chicken at age 62, after already (1) having made and lost a fortune, (2) bounced around the country losing jobs as varied and crazy as kaleidoscope patterns, and (3) also having survived a genuine shoot out. [5]
Father William Treacy, the priest who married us, turns 103 this week. He still says Sunday Mass, preaching inspirationally as he’s done for 80 years, on love, humanity, brotherhood, peace, compassion and acceptance. [6]
Thanks for reading. As always, you can add yourself to the notification list for newly published material by clicking here. Or emailing joe@girardmeister.com
[1] This famous painting hangs on the wall of the Chairman’s office at Augusta National. Reprints are available, but good ones are not cheap. Ike presented it to Jones shortly after taking the oath of office, 1953. He had been working on it for some time, including through the presidential campaign season.
[2] Ignacy Pedrewski, a Pole, was widely regarded as the best pianist in Europe at the time. As his name shows up in Saint Louis, obviously he was world renowned. An animated performer, he largely played classical music from the likes of Bach, Beethoven, & Chopin (of course) to large audiences. Known for reworking pieces to his own style (as did Chauvin), he went on to become Poland’s Prime Minister when it won its Independence as a favorable outcome of WWI.
[3] They All Played Ragtime, by Rudi Bush
[4] At nearly two square miles (1,270 acres) the 1904 LPE Saint Louis Fair was the world’s largest until the 2010 Shanghai Fair, which nudged ahead at 1,292 acres. Close behind are the Chicago Fair of 1939, at 1,202 acres and the current 2020-22 Dubai World’s Fair, which has been cursed by Covid, at 1,100 acres.
1900. The Games of the II Olympiad are underway as part of the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. The Track and Field events are being conducted in the stadium of the Racing Club de France Football. It is not the fancy stadium or field we would come to expect of Olympic Games decades hence – Racing Club plays in the 5th tier of French national soccer (football). But, it is conveniently located close to the fairgrounds. Not far away, just under a mile, and across the historic River Seine, the 1,000-foot-tall Eiffel Tower – built as an awe-inspiring eye-catching fascination for the 1889 Fair – is in view.(1)
June 16. Ray stands beside the bar as required for this event: the standing high jump. No running approach or adjustment of feet position is permitted. He takes a moment to gaze at its World Record height; so prodigious a height that, if cleared, it would have sufficed to earn a medal in the regular running high jump in the previous Athens Olympics. He begins his unique routine, breathing slowly and deeply, focusing his attention, gradually folding his lanky legs into a deep squat, stretching his powerful quad, calf, and glute muscles. As his squat deepens, he begins to swing his arms, farther and farther, back and forth. Then – suddenly! – he explodes almost straight up.
Standing High Jump, Ray Ewry
Would it be Ironic that a man who came to world prominence labeled as “The Human Frog” would have the most life-altering circumstance of his entire life crash upon him during a silly race involving frogs? Because, after Ray Ewry’s performances in the II Olympic Games – winning three Olympic Championships in all three standing jumping events in a single day – that’s what the French media and fans called him: La grenouille humaine. And the name stuck.
I have found that a firm definition of the word Ironic is difficult to pin down, although many English speakers use the word often. As Merriam-Webster states: “The word irony has come to be applied to events that are merely curious or coincidental …” Best fit might be when a word’s, or a phrase’s usage – or a real-life outcome – is far different than what one would expect. Or as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said (of something completely different): “I know it when I see it.”
Ray Ewry was that man of world prominence.
Standing High Jump, Olympics, Ray Ewry
He was born in October, 1873, in Lafayette, Indiana. That’s the seat of Tippecanoe County, lying along the Wabash River, and contains its companion waterway: the Wabash Canal. The river, the canal, and even the county fair and fairgrounds provided entertainment for young Ray. But his life wasn’t even close to easy.
Much of America and Europe went through a canal building craze in the early 19th century. These ambitious waterway constructions facilitated the transportation of goods and product. In America grain went from the breadbaskets of the heartland to oceanic ports and thence to other American cities and to the world. Canals also facilitated the flow of all sorts of necessities to the heartland: forged machinery, stoves, clothing, boots, even sawn lumber and fine European clothing and furniture. (One tip-off regarding canal building and its significance is the number of inland US cities with the suffix “-port” in their name, such as Logansport, Gasport, Middleport, Brockport, etc. There are at least 4 Lockports, of course all near canal locks: one each in Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, and New York states).
US Major Canals, circa 1853
Thousands of miles of canals were constructed. The Erie Canal is probably the most famous and enduring. It opened in 1825 and traversed northern New York state for some 360-plus miles, connecting the four Great Lakes above Niagara Falls to the Atlantic Ocean … and thus helped make many cities along those Great Lakes become commercial and transportation hubs (Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, etc.), and also helped make New York City into the gigantic hub of commercial trade. That’s a status it enjoys to this day.
Of the significant but lesser-known canals we consider the longest North American canal at nearly 500 miles: the Wabash & Erie Canal. This canal network connected Toledo’s Maumee Bay, at the western end of Lake Erie to Evansville, Indiana, on the right bank of the mighty Ohio River. From there transportation to and from the Mississippi and to the Gulf of Mexico was possible.
With construction beginning near Toledo in 1832, and finally reaching Evansville in 1853, the canal’s long-term future (as for many other canals) was doomed before it was completed, even though it had been in use since the first few miles of the big ditch were dug. The steam powered “Iron Horse” was the next transportation rage. Fueled with coal and using rapidly developing steel technology for engines, wheels and rails, the railroad would almost immediately surpass and suppress the potential of canals for convenient transportation.
1904 Saint Louis. The Games of the III Olympiad are underway, again as part of a World’s Fair. The Track & Field events are occurring on the newly constructed Athletic Field of Washington University (now known as Francis Olympic Field). Again, the field lacks much of the glamour and size we’d grow to expect in future decades. The University is in the process of moving from downtown Saint Louis to just across the city limits. Its many buildings and grounds are still works-in-progress. Just a few yards away from the Athletic Field, the World’s Fair is using the University’s new Admin Building as headquarters for its massive spread of 1,270 acres of exhibitions – the largest Fair until Shanghai over a century later, in 2010. And just a bit further away the Ferris Observation Wheel, at 264 feet tall with a capacity of 2,160 passengers is clearly visible.
August 29. Ray stands at one end of the Long Jump pit. His feet are on the ground; this is a standing jumping event. He’d need one of his better jumps to secure 1st place and a gold medal (the 1904 Olympics were the first with gold, silver and bronze medals). He gazes out to a spot well over 3 meters away, to world and Olympic record distance. Fellow American Charles King has already broken Ray’s Olympic record at 3.21 meters. Ray quiets his pensive, disciplined mind and begins his now well-known routine. When he leaps, his explosiveness surprises no one. When he lands – properly not falling backward – the crowd roars its appreciation. Ray has set a new World and Olympic Record at 3.47 meters (11 feet, 4.6 inches) – and won himself another Olympic championship.
Ray Ewry, Standing Long Jump, 1904 Olympics, Saint Louis
Unlike Paris, the Olympic events are spread out over several months; yet like Paris, most of the athletic (track and field) Olympic competitions were crammed into just a few days. In Paris, all of Ray’s events were held on a single day; in Saint Louis his events spread out a bit. Yet, Ray won three golds again, sweeping the standing jumping events, between August 29 and September 3. Although he set a record in the Long Jump, his other numbers were off from his personal best – a trend he had begun to notice in his training.
Not much detail is known of Ray Ewry’s early life in Lafayette, except that it was profoundly difficult. I found little. He had one sibling, a sister, Mabel, a few years younger. His father, George, was prone to drink. His mother, Lizzie, died of “consumption” (now known as tuberculosis) when he was only 5-½ years old, and his sister was still a toddler. Sodden with alcohol and sorrow, Ray’s father was unable to deal with the duties of sole parent, household management, and employment – so he turned to his friends and neighbors, the Elisha family, to raise his children. Mary Elisha became Ray’s and Mabel’s mother. Mr. George Ewry then vanished forever. Ray was an orphan.
Little was known about diseases – including hygiene and sanitation – even late into the 19th century. And little could be done for what was known. Thanks to Hooke and van Leeuwenhoek, the prolific lives of bacteria were certainly known, yet Fleming’s discovery of penicillin was decades away, and widespread use of it even further. Viruses were unknown, although they were proved to exist in the 1890s; yet they were so small they were little understood until well into the 20th century. ____________________________________________________________________________
In Lafayette Indiana, like many other places, children frequently played in, and splashed about in, fetid waters. Ray Ewry often did such when he was not off playing at the county fairgrounds. He’d jump and swim in the Wabash Canal or River. All the kids did. No one really thought much of it.
2021. It’s still the time of coronavirus, or Covid-19, although – hopefully – the end is nigh. Or at least major relief. Tokyo will host the Olympics with essentially zero spectators. Of the countless types of viruses, there are a tiny fraction that can have horrible effects on humans. But a tiny fraction of a very large number is still a large number. Among this vile fraction are a set of three that can cause conditions that terrify anyone: the polio viruses.
These are three similar but distinctly different polio viruses. Call them variations on a gene. All are highly contagious and are different enough that vaccines must contain three different antigen triggers. Thankfully two types are considered to be fully eradicated from the earth, and the other is found only in remote places – mostly Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Much as with Covid-19, the vast majority of people who got infected with a polio virus suffered very mild-to-no symptoms; some medical sites say 95-99%. Of those with symptoms, most might have felt like they had a mild cold, or flu, and feel achy for a few days, or maybe a week. Perhaps a slight fever. And then it was gone. [Also, like Covid-19, these asymptomatic infections can spread the virus]. What history and imagination conjures up for us is the one-in-two hundred or so who suffered some sort of paralysis. The onset of paralysis was usually some time – several days, or even a week, or more – after the body had seemingly “beaten” the virus. Overwhelmingly such paralysis victims were children: from very young to adolescents.
The odd adult case has a most memorable example. Franklin Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the US, was stricken with polio paralysis at age 39 – the year after he had unsuccessfully stood for Vice-President as the Democratic Party nominee. About 75% of such polio paralysis victims eventually get most, even all, capability back in their stricken limbs and muscles. Roosevelt was among the minority who did not.
Sadly, for those who do recover, there is a high incidence of PPS – Post Polio Syndrome. After many years, even after decades, the previously afflicted muscles begin to slowly weaken, and may eventually fail altogether. The biological mechanism is not understood, as the virus itself is long gone from the body, and – now that Polio is nearly totally eradicated thanks to diligent vaxxing of all children – the phenomenon may never be understood. Perhaps the aging body just “remembers” the condition and reverts back to it.
There are other infectious diseases that can have long-lasting effects, long after the infection is beaten. One is caused by the genus of streptococcus bacteria. Bacteria are much larger than viruses, but just as devious. They are frequently “opportunistic”: the body generally fights them off well, but they still strike hard when the body is run down, perhaps fighting another infection (often viral), or there is a large cut or scrape to the skin, as often happens to young boys.
Strep bacteria have distinct proteins on their cell coating which the human body’s immune system identifies as antigens: something to attack and kill. But sometimes the body is too run-down to fight the bacteria off quickly, or perhaps, after the age of Fleming, the use of antibiotics is delayed. When strep hangs around the body for a while, the immune system gets over-programmed to attack the marked bacteria’s protein in its cell coating. Unfortunately, that protein is very similar to other proteins that the body needs, such as in the muscles of the heart. And tissue in the joints. The result is Rheumatic Fever. It is usually a life-long struggle. It’s an auto-immune disorder: the body attacks itself.
It was probably not uncommon to suffer such an infection along with a viral infection … like polio.
1906, Athens. The International Olympic Committee has decided to hold another Olympic Games competition to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the first modern era Olympics, also held in Athens. Dubbed the “Second International Olympic Games of Athens”, they were the first clear forerunner to the much spot-lighted and hyped-up Olympics we know today. Well planned, highly promoted, and separate from a World’s Fair. The track and field events are held near the center of ancient Athens, in the Panathenaic Stadium, a magnificent edifice, fully worthy of the Olympics, which remains today the only stadium built entirely of marble. So magnificent, in fact, that it was used as a main venue for the 1896 and the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, as well as 1906.
Olympic Stadium, Athens, Olympiakó Stádio Athinon
Ray Ewry successfully defends his Olympic Championship in two events, the standing high jump and standing long jump. After the 1904 games, the standing triple jump was removed from the Olympic event list, for which Ray and his aging body were grateful. A tad discouraged by failing, yet again, to reach the height and distances of his previous performances, Ray nonetheless takes the time to scoop up some soil from the Athenian Olympic field and take it back to America.
June, 1881. School is out. Ray and his friends spend many muggy days playing in and around the old horse and wagon trails, taking time to splash about to cool off and “rinse off” in the fetid waters of the nearly abandoned Wabash Canal, part of the lengthy Erie & Wabash canal system. Catching a few frogs was not out of the question. Such “boy things” were commonly done, and no one thought much about it.
In June Ray caught a bad cold, perhaps a flu, with fever, chills and aches. His greatest fear was missing the Tippecanoe County Fair. To him the Fair’s highlight would be the Wheelbarrow Frog Race, to be held on July 4th.
Such “Frog” races were rather new to America, and especially Tippecanoe County. Apparently the highly entertaining, laugh-a-minute race idea came along with immigrants from Italy. The general idea is that each contestant gets a wheelbarrow (with low sides, or even no sides) and a frog. Place a frog on each wheelbarrow and run. Race distances were from a few hundred yards to a mile. You must complete the race with both a wheelbarrow and a frog upon the wheelbarrow to win.
Frogs are generally placid and stay put … until the slightest bump or turn occurs. Whereupon they jump off, and the unfortunate contestant must discard their wheelbarrow, stop running the race, and start running after their frog – hopefully retrieving it quickly. It was not uncommon, and considered within the rules, that contestants would bump each others wheelbarrows.
Fortunately for Ray, he recovered from his summer “bug” after a few days, and Mary Elisha allowed him to participate in this hilarious half-mile race. A bunch of young boys with small wheelbarrows and frog aboard (perhaps caught in the canal) took off from the starting line. Along the dirt race path each participant, of course, had his frog escape from time-to-time: that’s the whole idea and the source of the fun. Sometimes boys would catch each others’ escaped frogs (rules say one needs “a frog” to win, not “the frog you started with”). It was such fun for all of them and for the spectators!!
While chasing his escaped frog Ray began to feel tingling in his legs, like something he’d never felt before. Each time the frog escaped and he chased it down, the tingling experience was of short duration; yet, each time it was longer and more intense; and each time he ignored the funny tingling and began running the race again once he had his frog aboard his wheelbarrow. Coming down the home stretch Ray felt like he had a chance to win. The leader was just a few strides ahead. He ran and pushed as hard as he could. No sense risking losing his frog now. At full stride, the tingling returned. It turned to weakness. The faster he tried to run the weaker his legs became.
With what seemed like the whole county watching, Ray fell face first onto the race path. Had he stumbled? Horrified, Mary Elisha and others watched as he tried to get up and complete the race. But Ray couldn’t get up. His legs were completely paralyzed. At 7-½years old.
1908, London. The Games of the III Olympiad are again, and for the last time, held as part of a World’s Fair. The IOC had found, from experience in 1900 and 1904, that holding the games concurrent with such a grand Fair was not consistent with their vision for the future of the games… especially after the success of the 1906 games in Athens, which stood alone, and shone greatly.
The 1908 games were awarded to Italy, to be hosted in Rome. Unfortunately, the catastrophic 1906 eruption of Vesuvius had stressed the Italian government greatly, and they backed out as host of the games. London, which was to host another grand World’s Fair in 1908 (they had hosted what is arguably the first modern World’s Fair, in 1851) would now host the Olympics for the first time. [Rome finally hosted the Olympics in 1960, and the achievements of Wilma Rudolf there are not without remarkable parallels to Ray Ewry. London hosted again in 1948 and 2012].
At the astonishing age of nearly 35 (for a track and field athlete) Ray Ewry again defends his Olympic title in both the standing Long and High jumps, eking out height and distance just barely ahead of 2nd place. Quietly both proud of his achievement and also a tad disappointed in his slipping numbers, Ray takes home the last two of his ten Olympic first place awards. He is 10 for 10, winner of 10 events and undefeated in his Olympic career. Unheard of even today for a multiple gold medal winner.
1881-1891. Young Ray is distraught and discouraged by his condition: Paralyzed and bed-ridden. Mary Elilsha refuses to give up, reaching out to doctors and medical centers far and wide. There is full consensus: this is a life-long condition. Ray is forever paralyzed. But one doctor provides a glimmer of hope: perhaps some physical therapy could possibly help. It might well have just been a simple kind thing to say to a grieving “mom” like Mary. No sense heaping more grief on her, and Ray.
Mary runs with this advice. She finds a woman with a therapy background willing to spend time with Ray. Some research suggests her name was “Kate”, but the source is not firm. Nevertheless, she quickly moves past massage and assisted range-of motion stretches; she improvises with a peach basket, cutting two holes in the bottom and hanging it from a rope suspended over a pulley on the barn. Ray, wheelchair-bound, was lifted into the basket, its height adjusted with the pulley so that his feet barely touched the ground.
“Push Ray, Push!”
Day after day, month after month, year after year, Ray spent endless hours in the basket.
“Push Ray, Push!”
Slowly, incrementally, almost imperceptibly, the basket was lowered – first by Kate, then after she had left, by Mary Elisha. As it was lowered, although unknown to Ray for some time, he could support ever more weight, and this allowed him to flex his legs, exerting his muscles over greater range of motion.
By the time Ray reached his senior year in high school, he was still using crutches. But he could get himself into and out of the basket, raise and lower it himself, and he was growing in several ways. Ray was growing stronger – much stronger. He was also growing to be quite tall, now reaching 6 feet. And he was a superior student.
By the end of his senior year he was walking. After 11 years of paralysis. He enrolled at nearby Purdue University and started participating in the track club. He continued his own training and therapy, keeping careful notes, and training with the club.
In 1894 Ray completed a degree in engineering, and moved on to a few years as an Associate Engineering Professor at Purdue. His intellect and his physical prowess were catching a lot of attention. Since freshman year, Ray began winning track events, although at a club level and against mostly regional schools.
Ray Ewry and the Athenian Olympic Stadium. At right his Olympic shirt bears the Winged Foot insignia of the New York Athletic Club
Later in the 1890s, Ray got the opportunity to move to the New York area, with a position designing and building ships for the US Navy. As a coincidental bonus, he was also offered a sponsored membership at the exalted New York Athletic Club, where he could continue training and competing. It was they who sponsored his participation in the Olympics. And provided a training site for him.
1910-11. Despite his age, Ewry had every intention of competing in the 1912 Olympic Games, in Stockholm. He continued his training and kept meticulous notes. Outwardly upbeat about his chances of qualifying to be on the US team, inwardly and in his notes his mood was a bit darker. His joints ached; not just his knees and not just when he trained. It was everywhere. And he could feel his leg muscles weakening, despite his disciplined workout and training regimen.
It’s hard to tell the difference between the effects of aging and the combined effects of Post-Polio Syndrome and Rheumatic Fever.
In 1911, aged 38, while training for the Olympic tryouts, he suffered a knee injury. These had occurred before, and he always recovered and worked through them. Not this time. He just could not get through it this time. After a few months of further training and therapy Ray decided it was time to retire from competition (although he remained active in the sport for decades, both coaching and judging at events).
After a very distinguished career with the Navy (as a civilian) Ray was recruited by the city of New York City to help further develop their water supply infrastructure. The large city was still growing, and they would soon need not only more water, but better systems to deliver it. Ray spent a lot of time over the next decades touring the state, inspecting and directing implementation of his designs, many of which are still providing steady, faithful service today.
Along the way, Ray married a local Lafayette girl, a lass named Nelle Johnson, several years younger than he, who had taken kindly to him when he was young, shy and struggling with polio paralysis. They had only one child, a girl named Mary Elizabeth, who usually went by Betsy or Bets. Sadly, Betsy got very early Alzheimer’s, and all of her memories of her father were lost. Her only son (I think, and thus Ray’s only grandson) Thomas Carson, a music industry professional, compiled much of Ray’s lesser-known history through much personal research. His work was a great resource to me in writing this essay. [2]
Ray passed away in 1937 just before his 64th birthday. One would normally think that is quite young for an athletically accomplished man who attended faithfully to his health. I can’t find the circumstances, but it seems it was a quick slide at the end and might well have been negatively affected by the health issues of his youth … which followed him through most of his adult life.
In 1928 Ray Ewry was invited back to Purdue to be present at the dedication of the new Ross-Ade Football Stadium. As Purdue’s most accomplished athlete ever (and perhaps most accomplished engineer), he was the guest of honor. For the ceremony, and unknown to almost everybody, Ray brought with him a small jar of soil from the Olympic Field at Athens, still untouched after more than two decades. For the surprise highlight of the dedication ceremony, Ray spread the hallowed ancient Olympic soil upon the stadium field of his Alma Mater.
Ewry’s Olympic record of ten championships held up for many decades. In fact, so far, it has only been broken once, by the superhuman Michael Phelps, who has won 23 gold medals. He broke Ewry’s record of 10 when he won his 7th through 14th Olympic Gold Medals at the Beijing Games, in 2008. However, Phelps is not undefeated, as he won zero medals in 2000 (at Sydney, age 15) and has 28 overall medals (also the most ever) against “only” 25 golds.
It should be noted that several decades later, in 1949, the IOC decided that the 1906 Games were not “Real Olympic Games” and purged all records of those games from their official list. Most historians of athletics disagree, however, and they do indeed count these games and awards, since they were highly attended, highly promoted as Olympics, and set the trajectory for how the games evolved. So, officially, I suppose, per IOC (and Wikipedia and others) Ray Ewry has only eight Olympic championships. But I am with the consensus of historians: we emphatically say ten!
Thank you, Ray Ewry, “The Human Frog”, for showing us that anything is possible if we keep pushing our boundaries and continually try to better ourselves, even in times of strife, viruses, and disease… and beyond.
Thanks for reading. As always, you can add yourself to the notification list for newly published material by clicking here. Or emailing joe@girardmeister.com
Footnote (1) Today, the Tower is only visible from this site if one peers carefully between trees growing in the park and new buildings built later in the 20th century. Here is a painting of an aerial view of the 1900 fair, which was likely made from a sketch that was made by an artist aloft in a balloon. The athletic field is the green space across the river. It is possible that the old Theirs city wall, which was quite close to the park and fields, could have obscured the view, despite being heavily damaged during the siege in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.
1900 World’s Fair. Athletic Field is the green space across the river. Arial Painting by Lucien Baylac, based on Balloon observations. The Observation Wheel (Grande Roue) was about 354 feet tall, higher than the huge wheel built by George Washington Gale Ferris for the 1893 Fair in Chicago, and also used at the 1904 Fair in Saint Louis.
Footnote [2] Thomas E Carson V, Ray Ewry’s grandson, wrote a biography about Ray, called “Unsung.” It was the culmination of decades of work in which he interweaves Ray’s bio with his own nearly epic pursuit of the details of Ray’s life, as well as his medals. There are many, many sources on Ray. But, to the benefit of me as a writer and you readers, Mr Carson’s book provided much of the rich contextual detail about Ray that made his story much more “human.” Thank you sir!
Carson is also a published fiction writer, and I believe you can find his works (including some serials based on a main character named Drum Bailey) on Amazon and elsewhere.
Mr Carson may not be Ray’s only grandson, but some genealogy searches turned up no others.
CNN has been sporting quite a few interesting documentaries recently: Steve Jobs, Life Itself (Roger Ebert), the Sixties, the Seventies, The Black Panthers. Last month they aired a different kind of documentary; it was comprised of a dozen or so “shorts.” Each segment was a story by one of their news anchors on the topic “The Person who Changed my Life.”
Unfortunately, I did not see most of the segments. I did see the one by Poppy Harlow. I was moved by whom she identified as “the person who most changed my life”, and the story she told about him and their relationship. That person was her father, who died when she was still a young teen. It’s a very good production video of a touching story; a success story that is both likely and unlikely.
Poppy Harlow: CNN Anchor
Likely: we all “like” to think that success can, in most cases and in some way, be traced from a parental influence. Unlikely: Poppy’s career turned out to be nothing like her father’s. You can watch the video here. Poppy Harlow: The Person who Changed my Life.
It reminded me of several other stories that I’ve been holding onto for no particular reason, except to maybe share them here. I won’t say these are similar to Poppy’s story, but they are not all that different either. I will limit them to a total of a mere three segments. (And a very brief fourth follow-up).
“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!”
– Howard Beale (Network) –> watch the Mad as Hell Scene.
If you haven’t watched the iconic 1976 movie “Network”, then watching the scene via the link above is probably all you need in order to get an excellent cultural reference. It applies as much today as ever. It will probably always be “timely.”
Peter Finch as Howard Beale: “I’m as Mad as Hell! And I’m not gonna take it anymore!”
Peter Finch’s (1916 – 1977) portrayal of crazed news anchor Howard Beale in “Network” earned him an Oscar: the Academy Award for Best Actor. The award was posthumous; he died suddenly – age only 60 – of a heart attack January, 14, 1977, two and a half months before that year’s Academy Awards ceremony. He was the first person to be awarded an Oscar posthumously for an acting performance.[1]
Finch’s award for “Network” was no fluke. Before that he had earned five BAFTA awards for Best Actor (that’s British Academy of Film and Arts). He was also nominated by both the British and American Academies for several other prominent awards.
The effect of Finch’s patrimony is difficult to ascertain, but it is very interesting to investigate.
Australian George Ingle Finch had a very successful career as a chemist. Among his achievements: developed an improved catalyst for synthesis of ammonia; conducted groundbreaking research into solid state physics, surfaces and thin films, electron diffraction, electron microscopy; and the electrical ignition of gases. In 1944 he was recognized with the Hughes Medal of the (British) Royal Society. He was president of the esteemed Physical Society of London 1947-49. And yet, this is not what he is most known for, nor (probably) his greatest effect on young Peter Finch.
In 1914 Finch the elder was in London, where he was doing research at the Imperial College of Science and Industry. That’s where and when he met Alicia Fisher, daughter of a Kent barrister. Soon after World War I broke out he was assigned to the Royal Field Artillery. Sometime shortly after the start of his military service, in 1915, George and Alice were wed. [As an Australian he was still a subject of the crown, and duty-bound to serve].
While George was away, Peter was conceived. He arrived September 28, 1916 – with George obviously still away. Officially named Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch – perhaps in a way to honor Alicia’s absent husband – he went through most of his life as Peter.
When George returned there were some accounts to settle. He soon divorced Alicia and, with his sister, took full legal custody of Peter. Shortly thereafter young Peter was sent off to France to live with relatives, where he was mostly reared by George’s mother – Peter’s putative grandmother. In the meanwhile George had some dreams to fulfill. He wanted to be a mountain climber.
Those were still the days of the great British adventure; adventure as experienced by, and performed by, the privileged gentry. Yes, the British gentry, of which Finch was certainly not a part. Sailing the world, going to the Yukon gold rush, safaris in Africa, climbing mountains – these were things done with as much creature comfort as possible. Often smoking cigars, dining on quail and herring, sipping brandy, while attired in tweed – that was how to adventure. At least the British gentry’s mode.
That was not how to attack a beast like Everest. Finch joined the Alpine club and set out to join three attempts to make the ascent of Everest in the 1920s with the much more famous climber, the legendary George Mallory.
Finch was an outsider, a colonial farm boy. He had done some climbing in the Alps while studying in Zurich before getting his post at Imperial College. For the Himalayas he brought oxygen canisters, which came in at a hefty 16kg for eight hours supply. On the second British Everest attempt in 1924, Finch was allowed on the ascent team; he made the highest effort on Everest to that date, over 27,000 feet. (Everest tops out at 29,028 ft; that’s 8,848 m). He might well have summited, had he not felt compelled to assist an enfeebled novice companion back to safety.
Finch was, in the eyes of many experts, the best technical climber of his time, despite it being merely a hobby, and he not being a gentlemen. He was sneered upon as a country boy, a colonialist, and an outsider who would “cheat” by using oxygen. He was left off the other two ascent attempts.
In the end, Finch was right. [2]
And in the end, it’s hard to know his influence on his “son”. When Peter was 10, George fetched him up and took him back to Australia. Peter always knew that George openly denied that Peter was his biological son.[3] He also knew of his “father’s” attempt at Everest, and his contributions to science – although George was never much recognized for either until later in his life, when Peter was already well on in his acting career.
The younger Finch’s career started out as bumming across Australia during the Great Depression with a traveling troupe, picking up odd acting roles. During World War II he served in the Army, manning an anti-aircraft gun to fend off Japanese during the bombing of Darwin, and serving in the Middle East.
He didn’t let the war slow him down much: he produced, directed and acted in plays for the troops. When the war was over, his career only delayed a bit, he hit the ground running, took every opportunity, worked hard, and became one of the most famous actors of all time: British, Australian, or, of the world.
2. “Tell yer uncle why there ain’t no snow in California”
— “Don’t look at me! I didn’t take it!” – Cousin Peal and Jethro (Beverly Hillbillies)
1960s sitcoms. They were corny. Some were corny and popular. Among them, “The Beverly Hillbillies” was regularly the top rated TV show in America. During its eleven year run it was only occasionally bumped from #1, usually by The Ed Sullivan Show.
The adorable Donna Douglas, who played Ellie Mae Clampett on the show, passed on about a year ago (January, 2015) at age 82, leaving Max Baer, Jr (Jethro Bodine) as the last living member of the cast.
Both skilled and successful actors, Douglas and Baer would end up with constricted acting careers, as they were so very type-casted by their successful roles on Beverly Hillbillies. [Although Douglas made a 1959 pre-Hillbillies recording in The Twilight Zone episode “The Eye of the Beholder”, wherein she played a woman undergoing a surgery to have her appearance fixed so that she would look more normal. The surgery was a failure: she was just as beautiful after the bandages were removed. The episode was not shown until 1960. — Yes, Donna Douglas, even as Ellie Mae, was inherently beautiful.]
As a Beverly Hillbillies side note and question: can anyone provide an accurate description of the familial relationships between Granny, Uncle Jed, Ellie Mae, Jethro, and Aunt Pearl? (Whom did I forget? Was some sort of incest implied?)
Hopelessly typecast, Douglas more or less gave up acting when the series ended in 1971 and moved on to a successful career as a Gospel singer and inspirational speaker.
Baer, however, did not give up the camera.
Sports enthusiasts might recognize the name Max Baer as a former World Heavyweight Boxing champion. A big brute of a man, with a literally deadly right hand, Max Baer, Sr was indeed the Heavyweight Boxing Champion. That would be “Jethro’s” real life father.
Max Baer, Sr was one-quarter Jewish – acquired from his half-Jewish father. Although he rarely practiced Judaism, he eventually decided to embrace it as a public gesture, nonetheless.
Baer broke into worldwide recognition as a champion contender just as Adolf Hitler assumed the German chancellorship, and ultimately the dictatorship, of Nazi Germany. He became a bona fide contender when he beat the great German boxer, Max Schmeling, in June 1933. Schmeling was a recent (although not current) heavy-weight champion. He was the reigning German Heavyweight champion.
Max Baer, Sr, in his Star of David embroidered boxing trunks. I think this is the fight with Max Schmeling
Baer was disgusted by the warmth and favoritism shown by the Jew-hating Hitler and the Nazi party apparatus toward Schmeling. Baer was willing to make a public statement, and so he began wearing a very prominent Star of David on his boxing trunks for matches. He started wearing the Star for the match against Hitler’s favorite, Schmeling. And he continued to do so. He was wearing the Star of David embroidered trunks when he won the World Heavyweight Title a year later, June, 1934, when he defeated the then current title holder, Prima Carnera.
And he was wearing the Star, 364 days later, when he lost the title in TheCinderella Match against Irish-American New York longshoreman, James (Jimmy) “Cinderella Man” Braddock.
Unfortunately the otherwise terrific movie about that fight (The Cinderella Man) casts Baer in an extremely negative light. However, it was based partly on fact: Baer considered part of the job of boxing champ to be an entertainer, and he could be pretty darned silly when in that role. The movie played up the goofy and obnoxious role-playing of Baer (in an obvious shallow attempt to get viewers to appreciate underdog Braddock all the more). The movie also failed to prominently show Baer’s trunks, and their plainly visible Star of David. (Blame that on the producer, Ron Howard — Opie).
Shortly after Baer Sr’s boxing retirement, World War II broke out for the United States. Baer served as a physical conditioning trainer for the US Army Air Force. He continued to sporadically act in films (he had started in 1933) and served as celebrity referee for boxing matches.
In November 1959 Baer was in Hollywood for several television commercials (they were done “live” in those does – very few 2nd takes). While shaving at the Roosevelt Hotel, Baer felt a chest pain. He called the front desk, asking for a doctor. They told him they’d send a “house doctor” right up. Ever playful, Baer replied: “No dummy, I need a people doctor.” In hospital later that morning he was joking with doctors when … a second attack hit him. “Oh God, here I go …”
He was only 50 years old. (I am often humbled by how people achieved so very much … and then died … far younger than I am now). His son Max Jr would be making his first appearance on TV in just a few weeks, under contract with Warner Brothers, with whom he would eventually star in The Beverly Hillbillies. Baer, Sr is rated #22 in Ring’s list of all-time boxers. He is among a very few boxers who’ve won by knock-out over 50 times. Two deaths are attributed to his mighty right arm. He was devastated by each.
Max Baer, Jr — as Jethro Bodine on Beverly Hillbillies
Max Jr’s career after the Beverly Hillbillies remained in the entertainment industry. Hopelessly typecast by his role as Hillbilly Jethro Bodine until 1971, his acting career was largely over. After that he wrote, produced and directed movies, including “Macon County Line”, in which he also played a rare serious role. That movie made $25 million for an investment of just over $100,000 – a record ratio that lasted until the Blair Witch Project (1999).
He also had the idea of turning popular songs into movies. It was Baer, Jr who came up with turning Bobby Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Joe”, a hit ’60s song, into a cinematic feature. [The lyrics are below… if you’d like to follow along while listening).
In retirement, Baer continues to make a few TV appearances and has long been attempting to develop a casino in Carson City on the Beverly Hillbillies theme. It has been fraught with legal issues and odd competition.
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
William Greenleaf Eliot died January 23, 1887 in St Louis, Missouri. He founded the first Unitarian Church west of the Mississippi in 1837, at the corner of 4th and Pine – perhaps 1000 ft from where the famous Gateway Arch has stood since 1964. Outgrowing that location, in 1852, Eliot led the congregation in building and moving to a larger worship space at 9th and Olive. This is only a few blocks from where the stately Post Office and Customs House, and the Library, would be built decades later; those still stand. In 1880, Eliot again led the building of a new Church, at Locust and Garrison. This site was on the Register of National Historic Places. It unfortunately suffered a devastating fire in 1982, and was completely razed in 1987.
St Louis Unitarian Church — on National Register of Historic Places, until its demise
That’s just the beginning of William Eliot’s curriculum vitae and significance to St Louis. He’s most notable for founding Washington University in St. Louis (initially called Eliot Seminary). He was influential and critical to founding many civic institutions, including: the St. Louis Public School System; the St. Louis Art Museum; the Mission Free School; the South Side Day Nursery; and the Western Sanitary Commission that provided medical care and supplies during the Civil War. He also contributed to the development of the Colored Orphans’ Home, Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home, Memorial Home, Blind Girls Home, Women’s Christian Home, and many other charitable institutions.
When Ralph Waldo Emerson visited St. Louis, he had the opportunity to meet Eliot and subsequently called him “the Saint of the West.” Besides founding Washington University in 1853, Eliot donated generously to its construction and served as chancellor from 1870 to 1887.
In 1859 William Eliot founded Mary Institute, a school for girls which he named after his daughter, who had died very young. It is now part of the co-educational Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School (MISLCDS).
Same Church, after the tragic fire.
It’s hard to know the further effect he had on American culture and literature. In fact, his effect on world culture and literature. Why? William Eliot was also the grandfather of Thomas Stearns Eliot, who was born the year after William’s passing. Going by his initials, T.S., Eliot is renowned in his own right as one of America’s and the world’s most acclaimed poets, essayists, playwrights and literary critics.
It’s hard to imagine young Thomas, spending his youth going between St Louis and New England (due to family ties in the Boston area) and not being very aware of his grandfather’s contributions to society. Frail as a child, “Tom” turned to literature, embraced it, and found inspiration in fellow Missourian, Samuel Clemens.
I’ve read, recited and committed to memory quite a bit of verse over my many decades. Poe, Frost, Longfellow … even Lewis Carrol. And yet, somehow, I’ve not connected much with Mr Eliot the younger. As an aerospace engineer and amateur historian, perhaps I can be forgiven.
As a sop to fellow enthusiasts of the 1904 World’s Fair: As a teen, young Tom attended the Fair – it was in his hometown, after all. The 47-acre Philippines Igorot “village” living exhibit inspired him to write some short stories and poems. This experience also probably influenced his decision to pursue anthropological studies at Harvard – where his grandfather’s name still stood large. [4]
Yes, perhaps I can be forgiven for not taking to Eliot’s writings. T.S. eventually turned away from much of what his grandfather was proud of. In 1910 he moved to Paris; then, in 1914, to England. And there he stayed. He eventually gave up both his Unitarian faith and US citizenship, becoming both Anglican and a subject of the crown.
T.S. Eliot won the Nobel Prize for Literature, as a British subject, in 1948.
Depression Youth; Military Service
My wife and I think of, and talk about, our fathers quite often. They had a lot in common. Both grew up in humble households during the Great Depression. It’s easy to see that this helped make them thrifty, resilient and loyal. They both served in the US military in the ‘40s, Audrey’s dad in the US Navy – in fact a Pearl Harbor Survivor; my dad in the occupation of Japan. It’s easy to see how this helped mold them into the prototypical “Greatest Generation” male: the strong quiet type; able to lead and command; yet equally capable of following and taking orders: organization men. They each loved their family and country dearly, loyally, sincerely … yet often from a reticent and in-charge position and point-of-view.
For the rest of their lives, they felt it was a duty to stay very informed on current events, and they loved to encourage discussion that swirled around world events – including past and current.
I have no idea how our three children’s lives will play out … hopefully very long after we are gone. I’d like to think that there is something of the following in them, and that – in some way – part of it comes from their parents. Just as we received something in this regard from our parents:
Inner Strength and Self-Discipline
Loyalty and Love
Kindness and Compassion
Service and Simplicity
Living in the Moment
Honesty and Humility
Graciousness and Generosity
Patience and Perseverance
Forgiveness and Fortitude
Obviously no one is perfect. I certainly am not; neither is my wife. Neither were our fathers. Still – we cling to the positive influences and traits … and gently release the rest. Life is too short to be concerned with anything else.
And I wish the same strengths and virtues for you and yours.
email joe: Email Joe (for addition to email list, or discussion not related to this post. Comments can be added below)
Footnotes:
[1] Heath Ledger duplicated this sad/happy circumstance, passing on before he could be receive the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as The Joker in 2008’s Batman sequel “The Black Knight.” Ledger died from a prescription drug overdose (likely due to abuse from ongoing viral infections and insomnia issues). Ironically, both Ledger and Finch were Australian. Ledger was only 28.
[2] The air pressure at 28,000 ft elevation is only one-third that at sea level. That means 67% less oxygen for the lungs while working severely hard at steep ascent grades. Famed Kiwi Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, were the first humans to summit Everest, in 1951. They used supplemental oxygen, as have the vast majority of those who’ve successfully achieved the full ascent.
The first summit without oxygen was not until 1978. In 2013, a total of 658 climbers attained the summit; only 9 did so without oxygen. There were also 8 deaths.
[3] Finch’s biological father was Wentworth Edward Dallas “Jock” Campbell, an Indian Army officer. Alicia Fisher Finch later married Campbell in 1922. (what’s with the Brits and all those middle names?)
[4] The St Louis 1904 Exposition was huge. Hyuge. Just the Igorot Village living exhibit was larger than many famous World’s Fairs … e.g. The complete 1962 Seattle World’s Fair (which gave us the Space Needle and the Monorail) was only 32 acres … vs the Igorot village at 47 acres … the whole 1904 Fair covered nearly 1280 acres (two square miles)!
Final notes: You can watch The Twilight Zone episode online (The Eye of the Beholder). It’s easier to listen to Bobbie Gentry singing Ode to Billie Joe … one of my favorite Ballads (right up there with “West Texas Town of El Paso.” If you do, here are the lyrics so you can follow along.
And just for grins….
Ode to Billy Joe
(written, sung and performed by Bobbie Gentry)
It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day.
I was out choppin’ cotton, and my brother was balin’ hay.
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat.
And mama hollered out the back door: “y’all, remember to wipe your feet!”
And then she said, “I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge.
Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”
And papa said to mama, as he passed around the black-eyed peas:
“Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass the biscuits, please.
There’s five more acres in the lower forty I’ve got to plow”
And mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow;
Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge.
And now Billy Joe MacAllister’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
And brother said he recollected when he, and Tom, and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show.
And wasn’t I talkin’ to him after church last Sunday night?
“I’ll have another piece o’ apple pie; you know, it don’t seem right.
I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge
And now ya tell me Billie Joe’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”
And mama said to me, “Child, what’s happened to your appetite?
I’ve been cookin’ all morning, and you haven’t touched a single bite.
That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today.
Said he’d be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way …
He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge,
And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin’ off the Tallahatchie Bridge”
A year has come and gone since we heard the news ’bout Billy Joe.
‘n’ Brother married Becky Thompson; they bought a store in Tupelo.
There was a virus going ’round, Papa caught it and he died last Spring,
And now Mama doesn’t seem to wanna do much of anything.
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin’ flowers up on Choctaw Ridge,
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
By 1950, the effervescent consumption potential of the world’s largest single national economy — the United States economy — had been restrained like over-carbonated champagne in a bottle for two decades. At first the role of cork was filled by The Great Depression, then the Second World War, and finally, by massive demobilization of the armed forces, and conversion of industry from war to a peace time economy.
That cork was creeping out, the bubbly about to spew forth. One way that was beginning to occur was manifest in the strong desire to live outside of the urban jungles; to move outside of the cramped, dirty confines of cities like New York, Chicago, St Louis. And yet, not move so far away that they couldn’t commute to the jobs that stayed in the cities … that is, commute via that great symbol of personal freedom of the era: the automobile.
In metropolitan areas where open available spaces were relatively close, brand new planned suburban communities sprang up in land that was previously agricultural, or wooded, or simply empty. The prime example of this was the Levittowns built by the Levitt Company in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Some large cities had established communities – usually small simple towns or hamlets – that were only close enough to be suburbs when highways and expressways were built to ease motor transportation to and from the cities.
Welcome to Morton Grove (Illinois)
One of these towns was Morton Grove, Illinois, located some 14 miles or so North-northwest from Chicago’s central Loop. The Eden’s Expressway – which was soon incorporated into the Interstate Highway system as I-94 a few years later – ran north across Cook County, and by 1951 connected Morton Grove to Chicago.
In the decade of the 1950s the population of Morton Grove more than quintupled, from about 4,000 to over 20,000 by 1960. I was one of those “newcomers”; so were my parents, soon followed by two sisters. Just a few months before my birth, in September 1956, my parents bought a humble, tiny ranch home in one of those planned neighborhoods. It was my first home, my sisters’ first home, and the first home my parents owned.
Morton Grove’s population has remained relatively flat since then; I suppose we are part of the reason for that too. With a fourth child now in tow, we moved at Christmastime, 1962, to a suburb of Milwaukee.
The area that would become Morton Grove was first settled by whites of European descent in the 1830s by Germans and English. The population remained low, about a hundred or so, until 1872, when a spur of the Milwaukee Road Railroad came, thanks to the vision of New York businessman and financier, Levi Parsons Morton. The grateful residents named their locale after him.
[Morton would go on to serve as Vice President of the country, getting elected in 1888 with president Benjamin Harrison. Oddly, Morton would be much better remembered than he is – even better than the town that bears his name – had he accepted an earlier offer to run for Vice President with James Garfield, in 1880. For, in September 1881 Garfield was killed by deluded assassin Charles Guiteau. Morton would have ascended to serve as 21st president; instead it was Chester Arthur.]
After the railroad came, the Morton Grove area began to attract a few more settlers, and commercial businesses, including the Poehlmann Brothers greenhouse company. They achieved worldwide attention and acclaim when their Poehlmann Rose won First Prize at the 1904 World’s Fair, in St Louis. This would not be the first star Morton Grove sent to St Louis.
The community had grown to about 500 when it was formally incorporated as a municipality, the Village of Morton Grove, in 1895.
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A couple years before I arrived, another lad moved to Morton Grove, adding to its ’50s boom. James “Jim” Warren Hart was born just north of Chicago, in Evanston, in 1944. His father died when he was only seven. His mother remarried and they moved in with his stepfather in nearby Morton Grove. A bit on the small side for a football player, his stepdad encouraged him to give it a try – even forcing him out of the car on one occasion to partake in a junior football skills competition. Jim first started playing football as a freshman at Morton Grove’s high school, Niles West. A competitive athlete, Jim earned letters in baseball and track, although, conspicuously, not in football.
Undeterred, Southern Illinois University offered him a scholarship to play football. A small school that competed in lower divisions at the time, Jim was their quarterback for most of the years 1963-65, amassing, at that time, a school record 3,780 passing yards.
Coming from a small school, playing a short, weak schedule — and with a losing record — it was no surprise that Jim was undrafted by any National Football League team. He signed a contract to try out with the nearby Saint Louis Cardinals.
Jim Hart, St Louis Cardinals (Displayed under the Fair Use Doctrine).
In sports, it is as near a certainty as possible that undrafted free agents don’t make the team in the NFL, especially at quarterback. Jim made the team.
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Jackie Smith was born in 1940, in southern Mississippi, in tiny Columbia (thirteen years later Walter Payton was born there). As a boy, his family moved a few miles south, across the state line to Louisiana, to another small obscure town, Kentwood, LA.
It was at Kentwood High School that Jackie ran track; he began trying out for football as a sophomore. Due to injuries, his entire high school football career amounted to a mere five games. Most of the time, he admitted later, his play was so goofy that the other teams never knew what he was doing. He didn’t learn any fundamentals of the game.
He was recruited to run track at Northwestern Louisiana State University (now Northwestern State University). They could only offer him a half scholarship. If he played football too, he could get a full scholarship. So he played football.
He did not have an impressive college career, but he displayed enough speed and determination that he impressed a Saint Louis Cardinals scout. They took a chance and drafted him in the 10th round in 1963. 10th round draft choices have as much chance of making the team as an undrafted free agent. Jackie made the team.
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By 1967, Jim Hart had worked up from sixth string to starting quarterback for the Cardinals. Jackie Smith was the regular tight end. Two unheralded athletes, with unimpressive football backgrounds, competing at the highest level of football.
Jackie Smith, St Louis Cardinals (Displayed under the Fair Use doctrine)
For eleven seasons they played together, putting up electrifying numbers. During this period they helped transform the game of football. With contemporaries like quarterbacks Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath, and other tight ends like Mike Ditka and John Mackey, they showed how exciting and entertaining a more wide-open style of offensive football could be.
Unfortunately, Saint Louis often had poor talent teams in that era, but with a wide-open air attack that thrilled fans (they were then known as the “Cardiac Cards”) the league saw what football could be. At that time receivers were mauled at the line of scrimmage, their legs often cut from under them at the line. Quarterbacks were regularly severely roughed well after the ball was thrown. Tight ends were for blocking.
Jackie Smith was strong enough and fast enough to block linemen and linebackers. Yet with his track speed he could get open, and with his soft hands he could catch passes. With his physical and mental toughness he punished defensive backs who tried to tackle him. This is the prototype of tight ends we know 40 and 50 years later, but it wasn’t always like that.
For three successive magical seasons, 1974-76, under head coach Don Coryell and his “Air Coryell” approach, the Cardinals won 10, 11 and 10 games; at that time the regular season was only 14 games. Still, the Cardinals only made the playoffs two of those seasons, and never won a playoff game with either Hart or Smith on the roster.
Jim Hart was inducted to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1998. He was a four-time All Star and NFL Offensive Player of the year, in 1974.
Jackie Smith is in the NFL Hall of Fame, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, and the St Louis Walk of Fame. He was a five-time All Star.
If and when you watch a football game these days, and you see receivers getting open off the line, tight ends catching passes, when you see a defensive holding call on a receiver, when you see a roughing-the-passer call, know that this goes back to the Smith-Hart era, and other similar brave players of the ‘60s and ‘70s, who showed how fun and exciting a wide-open game could be – even when they got physically punished for doing it. It wasn’t until later that rules were changed to protect players and promote this more exciting style of football.
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I guess if there’s a moral it’s that your past doesn’t define your future. And anyone – anyone – can change the trajectory of history. Sports can be a great metaphor for life that way.
A corollary is that when choosing teammates, when hiring to fill a position, — and you have the long term in mind — choose for potential and heart, not for how impressive the resume looks now.
If there’s a second moral, I guess it’s that Americans’ appetites for excitement and freedom in life (cars, travel, suburbs) are reflected in their desire for excitement, creativity and freedom in sports, however they choose to enjoy them.
Wishing you peace and bravery. If you can have only one, pick bravery.
[1] Jim Hart went back to Southern Illinois for several years to serve as Athletic Director, after a short career as a sportscaster. He remains married to his wife, his college sweet”hart”, for nearly 50 years.
[2] At the time of his retirement, Jackie Smith was the NFL’s all-time leading receiver for tight ends. He was only the third tight end inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, after Ditka and Mackey. He’s led a quiet retirement, and started a small business building one-man fishing boats.
Few today are familiar with the name Audrey Munson, but depending on your age and location, it’s likely you’ve seen her image hundreds, if not thousands of times.
Audrey Munson, the “American Venus”
In today’s terminology, Audrey would be considered a supermodel, and quite possibly, the first in America. Born in upstate New York, her divorced mother moved the two of them to New York City when Audrey was fifteen. After a chance encounter with a local photographer, she soon found herself modeling for the top civic artists in the country. And as a result, her likeness can be found in museums and municipal buildings around the country, on canvas and in sculpture. But it was Adolph Weinman who immortalized her. A sculptor by trade, Weinman produced two of the most iconic coin designs in U.S. history, using Audrey Munson as his model.
1916-S Walking Liberty Half Dollar, obverse (w/ Audrey Munson as Liberty)
The Walking Liberty half dollar, minted from 1916-1947, shows Lady Liberty, draped in the American flag, striding toward the rising sun and a bright future. His other coin, which many mistakenly called the Mercury Dime because of its wings, was actually a Winged Liberty, with Lady Liberty wearing a hat with wings, symbolizing one of our basic rights, freedom of thought.
Utilizing her fame, Audrey went to Hollywood, where she starred in four silent films [1]. This was before the industry adopted the Motion Picture Code, and many films of the day, including Audrey’s, featured nudity. Which finally leads us to the local [St Louis] connection of this story.
October 1, 1921 — 94 years-ago this month, Audrey Munson was appearing at the Royal Theater, 210 N. Sixth Street, St Louis, Missouri, where her movie, “Innocence” was being shown. The movie began by showing many of the statues for which she had posed nude, including some which had been exhibited at our 1904 St Louis World’s Fair. [2] Following each statue, were scenes of Miss Munson dancing, fully clothed. But in her personal appearance, she wore a gauzy drapery, posed on a platform under spotlight, in front of the screen. She remained fully covered until the last pose.
Seated, with her back to the audience, she lowered her drapery, exposing her back. She and the theater owner were arrested; the film confiscated. They were charged with conspiracy to commit acts injurious to public morals. Unbelievably fast by today’s standards, the trial was held later that week. After viewing the film, and hearing testimony, the Jury was only out five minutes before returning a verdict of not guilty. Afterward, Munson said, “Clothes we began to wear only when guile and evil thoughts entered our heads. They do harm to our bodies and worse to our souls.”
Sadly, Audrey’s life unraveled when she could no longer find modeling work, and the following year she attempted suicide. Spiraling into depression, she was committed to a psychiatric facility at the age of 39, where she remained for the last 65 years of her life. She passed away in 1996, at the age of 104.
John Sarkis posts regularly at the Facebook page for “St. Louis Missouri. History, Landmarks & Vintage photos”
John is a native Saint Louisan, is retired, and now lives in Kirkwook, Missouri, a suburb of Saint Louis.
Editor notes:
[1] IMDB lists only three movies for Miss Munson, failing to include Heedless Moths, a sort of autobiography of Miss Munson herself (although she doesn’t play herself) and in which she appears in several scenes in various stages of undress.
Audrey Munson in “Innocence”
The movie cited here (Innocence) does not show up on IMDB or her biography. But surely it was filmed and presented, for here is an advertisement I found from a 1922 Duluth, Minnesota newspaper, the Duluth Herald.
So, perhaps she was in at least five movies.
[2] Also known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
Audrey Munson could not have posed for the actual statues seen at the 1904 Fair; she was only 12 or so as the sculptures were being made, and hadn’t yet been “discovered.” As most statues were made of temporary materials, including staff, she had likely posed for re-sculpturing of many of them. Munson did model for statues at the 1915 San Francisco world’s Fair, the Pan Pacific Exposition.
My mother, God rest her saintly soul, took up writing the last decade or so of her life. She made a serious study of it, even joining writing clubs and taking experienced mentors. Over the next several years she crafted a series of essays about her life: from growing up on the plains of Alberta, to raising a flock of six wild kids; plus moving from Canada, to Chicago, to Milwaukee, to Arkansas and finally to Colorado. Eventually she compiled a few dozen of those essays into an autobiography which she self-published just two years before she passed away. I’m so very glad she did.
Many authors have written stories and essays by incorporating elements of their own life into their works, in semi- or even full-autobiographical form. The characters of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” closely resemble herself, her family and acquaintances as a youth. The fictional town of Maycomb, AL closely resembles her own girlhood hometown of Monroeville, AL.
Samuel Clemens’ novels – particularly those about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer – include many adventures and characters from his boyhood hometown of Hannibal, Missouri – although he places them in fictional St Petersburg, complete with a cave.
The list of authors who have created this way is near endless. Hunter S Thompson: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Charles Dickens: David Copperfield. And we recognize: Aleksander Solzhenitsyn; Roald Dahl; Ernest Hemingway; Charlotte Brontë Theirs are timeless and often moving works.
Question: Will you write about your youth, your life, your experiences? Our literary works don’t have to be moving or timeless; but we should all write. Why? To express ourselves. To leave a legacy to our posterity about our lives and our thoughts. Somewhere in the decades and generations hence, a child or young adult descendant will wonder what their ancestors were like. What YOU were like. Send them a message.
But don’t just make it up. As Harper Lee said: an author “should write about what they know, and write truthfully.”
“Literature transmits incontrovertible condensed experience — from generation to generation. In this way literature becomes living memory ….” – Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
“Home is where your story begins” — Annie Danielson, Colorado CEO of the year, 2009
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My dear friend Kevin Shepardson is now in a rehab hospital in Phoenix. Reports I get are that he is doing well; in fact – miraculously well. Although now safe from terminal danger, he still has “a very long row to hoe.” He has great loving support from his family and many friends. Still, he can use all the prayers, good wishes and thoughts you can send his way.
I’d written recently that – until his New Year’s Eve day cardiac arrest episode – Kevin published a daily news letter, often with musical tributes to some event or holiday. Each year in December he includes a daily musical tribute. Every day’s inbox has a new Christmas or Winter Holiday Seasonal themed musical delight, right up to Christmas Eve Day.
This past December 23 his musical selection was “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” – which has to be one of the saddest Christmas carols ever.
Just the title conveys a lack of joy: LittleChristmas? It’s like you’re being spurned by a lover: Farewell shot: “Well, have yourself a merry little rest of your life.”
The slow sadness of the song is actually appropriate. The lyrics — composed by Hugh Martin in 1943 — were for the otherwise cheery musical movie “Meet Me in St. Louis”, to be sung by the beautiful and gifted Judy Garland during the only really sad part of the movie. The plot at this point has her family tormented by an imminent move to New York just as big things are happening in their lives. Young ladies are falling in love and the 1904 World’s Fair is about to occur in St Louis!
In Kevin’s Dec 23 newsletter, he described a bit of the song’s history. It was originally even much sadder. Its lyrics went:
Have yourself a merry little Christmas It may be your last.
Next year we may all be living in the past.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Pop that Champagne cork. Next year we all may be living in New York.
No good times like the olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who were dear to us Will be near to us … no more.
But at least we all will be together
If the Lord allows
From now on we’ll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas … now.
(Most dreary lines in blue)
Wow. Makes me kind of weepy just reading and humming to myself now.
This Christmas “may be your last.” That’s just morbid.
“No good times”??? How sad.
“Faithful friends who WERE dear to us will be near to us NO MORE.”
Oh my. No wonder Garland refused to sing the song that way. She just couldn’t do that in the saddest scene in the movie to poor little 6-year old co-star Margaret O’Brien, who nearly stole the show as Ester’s (Garland’s) younger sister, Tootie.
Fortunately, the movie’s lyricist Hugh Martin eventually relented and re-wrote the song closer to the carol we know so well:
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light.
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Make the yuletide gay.
Next year all our troubles will be miles away.
Once again as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore. Faithful friends who are dear to us Will be near to us … once more.
Someday soon we all will be together, If the fates allow. Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow. So have yourself a merry little Christmas … now.
Much better, but still rather somber when sung at ballad tempo, less than 80 beats per minute. And it still has that line “have yourself a merry little Christmas” … and ends with “We’ll have to muddle through somehow.”
Muddle through?? Geepers. It was enough to help Margaret O’Brien gin up a few tears … to set her off to a fit of downright bawling – and destroying snowmen. And yet: It’s the original recording and still a very good one.
Well, there have been many covers of “Merry Little Christmas”, most notably by Frank Sinatra. Sinatra asked Dean Martin to help him lighten up the song for his album “A Jolly Christmas.” It just wasn’t “Jolly” enough.
Martin changed the line with “muddle through” to “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.” Dean and Frank made several other changes, which are shown in the notes below. You can hear it from the album here: {Click the button or skip to 14:05 on the playback}
That’s a long way of getting to say this: Sally Benson’s story has had a heck of a ride over the last 111 years. And … any way you look at it, we’re very, very glad this past Christmas didn’t fit the original two lines of “Merry Little Christmas” for Kevin. It certainly was not your last, buddy!! Stay strong my friend. Peace and much healing to you.
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During World War II Americans craved entertainment that distracted them from the woes and worries of everyday. Through much of the war, most news was not pleasant, even when the allies were winning. For almost four years, US military service personnel perished at a rate of over 300 per day. Casualties were over 800 per day.
The home front craved entertainment that had light, joyful stories that weren’t terribly deep. Something to take their minds off the awful news, both local and from around the world. Everyone was affected by death and severe injury in their family and among dear friends. The war was fought on the home front as well as in Africa, Europe, the Pacific. So, who can blame them?
And the entertainment industry stepped up to meet those desires. Many entertainment creations of that era met these criteria. But two in particular share several remarkable coincidences. These are the musical play “Oklahoma!” and the musical movie “Meet Me in St Louis.”
Coincidences?
First, they are period productions, placed during jauntier times, in the first decade of the 20th century; during the Edwardian/pre-war era.
>“Oklahoma!” is placed in 1907, in Indian Territory just as Oklahoma is about to become the 46th star on the flag.
“Meet Me in St Louis” is placed in 1903-4, in, … well …, St Louis, just as the World’s Fair is about to come to St Louis.
Second, each production originally contained the Rogers and Hammerstein song “Boys and Girls Like You and Me”. Producers dropped the number, twice, at the last minute due to running time.
Finally, each was based on another story. In both cases, that other story was substantially autobiographical.
“Oklahoma!” is based on the play “Green Grow the Lilacs”, written by Lynn Riggs. Riggs was born in 1899 near Claremore, Indian Territory. He was 1/16th Amerindian*. He grew up and went to school in, and near, Claremore — which is also the closest significant town to the setting of “Oklahoma!”
“Meet Me in St Louis” has a bit more history that I’m familiar with. It’s based on the book of the same title. That book, in turn, is slightly expanded from a series of semi-autobiographical essays that Sally (Redway) Benson wrote for The New Yorker magazine, from 1941 to 1942.
The essays were called “5135 Kensington”, which was her family’s address in a middle class neighborhood, located just over a mile from the main entrance to Forest Park, St Louis, where the 1904 World’s Fair occurred.
*: I have concluded that, sadly, there is not a perfectly appropriate term for this race of people. “Native American” fails, since there are generations upon generations of other races dwelling here in the Americas who have no other place to call their native land. “Indian” fails since that clearly belongs to the Indian subcontinent. They are worthy of their own clear and distinct name, so I have accepted what some others have proposed: Amerindian.
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Leaving “Oklahoma!” for another time, let’s skip over to what became of Benson’s autobiographical essays: Meet Me in St Louis.
MGM was casting about for possible cheer-you-up movie plots wherein they could cast their greatest rising star – Judy Garland – when they came across Benson’s essays. They decided it could be made into a screenplay for a musical movie, in order to showcase Garland’s beauty, grace and voice.
Only 21 at the time, Garland initially refused the role. She didn’t want to play a teenage “girl next door.” She was an adult now.
Indeed she was an adult. During production, she and director Vincente Minnelli fell in love – resulting in the second of five Garland’s marriages.
“Meet Me in St Louis” is full of music, song and gay dancing (duh, it’s a musical!). As full of music as it is, the movie’s songwriters — Hugh Martin (lyrics) and Ralph Blaine (music) — only composed three original tunes for the movie. These were: “The Boy Next Door”, “The Trolley Song”, and the aforementioned, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
These were written specifically to be sung by Judy Garland – (although she doesn’t come in on “Trolley” until over a minute — almost halfway through — after she sees her potential beau make it to the trolley.)
Both “The Trolley Song” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” are among the American Film Institute’s top 100 movie songs of all time: “Trolley” coming in at #26 and “Merry Little Christmas” at #76.
No surprise, especially to Judy’s many fans, that she also holds AFI’s #1 spot with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from “The Wizard of Oz.”
“Meet me in St Louis” ranks as AFI’s 10th best musical movie of all time. Easy guess that “Singing in the Rain” is #1.
Although screenwriters took some liberty with Benson’s original texts, much of it remained faithful to her writings of her childhood memories.
The address of the Smith home is exactly the same as that of her childhood: 5135 Kensington Avenue
The names of all the family members (mother, father, four girls, one boy) and the maid are all exactly the same as Benson’s family — even the nicknames. The family’s surname, Smith, is actually Benson’s mother’s maiden name.
Opportunities to show what else was going on in St Louis at the time were skipped – for example Scott Joplin lived and performed just a couple miles away. Ragtime was very fresh and popular. Benson didn’t write about these because, as a young child of six years old, she didn’t remember it. She wrote about what she knew.
Today we remember “Meet Me in St Louis” for much more than “Sally Benson first wrote her essays based on her childhood memories.” She certainly had no idea where it would go – that it would be garnished with famous actresses and memorable songs.
It’s probably most remembered for the Christmas carol that Martin and Blaine wrote. The song immediately became popular with servicemen abroad – and their loved ones at home. Why? It heralded a happier time in the near future – next year – when we all “will be together”, “all our troubles will be miles away” and “out of sight.” And indeed, the war ended the year after the movie’s release.
When you write your memories, no one can know what will become of them. They probably won’t be adorned with beautiful actresses, showy songs and marquis lights.
But I can assure you this: somewhere, sometime, someplace, someone will be interested in them. Perhaps your descendants, or a friend’s grandchild, or a grand-niece or nephew. When they read your rambling musings, your journals, your essays – well – those works will indeed become timeless and moving works of art.
If it’s daunting, start slow and easy. Keep copies of the notes, letters and cards you send and receive. Start a journal, or a blog.
Write about your experiences and thoughts. Therein will lie your memories, your “you”. Write about as many of your yearnings, loves, disappointments and successes as you dare. Yes, there — wherever you put them — available and preserved, for future generations.
As true as that is for you and me, I know this. Last Christmas was, miraculously, not Kevin’s last. Nor was it yours. As soon as Kevin recovers enough to write – he will. It seems it may be soon. And now he has so much more to write about. I can’t wait to read it all. And some day, his grandkids and great-grandkids will be glad that he did.
Note: Sally Benson is also well known for writing “Junior Miss”, which was also made into both a play and a movie. The movie starred Peggy Ann Garner. It was also based on a series of semi-autobiographical stories that she first published in – yes – The New Yorker.
Most of her New Yorker essays were published under the nom de plume of “Esther Evarts.”
Looking back to a time of promise and the dawn of a new century, with new inventions and American — not to mention Midwest — pride; when we were an emerging world power; when the world looked to America and said “That’s how to do it.” Let’s take a look at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, AKA the 1904 Saint Louis World’s Fair.
That Fair was the most massive, magnificent, opulent, ostentatious and over-the-top world’s fair, ever. Period. This 47-slide picture show (link below) doesn’t even show Germany’s huge re-creation of the Tyrolean Alps, or much of “The Pike” where you could ride elephants, camels or ostriches … see street performers of magic and musicians of all sort, walk the streets of Cairo … or, see a working hospital complete with new inventions like incubators with actual “struggling-for-life” premature human babies.
Consider what you could see from the 265-foot tall Ferris Observation Wheel — the one that had 36 cars carrying 60 passengers each, for a total of 2,160 riders at once:
Fourteen Palaces, up to 21-acres each;
1,576 separate buildings;
…lit up with electric lights like the Emerald City, visible for miles and miles, unheard of!;
Underwater lighting of huge cascading waterfalls;
… powered by a 14,000 hp motor that drove electric generators;
that also powered chillers (air conditioning — ah!!) so they could enjoy ice cream and ice skate through the summer;
total area of 1,240 acres with 75 miles of walkways (for comparison, Disneyland is 85 acres; Disney World’s Epcot Center; and Magic Kingdom combined are only about 400 acres);
20-million visitors;
Over 1,000 new huge sculptures;
Daily parades with the likes of John Phillip Sousa;
Walking around you could see and enjoy:
Exhibitions and speaking engagements by personalities from Will Rogers to Helen Keller;
Food treats made popular or first coming to public view: the newly ‘invented’ hot dog, ice cream cone, cotton candy, hamburger, puffed rice, puffed wheat, and Dr Pepper;
A real working hospital, a real oil well and a real coal mine;
And, somehow they had the great idea to hold the 1904 Olympics at the same time and place, at Washington University, on the western edge of the Fairgrounds.
— just one of the biggest extravaganzas in human history. An exclamation mark to president Teddy Roosevelt’s bold proclamation: “This will be an American century.”
