Sunday, December 09, 2018

FOR ROGER SMITH


5 comments:

Roger Smith said...

The cubs in this shot are Roughie, Ruggles, and Toughie, all litter mates.

The Tiger Queen, Mabel Stark, was born Mary Ann Haynie on December 9, 1888, in Carthage, Tennessee, to Hardy Baxter Haynie, a share-cropping tobacco farmer, and Lela Pettipoole. The eldest of 7, she and her siblings grew up tending tobacco stalks around the hardscrabble settlement of Cobb, Kentucky. Her father died in 1904, and her step-father was accused of abuse. Mary Ann's try at a 1st marriage fared no better, and after graduating from nursing school, in Louisville, she escaped it all by getting herself cross-country, seeking refuge on a carny, dancing cootch. She was on Great Patterson, C.W. Parker, and Cosmopolitan until 1910.

Mabel told us she joined out with Barnes at his Circus City, in Venice, California, on December 12, 1911. She realized her Epiphany when there she saw her first tiger, King. The rest is history, but a very long story. She learned her profession from Louis Roth, once she wrested him from a bitter, near-violent divorce and married the man. She told me these 5 were "the war years", but she emerged at the top of her field.

I had three-and-a-half years with Mabel, and when she was forced out by a jealous carny shrew, one of Jungleland's operating partners, she and I took care of her tigers on her last day, November 10, 1967. She never saw her tigers again. She bore up over the next 6 months, thinking they'd call her back. But when her lead tiger, Goldie, was shot and killed, Mabel overdosed on sleeping pills, and was found dead on April 20, 1968. I identified her body for the Ventura County Sheriff's Deputies. She directed there be no funeral, and her ashes were scattered over the Pacific. Mabel was 79. Her last 2 homes still stand in Thousand Oaks.













Roger Smith said...

Something else CHIC and I talked about, and that's this very Blog. You will be very grateful if you take a look at the left-hand column that comes with this site every day. Start at the beginning, or anywhere you like, and you'll find Buckles posted a series of photos every single day, which drew endless comments providing fascinating history--both by contributors and by readers. One couple, I believe it was, went through every day of it and made notes of the photos, shows named, performers seen, and the comments they generated. This is a major project I'd like to start with. Everything posted here is worth a backwards look, and I promise you the treasures of your circus dreams. The history awaits.

Charles Hanson said...

Great Reading...Always enjoy reading the ins and outs from someone who was there. Can anyone tell me why on the Blog Page where it reads "Recent Comments" that the recent comments never show up anymore....as they once did in the past...?

Chic Silber said...


I'll check with Shannon Charles

as I don't know anything about it

It may be "Greedy Google" taking

the space back for revenue

Charles Hanson said...

Thanks for any update.....