Thursday, December 27, 2018

MABEL #12


Posted by Chic Silber at 12/27/2018 12:02:00 AM

6 comments:

Chic Silber said...


Did Mabel own the cats

she worked at the compound

You mentioned that 1 was

killed after she was fired

What happened to the rest

27 December, 2018 18:57
Roger Smith said...

This is the back of Mabel's cageline, designated as Mabel's Tiger Arena. Our other performing venue was across the park, known as the Big Stage Arena.

Here we see Mabel's cageline and her props all freshly painted. Those across the center were for her pyramid mounters. Goldie is rolling her barrel. Above her is Tiba's wire-walk rigging, and @ R is the chain hoist.

The cats in the b.g., L to R, are: Tiba, Dale, Ouida (YOO-da), Mommy, and Toby.

The man standing guard outside, whose face is seen just above the center pyramid pedestal, is the ever-vigilant Dick McGraw, another Mabel protege.

Louis Goebel obtained this arena from the Barnes show. It was built by Red Forbes, who included a two-section elephant door, seen at the back. The 19 sections provided a 36' arena, the preference of Louis Roth. They were 6' wide and 12' tall, and Forbes built them out of pig iron. Benny Bennett said it took 2 men on each side to carry a section. Fortunately for us, when the cage went up in Thousand Oaks, it stayed up for 30 years.

These notes may not seem abbreviated, but they are. Each image here summons another thousand memories.

Thank you, CHIC, for this posting.

27 December, 2018 19:00
Roger Smith said...

When I arrived, Mabel's act had 5 tigers. That September, we came in one morning to find Dale had died. The very next September, Ouida was lost. Uncle Ben said both had paased from age. This left her with Goldie, Tiba the wire-walker, and Toby. When she was turned out, she kept thinking for the next 6 months she would be called back. But on Sunday, April 14, 1968, Goldie got out in an escape no one has ever explained to me. Rather than call Mabel, who could have walked Goldie home, the ill-placed quasi-foreman, Wally Ross, sent Hubert Wells over with a 30.06. Hubert told me with one shot Goldie died instantly. He keeps her skull in his home. Roy Kabat had an office rug made of her hide. When Mabel learned of this, she knew it was over. She had her sleeping pills refilled, kept her appointment with the beauty parlor, and wrote out 3 notes of good-bye. On the 20th, her cook went into hysterics when she found Mabel, so I identified her body for the Ventura County Sheriff's Deputies, and Griffin Bros. Funeral Home placed her in the Coroner's van. As stated above, Mabel was cremated, with no funeral or memorial service allowed. Her remaining 2 tigers lived on to be sold at the closing auction. The tigers she trained were always Compound-owned.

28 December, 2018 00:55
Charles Hanson said...

ROGER; Thank you for all the great comments on Mabel.....I don't know if bittersweet is the right term to use for the above post...But if you love circus people...it really tugs at you....Sad Ending that could have been avoided if only common sense had prevailed.

28 December, 2018 01:42
GTC said...

Roger,
Thank you for comments. Amazing lady.
Graham

28 December, 2018 07:04
Roger Smith said...

Mabel's departure was engineered by the jealous carny shrew, Ina Scarbrough, we had there among the operating partners. The refusal to call Mabel to cue Goldie home, and to shoot the tiger instead, was a deliberate final twist of the knife.

Ina lived on to age 104, dying only 4 years ago in a nursing home in Texas. Mabel was 79.

28 December, 2018 14:44

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