Thursday, December 27, 2018

MABEL #5


Posted by Chic Silber at 12/27/2018 12:08:00 AM

4 comments:

Roger Smith said...

Mabel sitting in her dressing room with Kim Baer, @ C, and her 10-year-old sister, Dale, looking on. The man in the photo Mabel holds is Dick McGraw, at the St. Louis Zoo. The tiger he posed with is Ham. Photo taken the summer of '66.

27 December, 2018 16:51
Jim Alexander said...

Great information Roger, thank you. I recall Buckles story about the first time he saw Mabel Stark. His parents had laid off at Jungleland and Buckles was wandering around in the morning. He returned to their elephants and told his father he saw an old lady working tigers with a broom rake. His father replied, "Buckles, don't you know who that is? That's Mabel Stark."

About the Dick Mc Graw photo: Don't know what he did in the McGraw act but Ham rolled a ball using two parallel hoses stretched out as a track for Jacot. (He was also cross-eyed, the tiger not Jacot.) The date would have been between !958 and 61. I think Jules returned in 1962. I came to St. Louis in 1966 and never saw Dick McGraw in person but all the ladies in the office remembered his act fondly.


(Just returned from a holiday trip, catching up.)

31 December, 2018 15:34
Jim Alexander said...

Excuse me, I'm old and tired. You probably meant the photo of Mabel and the Baer girls was taken in 1966, not the McGraw pic.

01 January, 2019 21:47
Roger Smith said...

Yes, the photo dates circa 1966, when I met the Baer family at Mabel's cages.

If you're old and tired, I understand--I'm nearly 50 years of age.

03 January, 2019 16:31

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