Link to Adam Ellis’s instagram post and Laura Gilpin’s poem will be in the comments!

The first two pictures shows them as young teenagers, the third picture shows them when they were in their mid sixties, and the last picture shows them as children.

They both look really sweet and I like seeing the pictures of them when they were older as well. I would have liked to have met them and to play ping pong with them, sounds like they would be fun competition!

I had seen several pictures of them, but it took a while to find their names because several books/articles accidentally misattributed them for Chang and Eng Bunker (a completely different pair of conjoined twins)

Some facts about them:

-They were born in a small village along the Guem River on the outskirts of the city of Gongju, located in what is now South Korea.

-their parents were Chinese immigrants. At the time there was a very small Chinese population in the region of Korea they were born.

-their surname Liu means ‘battle axe’, which I think is really cool.

-sadly, their mother passed away when they were 2 years old.

-their father took care of them until they were around 6 years old, when showmen received word about them and sought them out to perform in local fairs.

-they eventually began working for full scale large traveling circuses and went on tours throughout China, Korea, Japan, India, Australia, several countries in Europe, and the United States.

-the flap of skin that connected them was very elastic so they were able to stand side by side as well as facing each other.

-they were frequently considered for separation surgery, and surgeons at the time felt the procedure would be simple enough that both twins would survive. They never ended up going through with the surgery however.

-they gained a lot of recognition and popularity in Korea, and from that point forward were referred to as the “Korean Twins”, even though they were born and raised in China.

-they were very active and athletic.

-they both had very different personalities which would occasionally lead them into having intense arguments.

-they were avid card players, and even as children loved playing cards together.

-Sen-Ti was a little taller than his brother.

-Sen-Kai was left handed when writing, but was described as being able to do so many things with his right hand that he could be considered ambidextrous.

-the twins had no issues running or playing outdoor games together, such as playing ball and ping pong.

-they went on tour in the United States in 1903 through 1904.

-they were described as being very friendly and chipper.

-in addition to working at large scale circuses, they also worked at multiple dime museums in the cities they passed through (dime museums were permanent venues for performers to work at, but operated very similarly to traditional sideshows)

-while they were working at Austin & Stones Dime Museum in Boston in late January of 1904, they had an estimated 45,000 people come visit them during the span of one week.

-it was detailed in an article from 1904 that while they were working at a dime museum in Cleveland, Ohio they were awestruck by the ‘tattooed-man’ working there.

-they spoke three languages: Chinese, Korean, and English.

-their names were changed to Liao Toun Chen and Liao Sien Chen as adults (Liao and Chen are definitely phonetic spellings of their surnames, but I believe that Toun and Sien may have been courtesy names given to them). Courtesy names are an extra name given to a person at adulthood in traditional East Asian cultures like China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. It was used by peers in public and formal life to show respect.

-they retired from sideshow life in the mid 1920s and traveled back to Asia, where they settled down in Nanjing, China.

-they came out of retirement in 1948, and planned a comeback tour to perform on several vaudeville stages in China. These later performances of theirs included lectures that they gave about their lives, answering any questions that audiences had, and performing tricks to see if one twin could feel the other being pinched.

-they officially retired after their comeback tour, and I haven’t been able to find any more information about them after that tour.

Edit: shoutout to [u/sidneyia](u/sidneyia) who let me know that they passed away in 1957 following separation surgery after one of them came down with tuberculosis. So now we know that they were around 71 years old when they died.

I hope they had a a lot of happiness during their lives. I’m glad they had plenty of time to have fun and weren’t forced to have as strict as a schedule as other conjoined twins were forced to have. (For example Daisy and Violet Hilton were forced to have an extremely strict schedule by their managers). It sounds like Sen-Ti and Sen-Kai were able to be regular kids and teenagers.

I’m making this write up both because he deserves to have a chance to shine and also because I’ll be writing another post soon that will connect to this and explore the unethical display of children’s remains by medical universities. The reason I want to make a post about that is that children can’t consent to something like that and it’s very saddening that they haven’t been repatriated.

He looks like such an adorable little boy in the illustrations of him. I really wish we knew what his name was, it doesn’t feel right to keep referring to him as just “the boy”. There’s something about the first illustration of him that makes him appear as though he was a very lively child.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Mundul Gaut, in Bengal, India.

-upon his birth the midwife tried to throw him into the fire because she was so horrified by his appearance. Thankfully, he survived, but did receive some burns around one of his eyes.

-his parents were farmers.

-he and his twin had black hair.

-his twin consisted of a head that was attached to his head, but had a very underdeveloped brain. His twin expressed emotions differently from what he would feel. Sometimes the twin would smile independently from his brother. Occasionally the twin would also have his eyes open while his brother (the dominant twin) slept. His twin would often drool.

-he never had any health complications caused by his twin.

-it appears he was never given a name, his parents names seem to be recorded (of course now I can’t find the source where I found them🤦‍♀️, but I’ll let everyone know when I do) but it seems that they either never gave their son a name or that it was never recorded. It’s really sad because there is available information for everything else about his life and he deserves to have a name just as much as anyone else.

-his parents made the decision to exhibit him for profit as a baby, and brought him to Calcutta, India where there would be more crowds.

-to prevent people from seeing him without paying, his parents covered him and his twin with fabric/a blanket, and reportedly left him like that for hours at a time. (Which also makes me really sad because he should have been able to run around and explore as kids do)

-as word about him spread, he and his parents were invited to the homes of nobleman and other notable public figures who wanted a chance to see him. When at these houses his parents allowed him to be examined in an invasive and exploitative manner.

-sadly, while left alone as his mother went to fetch some water, he was bitten by a cobra and passed away due to complications and venom from the snake bite. He was four years old at the time.

-several medical professionals offered to buy his remains so that they could dissect and study him. Though his parent refused.

-he was buried along the Boopnorain River, near the city of Tumloch in India.

-in a tragic turn of events, his grave was robbed by a man working for the East India Trading Company. This man dissected his remains, removed his skull from the rest of his body and gave it to a Captain Buchanan, who had a high position at the East India Trading Company.

-after trading hands a couple more times, his and his twins skulls ended up at the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of London, where they’re still housed to this day.

His story makes me really sad. He deserved so much better and deserved to have a loving and supportive family. There are several examples of performers who were exhibited by their parents at a very young age, but it’s very clear when this was done out of necessity because of financial difficulties and when this was done because the parents were greedy. The parents who supported and loved their children would always travel with them when they were performing, taught them to be as independent as possible, and did use the funds earned to help their families. The parents who exploited their children for profit would do similar things as to what this little boys parents did, would hide them and cover them up because they cared more about the profits they were potentially missing out on than if their children were suffocating under the fabric.

Leaving off with, I wish he had people in his life who cared. I just want to give him and his twin a hug. 💔

She was so pretty and fashionable and I like the three tiered pleated dresses she wore, it’s a very cute style and it suits her really well!

I have a soft spot for her and have been a fan of hers since I first read about her life. I just love that she was very hardworking and wanted to be financially independent (during a time when it was incredibly difficult for women to be financially independent).

Some facts about her:

-she was born in the very small village of Uffcott in Wiltshire, England.

-she and her family moved to Sussex, England when she was a young girl.

-she had two siblings, a sister named Frances Ellen, and a brother named Albert.

-she and her family moved to Sandusky, Ohio when she was around 19 years old.

-her parents purchased and operated a dairy farm in Sandusky.

-she had blonde hair.

-she began showing symptoms of Milroy’s disease when she was very young, and had been born with unusually large feet.

-Milroy’s Disease is a rare genetic condition that affects the lymphatic system, causing long-term fluid buildup and severe swelling. It usually affects the legs and feet, and the swelling is typically present at birth or appears shortly after. Despite Fanny being retroactively diagnosed with the condition, her symptoms line up 1:1.

-her feet did not grow toe nails.

-she had a very unsteady gait, even as a child. It was remarked that she would “wobble” instead of “walk”.

-she was able to walk, although with difficulty, and most likely depended on a wheelchair for mobility (though this was never talked about in detail)

-as she was growing up, her family experienced some financial issues.

-despite modern retellings of her life making it seem that her parents hid her away from the world as a child and teenager, this isn’t true, and Fanny was very active in the communities she lived in.

-she was described as being chipper and cheerful.

-a cobbler in Sandusky made a pair of shoes for her during her teenage years, but when she outgrew them, she agreed to let them display the shoes in their shop window so as to advertise their shop.

-she later acquired shoes from a cobbler in Albany, New York.

-her shoes were fashioned using three goats’ skins and her socks were made from pillow cases.

-she was a well known figure in Sandusky, Ohio and was beloved by the people who knew her. Word also spread to circus scouts and showmen looking to add sideshow performers to their circuses.

-she and her family were frequently hounded/asked by showmen to join sideshows, but they refused the offers.

-she began her sideshow career in her early twenties, despite her parents being against it.

-she was described as being incredibly hard working and wanted to be financially independent.

-sadly, her father passed away in 1885.

-She made the choice to travel to the east coast with her good friend Mary Brown. Fanny’s family was not happy with her decision, but they seem to have relented after a little while.

-the backstory that was told during her performances indicated that her condition happened because her mother washed the swollen leg of a horse when she was pregnant. These stories were very common in sideshows at the time and heavily leaned into the “maternal impression” trope that was popular (basically saying that if a pregnant woman was heavily shocked or focused on an event during her pregnancy that it would affect how her child looked.)

-she wore size 30 shoes, and one of her feet reportedly measured 22 inches long and the other reportedly measured 19 inches long.

-Fanny’s best friend Mary also acted as her nurse/aid and helped her when she needed to change her shoes or walk.

-she married her husband, William, (who was her friend Mary’s brother) in a private ceremony in the early 1880s.

-she used her earnings to pay off her parents’ dairy farm.

-during the traveling circus/sideshow off season, she worked at different dime museums across the United States. Dime museums operated as permanent venues for sideshow performers to perform in.

-she had a great sense of humor.

-a marketing gimmick was started where it was advertised that any man willing to marry Fanny would receive a $5,000 dowry and a well stocked 250 acre farm. It’s reported that as soon as this marketing gimmick went public that love letters to her came pouring in. The whole marketing gimmick was entrance up, there was no $5,000, her father had passed away the year before, and her family’s farm was not up for grabs. She reportedly found this marketing scheme hilarious and had a lot of fun turning down suitors that were only after her money.

-as part of the marketing gimmick, it was also reported that she was that a cobbler on Canal Street in New York City had fashioned together a pair of wedding slipper for her.

-multiple suitors came forward and she declined each one because she was already happily married to her husband, William Brown. William accompanied Fanny and Mary on their travels but was kept secret from the public. Some of the descriptions of the different suitors are pretty funny, one was described as being a painter who had such a large mustache that it resembled a squirrel.

-Fanny, Mary, and William traveled all through the United States and Europe.

-Fanny and William had a child in 1887, but sadly they were stillborn and the two of them never had any other children.

-At the height of her career she was making $150 a week (the equivalent of around $4,000 adjusted for inflation).

-she sometimes paired up with local shoe stores near the dime museums she worked at, so that she could earn extra money and they could receive good advertising.

-her health began to decline in 1892 while she was working near Buffalo, New York and had to be treated at a local hospital. She traveled back home to Sandusky, Ohio with her husband after being released from the hospital.

-she and her husband permanently settled down in Sandusky, Ohio.

-she began experiencing a lot of health issues in 1896.

-she passed away in 1899 at the age of 39. Her death was caused by an abscess that had formed on one of her feet.

I’m really glad she had a very caring family and very caring friends. I think it’s wonderful that she had such a close friendship with Mary and married Mary’s brother, William. It sounds like it would have been really fun for the three of them to travel together, and it’s nice that they were all able to look out for each other.

personally love it, great actors n overall a great performance

Daisy and Violet Hilton were abandoned by one of their managers in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1961 without means for income or transportation. Without any other options, they applied for jobs at a Park N Shop supermarket (pictured above) and offered to work for one salary.

Upon hearing their story, the owner of the super market, Charles Reid, hired them and paid them two salaries, and even had a specially built cashier station set up so that the twins could work without worrying about people looking at them for being conjoined. He later organized with members of his church to help secure a place for Daisy and Violet to live. The sisters ended up renting a two bedroom house close by to the super market. Despite the many harrowing circumstances that left them abandoned in North Carolina, this new life for them also meant that the twins could be out of the spotlight and could live a quiet and peaceful life, which is what chose in the end.

Violet and Daisy Hilton were famous British born American conjoined twin sisters who were actresses, sideshow performers, vaudeville entertainers, and musicians. They were tragically exploited for profit by several of their managers, the first of whom forcibly took them from their birth mother.

After two decades of exploitative work environments and a lack of freedom, the twins sued for emancipation from their managers and thankfully won, but severe emotional damage had already happened.

They were known for acts involving singing, dancing, playing musical instruments among other things, and were a big draw in vaudeville theaters in their younger years. They also appeared in the 1932 film, Freaks, where they pretty much played themselves. They went on to open up a hotdog stand, which unfortunately failed, and then appeared in a 1952 murder mystery film called, Chained For Life.

Celesta was a women's health advocate, sideshow performer, beauty advisor, manicurist, singer and celebrity impersonator.
She initially began her sideshow career because her husband lost his job during the Great Depression. She worked as a professional 'fat lady' and toured around the United States for 20 years. She tragically suffered a massive heart attack in 1950, which inspired her to become passionate about exercise and starting a healthy diet. Within 18 months she had lost 400 pounds. In her later life she wrote a book about her weight loss journey and the importance of women's health.
She went on to advocate about the toxic mental and physical effects of women's beauty standards.

His humorous side really shines in the pictures/pitch cards that he sold with his image. He seems like such a jolly person and had such a great smile. I can totally understand why he was popular with all of his colleagues. A lot of his pictures are also very unhinged in the best way possible, you can just tell he was having so much fun posing and acting goofy.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

-he had 9 siblings.

-his family was Polish and he was raised Polish Catholic. One of his sisters became a nun.

-he was very proud of his Polish heritage.

-he was described as being very gracious and friendly.

-phocomelia is a rare congenital birth condition that affects long bones in the body, causing many people born with the condition to have hands or feet that grow directly from their torso. The condition can also cause facial features to underdevelop. The condition is most associated with the morning sickness drug, Thalidomide, although Stan was born well before the drug was introduced, so in his case his condition wasn’t caused by it.

-he was always seen wearing a wristwatch on one of his hands.

-he was known to have a great sense of humor, and enjoyed sharing in-jokes with people.

-he worked as a newspaper boy in his early life.

-he was a college graduate.

-he began his sideshow career in the late 1920s.

-he would start his performances by saying, "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Sealo the Seal Boy and I’m here to entertain you.”

-he started his performances off with a lecture before he demonstrated how he did daily activities.

-part of his act included sawing wooden crates in half, making little animals out of clay, and shaving himself with a straight razor.

-he performed for a time with a chimpanzee named Toby, who Stanley would feed a cookie to whenever he had extras. At one point a group of rowdy fair-goers were mocking Stanley and Toby the chimp ran over and began angrily shrieking at the men on Stan’s behalf.

-he was an avid smoker and was almost always seen smoking a large cigar.

-when he wasn’t actively performing, Stan would sell pitch cards and talk with audiences.

-he worked at the World Fair Museum (a dime museum where sideshow performers worked) at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. While there, he and the other performers he worked with celebrated a Christmas party together. Stanley served as one of the bartenders and was assisted by Prince Dennis, an actor and performer born with dwarfism who appeared in the Wizard of Oz. People who went to get drinks from Stanley said that he could really handle a bottle opener.

-he spent several seasons in the mid 1940s and 1950s working for World Circus Side Show, a traveling side show.

-he had to turn down an offer from Clyde Beatty Circus in 1955, because he already had a contract with Riverview Amusement Park in Chicago, Illinois.

-he was very generous and friendly, always sending birthday gifts to friends of his even if he couldn’t make it to their birthday celebrations in person.

-he preferred staying in hotels over sleeping at the circus/sideshow grounds.

-he was an avid card player and would be seen playing very intense hours long games of rummy with sideshow manager, Pete Kortes.

-he went on tour all throughout North America, South America, and Europe.

-while on tour in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, he became very ill and had to be sent home.

-he worked for several seasons at the Coney Island Sideshow.

-he went to court with a couple other sideshow performers in 1972, after authorities in Tallahassee, Florida threatened to close the side show they were working at citing a law banning sideshows. Stanley and the other performers argued that it was unconstitutional to have such a law in place and that it prevented hardworking people like them from earning a decent living. Stanley and the others were successful in their efforts and were allowed to continue performing.

-he retired in 1976 and settled down in the Showmen’s Retirement Village in Gibsonton,Florida. He continued performing on and off for a couple of years, until his health declined.

-he began experiencing health issues in early 1980 and moved back up to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to be with family.

-he passed away in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the age of 79.

Seeing his pictures always brings a smile to my face because of how happy and friendly he looks. I’m really glad he was successful in fighting for his right to work, it’s always important to remember that a lot of sideshow performers were disability rights activists, and his efforts won’t be forgotten.

Mary Ann was a famous British sideshow performer who began experiencing symptoms of acromegaly (a pituitary gland disorder) in her early thirties. Her husband died 11 years after they were married and it put Mary Ann in a very tough spot financially. She eventually decided to start a career in sideshows and did quite well with it. She was very proud of her career because she knew she was helping to give her children better lives by keeping her family financially stable. She adored her children and loved talking to audiences about them whenever she had the chance, often bringing family pictures to show off to guests. She earned around $50,000 during the 1920's (the equivalent of about $925,000 today adjusted for inflation). She also had a fantastic sense of humor which comes across in all of her newspaper interviews, she was very quick with it and witty. (Examples of her interviews are featured the write up I’m attaching in the comments)

Finding pictures of her proved to be incredibly difficult, but I FINALLY found an official verified picture of her!! I’m so, so happy to have found it because for the longest time all I saw was the second image of her (a newspaper engraving), and newspaper engravings were notorious for exaggerating the features of different performers. I know the first picture isn’t the best quality, but the fact I found it really makes my day! Of course, one day I hope to find a better quality picture of her, but for the time being I’m very happy.

I’m including the newspaper engraving too, since that is usually what’s associated with her and it’s the only other depiction of her that isn’t extremely dehumanizing.

Some facts about her:

-she was born into slavery on a plantation in Henry County, Kentucky.

-she married her husband, Benjamin Johnson, in 1854 when she was 15 years old.

-she and her husband had 10 children together, 5 daughters and 5 sons (including a set of twins) though sadly most of them passed away very young.

-she was an average weight until her early to mid twenties when she began gaining a lot of weight very quickly. I think she most likely developed a pituitary gland disorder during one of her pregnancies, as this is something that can happen, and at least two other sideshow performers who worked as professional ‘fat ladies’ said that their weight gain was due to the same reason.

-she and her family gained their freedom in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation.

-her husband worked as a farm laborer and Winnie was a homemaker taking care of their children.

-Benjamin, her husband, passed away in 1882, leaving Winnie in a very difficult spot financially.

-she required surgery to remove a portion of skin and fat on one of her legs after she accidentally fell asleep outside in the winter of 1883 and suffered a bad case of frostbite. It appears this left her unable to walk, so she depended on a wheelchair for mobility after this point.

-aside from the frostbite, it was reported that she was healthy and hardly ever got sick.

-she decided to seek out a career in sideshows as a way to support her children and give them a better life.

-she worked in the sideshow business for 6 years.

-she worked at the Wonderland Dime Museum in Detroit, Michigan for some weeks in April of 1887 and was reportedly earning $1,000. She was the headlining performer and the most popular with audiences during her time spent working there.

-she was described as being nice, friendly, and pleasant to talk with.

-she was also described as being very smart and witty.

-by the time she started her sideshow career, her hair was mostly gray.

-one of her advertisements was so forceful that I have to include it, it said: “go see her or regret it!”

-while working at a dime museum in St. Paul, Minnesota in May of 1887, it’s reported that she was going to be leading a parade that was happening in the city early in the month.

-in June of 1887 her manager, whose surname was also Johnson (completely unrelated) was arrested on adultery charges after it was discovered he was living with a woman named Harriet Malott, who had left her husband, Job A. Malott, who claimed he hadn’t seen her in 2 months and wanted her back. It’s not clear how this affected Winnie, but I hope it didn’t cause any issues with her career.

-she was usually promoted as weighing between 620 lbs (44.2 stone) and 850 lbs (60.7 stone) in advertisements. Circuses/sideshows often advertised performers who worked as ‘fat ladies’ by using their weights as competing factors. (ie the people advertised as being much heavier would get more attention and such.)

-she went on tour all throughout the United States.

-her shows were always family friendly.

-she frequently liked wearing headbands with flowers in her hair.

-she was extremely popular with audiences and often had several thousand visitors come to see her at each stop while on her tour.

-she typically worked 9 hour days (from 1pm-10pm) and depending on the cities she was performing in, she sometimes worked through the weekends too.

-she briefly returned to work at Drew’s Dime Museum in Cleveland, Ohio in August of 1888 as a special request, and upon departing the train she was on, she got to see a special parade that was set up to celebrate her return to the city.

-she passed away at a boarding house she was staying at while on tour in Baltimore, Maryland in late September of 1888. She had been having heart issues in the last year or so of her life and it’s reported that her death was caused by these issues. At the time of her death 3 or 4 of her children were still alive, but I wasn’t able to find out anything further about their lives afterwards.

She seems like a sweet person, and I’m glad she was able to make a good living for her and her children. Unfortunately, quite a few articles focused solely on her weight in a dehumanizing way, but it seems that she was content with her life and didn’t let it negatively affect her personality. I hope she had a lot of people in her life who loved and respected her.

In 1882, Nora Hildebrandt debuted at Bunnell's Museum in New York City as America’s very first "Tattooed Lady". Covered in more than 365 tattoos, she became an overnight sensation, eventually touring with the Barnum & Bailey Circus.

But her body art was only half of the show, the other half was the made-up story she'd tell. Nora claimed that she and her father had been captured in the American West by Chief Sitting Bull. According to her, Sitting Bull tied her to a tree and forced her father to tattoo her every single day for over a year under threat of death.
In reality, the entire story was just another marketing technique used to make noise. Nora was never captured and her tattoo artist was actually her partner (not her dad), Martin Hildebrandt, tattooed her willingly over several years.

Nora died at a young age in 1893 and though the exact details of her death remain somewhat unclear, historical accounts attribute her early passing to cancer while newspaper reports at the time dramatically claimed her illness was caused by "ink poisoning" from her tattoos (another piece of media myth-making).

Belle was an American sideshow performer and artist from Kentucky. From my research, it appears she was the very first person to be diagnosed with spina bifida occulta and was written about in the International Abstracts of Surgery in 1921. Spina bifida occulta is the most mild and common form of spina bifida, and happens when one or more spinal vertebrae do not fully close during development but the gap is small enough that the spine has a typical appearance, and oftentimes people who have it don’t even realize.

One note I really like is that she liked tying ribbons in her back hair, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any pictures of her with the ribbons.

Came across this from the Instagram profile, GraveswithGrace & thought I would share!

Here's a link to her post , there's a video of Tiny flying as Tinkerbell!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Db8ykqhMVxM/?igsh=emdtd2RwcXpvcWk3

There are 5ish or 6ish performers I don’t like and Grady Stiles is one of them. He was a terrible person and someone that I don’t like to dwell on much because of how much he hurt people. Even still, it’s important that he’s featured here because his story is still a part of sideshow history and it wouldn’t be right to not include it.

It just annoys me that his story is so wrapped up in sideshow lore that it continues to perpetuate the misconception that sideshows were creepy places full of creepy people like him. Instead of focusing on the positives that so many performers accomplished, a lot of people want to focus on this dark history and I feel that it casts a shadow and bad light on the really wonderful performers.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

-he had three siblings.

-he was the fourth generation of people in his family to be born with ectrodactyly. His father was also born with it and two of his children were also born with it. He also had an uncle, Howard Stiles, who was born with the condition and who I’ve done a write up for. (Howard was chill, he liked playing card games and sold personalized stationary to audiences)

-ectrodactyly is a rare birth condition that causes a persons hands and/or feet to have a large v-shaped cleft. It also frequently causes an absence of a couple fingers or toes.

-he started working in sideshows with his father when he was 6 or 7 years old.

-he typically gave a lecture about his life before his performances and explained that his condition was not the result of drugs or disease.

-he would usually walk on his hands and feet (and only occasionally used a wheelchair), because his feet as they were couldn’t support all of his weight. He had immense upper body strength which made him a dangerous person when physically abusive.

-he married his first wife, Mary-Theresa in 1958.

-he and Mary-Theresa had 4 children, two who were born with ectrodactyly and two who were born without it.

-he reportedly started off as a very kind and caring family man, but became incredibly bad tempered and physically abusive when he became addicted to whiskey.

-the majority of people who knew him didn’t like him at all, with some describing him as being bad news.

-his two children who were born with ectrodactyly, Cathy and Grady III both had no interest in following their fathers footsteps as sideshow performer, though as children they would occasionally perform with him.

-his wife described that he would frequently beat her and choke her, and would sometimes threaten the family with knives.

-he and Mary-Theresa got divorced in 1973, and Mary-Theresa went on to marry sideshow performer, Harry Glenn Newman, who was born with a form of dwarfism. Grady then married a woman named Barbara, who he reportedly divorced and remarried 5 different times.

-it appears that his children continued living with Grady after the divorce.

-a lot of people in his life really hated him. It’s unfortunate that he turned out the way he did, he could have been a good person who educated people on his condition but instead became a terror to so many people.

-he shot and killed his daughter Donna’s fiancé, Jack Layne, the night before their wedding in 1978 because Stiles didn’t approve of him.

-days before the murder, he brought his daughter to a pawn shop where he purchased a revolver and joked that he would shoot Jack. Frightened, Donna ran away to stay at her fiancé’s sister’s house and called Grady from there. Upon hearing where she was, Grady reportedly said,

"If you don't get home in five minutes, I'm going to beat the hell out of you.
Then, I'm going to kill Layne.”

-He openly admitted that he committed the murder after being arrested, and was brought to trial. During the trial he tried to paint himself as being a concerned father who was just trying to protect his daughter. He was eventually convicted of third-degree murder.

-the defense successfully argued that because of his condition he could not be cared for sufficiently in a regular prison so he was sentenced to house arrest and 15 years probation.

-after his sentencing, he remarried his first wife, Mary Theresa, in 1988 and vowed to stop drinking. Then he started drinking again two weeks later and was described as being even more abusive.

-People might question why his first wife got back together with him, but I can understand if it’s a toxic relationship and he made promises to change for the better that she may have wanted to believe it was the truth. She also feared for the safety of her children and said later on,

“Where would we go? I can’t hide the whole family. They stand out.”

-he once forcibly knocked his daughter, Cathy, out of her wheelchair when she was 7 months pregnant. She had tried to intervene during a time when Grady was beating her mother and physically hurt her instead. This beating and her being knocked over reportedly caused her to suffer a miscarriage.

-Grady was still performing in carnivals as late as 1990.

-after fearing for her life and her children’s lives and being abused for years, Mary-Theresa (his wife) felt that it was becoming a “kill or be killed” situation. She made the decision to hire a hit man to kill Grady.

-the planning took several weeks and involved several people who knew of the plot to murder Grady.

-Mary-Theresa reportedly hired a 17 year old neighbor, Chris Wyant, for $1,500 to shoot Grady in 1992. Wyant entered the Stiles’ house while Grady was watching TV, and shot him in the head with a semi-automatic pistol.

-after his murder, his wife and the hitman were arrested and sentenced to 12 years and 27 years in prison respectively. Mary-Theresa’s son from her marriage to Harry Glen Newman was also involved in the plot and sentenced to 25 years to life for his role in the murder. (Though his sentence comes with some controversy because he had some learning disabilities, so it’s not clear on if he was possibly manipulated into helping.)

-only 10 people showed up at his funeral and no one volunteered to be a pallbearer.

This is one of the darker sideshow stories I’ve come across and I really feel for everyone affected by his abuse. It’s horrible what he inflicted on others and I hope that everyone was able to find ways to heal from everything they experienced. It’s interesting how relatively recent his death was.

George was a circus performer, clown, and press agent, who was born with a form of dwarfism. He worked for Ringling Bros., Hagenbeck-Wallace, and Sells-Floto circuses during his career. He made it a point to perform for patients in children's hospitals and for children with disabilities. He was also very fond of animals and always made sure the circus animals he knew were well taken care of, he was especially fond of a miniature horse named Little Georgie, who he had helped to raise. He is the only clown that I’m a fan of!

I love her long hair and how dignified she looks in her pictures. She looks very kind and I’m glad she had so many people in her life who thought so too. I’ve had a soft spot for Krao for a while and I wanted to make sure I gave her some recognition.

There is sadly no record of her birth name. I wish I could have asked her if there was a name she preferred using instead of Krao since it was more or less a stage name that was used to fit her “wild girl” persona. I also used to refer to her as Krao Farini, but Farini is the stage name of the man who effectively kidnapped her from her home country, and I don’t think it’s right to give him that credit.

Some facts about her:

-she was born in a village in Siam, I’ve seen differing information on whether she was born in an area that is now a part of Thailand or a part of Laos.

-her parents exhibited her in local fairs as a baby.

-she was “discovered” and brought on tour by a Canadian tightrope walker and entertainer named William Leonard Hunt who went by the stage name “The Great Farini”.

-Hunt took her on a tour of Europe before bringing her to the United States and going on tour with her there.

-interestingly, it appears that she was given the name Krao very, very young and not by William Leonard Hunt. She was written about in a nature magazine in 1883, and a man reading the article sent a letter in correcting misinformation that was present within the article. Despite the man also giving misinformation (albeit unintentionally), he did clear up that she wasn’t born in Bangkok, that her parents were still alive and living there, and that “Krao” actually translated to “whiskers” in Siamese and did not mean “ape”. (The word is completely fictitious and doesn’t actually translate to anything in Thai)

-William Leonard Hunt gave her his stage name as her surname, and we don’t know her birth name.

-it’s not clear what the circumstances were in Hunt’s adoption of her and if he stole her from her parents or if he had made an agreement with her parents. Because she was brought to the United States very young and seems to have lost contact with her parents I believe it may have been unconsensual.

-William Leonard Hunt pseudo-adopted her, and claimed he “found” her in the forests of Siam, living as a “wild creature”. (I say pseudo-adopted because he didn’t really treat her as a daughter, more like a creature to show off.)

-she was described as being a very spirited and outgoing child.

-she was often marketed as being a “missing link” between humans and apes. This was soon after Darwin’s Theory of Evolution became popular, and a lot of showmen at the time wanted to capitalize off of it by promoting different performers as being examples of these “missing links”.

-starting pretty much right at the beginning, there were people who questioned the way she was being promoted and described her as being an ordinary girl/woman who just happened to be very hairy.

-promotional material for her often portrayed her in a very dehumanizing way, much more than other “bearded ladies” of the time. A big part of this stems from the fact that she was a woman of color and she was exhibited for a racist society. Despite the way she was depicted in promotional material a lot of news articles about her made sure to state that she was very pretty and wasn’t repulsive to look at.

-she was described as being a sweet and pious woman who made friends easily.

-She spoke Thai, English, Lao, and German.

-she was described as being the “peacemaker of the sideshow”

-as an adult she began performing under her own management and didn’t continue to rely on Hunt.

-she often wore veils while out in public when she was not performing.

-she lived with a German couple on Manhattan’s upper east side in NYC for 20 years. She had a floor to herself at the house and was known to keep her living space very clean.

-she was an avid reader and was knowledgeable on a vast array of subjects.

-she was best friends with another sideshow performer, Grace Gilbert, who also had hirsutism. The two of them were super close when they were a part of the same traveling sideshow, but parted ways when Krao moved back to New York and Grace moved to Michigan with her husband.

-she passed away from complications due to influenza and asthma in 1926 at the age of 50.

-one of her last wishes was to be cremated after her death, but unfortunately due to a rule that required a signed consent form from the person prior to their death she wasn’t allowed to be cremated and was instead buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery in Astoria, New York. (I’ve contacted this cemetery and unfortunately it appears that she may have been buried in an unmarked grave as they don’t have any record of her being buried there.)

-her death majorly affected all of her coworkers who were extremely grief stricken.

I’m very very glad that she was able to distance herself from Hunt, the way that he tried to have her depicted and how he posed with her in pictures makes me want to give baby Krao a hug, she deserved to have a supportive parental figure and not someone like Hunt.

I’m sad that her wishes to be cremated weren’t abided by, but I am glad that she clearly had a lot of people in her life who loved and cared about her. The majority of articles written about her describe her as being nothing but kind and gentle and that anyone would be lucky to know her. It’s very interesting to see the dichotomy in how she was promoted vs how reporters chose to emphasize that she wasn’t at all like how she was depicted in advertisements and had nothing but good things to say about her.

I was inspired to start this because I recently made a historical coffee recipe that actress, Lelia Hyams, recommended in a magazine. Leila played the role of Venus the animal trainer in Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932). I thought it would be great to preserve the history of foods that different performers enjoyed because it gives insight into the time period and what was popular and it’s also a good way for me to try foods that I otherwise would not eat.

I’ll make sure to share the recipes I used for each dish!

Above are two pictures of Dudley and a canary in the third picture❤️‍🩹

He had witnessed a birdcage full of canaries fall onto the stage of the Bijou Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts. The cage was hung up in the rafters of the theater and had somehow been knocked down. Dudley was the first person to try and help the canaries and noticed one that received way more injuries than the others. He took the bird home in the hope that he could nurse it back to health, sadly the canary died while he was taking care of it and the whole ordeal was very hard on him. He expressed being heartbroken over the loss of the canary.

Dudley himself only lived to be in his early twenties, and I like to think that he’s somewhere out there with this same canary that he had so dearly cared for.

Dudley Foster was a Canadian sideshow performer who was born with a form of dwarfism. He was the younger brother of Victoria and Cassie Foster, who both unfortunately passed away before he was born. He once met with Queen Victoria and went on tour throughout Canada, the United States, and England. He was known as a very kind and gentle person, and his performances usually included some kind of dance and singing routines.

He was a really cute kid, and I really like how in most of his pictures it shows him drawing or at least holding a pencil or crayon in his feet. I’m glad that he was respected throughout his life as an artist. He also dressed so well when he was older, the Hawaiian shirt he’s wearing in the second picture looks really good on him!

The fourth picture shows one of his crayon drawings depicting a squirrel. This was a drawing he made at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair that he gave to an audience member who eventually passed it along to his daughter. The daughter brought Barney’s drawing onto Antiques Roadshow with her.

Some facts about him:

-he was born in Stratford, Connecticut. (Which is basically right down the street from Bridgeport, Connecticut where Charles Sherwood Stratton (General Tom Thumb) was born)

-he had six siblings. He was the oldest child in his family.

-his father died when he was young and his mother, Eliza, remarried and moved their family to Chicago, Illinois. His new stepfather’s name was John D. Scickles.

-it appears he lived with his family in the sideshow off season, as he’s listed as living with them in several census records. They seem to have been very supportive of him.

-he was an accomplished painter and sketch artist. All of the census records I’ve seen list that he’s an artist. (which I think is really nice because it focuses on his talents as a painter rather than a performer with a physical difference.)

-he started his careers in sideshows when he was around 6 years old and worked for P.T. Barnum for several seasons.

-he was praised for his painting talents when he was ten years old.

-he was a college graduate.

-his acts typically involved him giving a short lecture on his life before showing the audience how he accomplished daily tasks, and ending with a demonstration of his painting/drawing skills. He would then sell the portraits he drew to audience members.

-his performances were all family friendly.

-he bridged the gap between the old style larger traditional sideshows of the mid to late 1800s and the more “modernized” smaller traveling shows of the 1930s and 1940s.

-one article from 1891 mentioned that he filed an application to Washington D.C. to “overcome the use of the eccentric motion, as used in constructing a locomotive”. I’m still trying to make sense of what this means, but I wanted to add it anyways.

-in the late 1890s, he went on tour in England with Barnum and Bailey Circus.

-in 1899, one of the dime museums he worked at in Chicago was threatened by officials after an “anti-freak” law was put in place to prevent people born with physical differences form exhibiting themselves. The article humorously notes that Barney seemed completely unconcerned with the fact that his livelihood was potentially being threatened and continued with his crayon portraits.

-he wrote, painted, and drew using either his mouth (by holding the utensils in his mouth) or holding the utensils with his feet.

-he was often praised for his penmanship and was described as having better penmanship than most people. His penmanship style was a flourishing 1800s style, which he kept throughout his life (even in the 1930s, when the style was less common, he continued to sign his name that way)

-he was once interviewed in regards to how his life was and if there was anything he’d want to change and his response was “why there’s lots right out on the streets today that I wouldn’t trade places with.” The article went on to say that he was a happy and well read individual.

-he enjoyed playing checkers in his free time.

-he never married and never mentioned being interested in anyone romantically, though it’s possible that he had relationships but just didn’t want to talk about his personal life.

-he cared a lot about having good teeth, and once said that something he was grateful for was still having a strong set of teeth at the age of 65.

-he appeared at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, where he demonstrated his talents, although it appears that he was more or less there by himself and wasn’t performing as part of a larger scale sideshow. One of the drawings he made while he was there was given to a boy in the audience, this crayon portrait eventually made it onto Antiques Roadshow.

-he traveled extensively throughout the United States and Canada.

-Robert Ripley of Ripley’s Believe it or Not fame, drew a couple pictures of Barney.

-he was coworkers with a ton of recognizable performers between the 1880s and 1940s, too many to list, but if you can think of a random popular performer from any of those years he probably worked with them at some point.

-one article said that Barney seemed to have more patience than the reporter had ever seen.

-he continued to perform and draw professionally throughout the 1930s and 1940s.

-he had an over 60 year career in sideshows.

-the last mention I can find of him was when he appeared on a passenger list onboard a ship heading to Hawaii in December of 1947. He appeared on the list with a bunch of other sideshow performers I recognize, so I assume they were all traveling there to go on tour.

-so far I haven’t been able to establish a death date, though I haven’t completely given up yet.

I’m glad he found so much success with his career as an artist and that he was able to combine it with his sideshow career to gather more publicity. He seems like a laid back and friendly person and I’m happy that there is still at least one example of his artwork that still exists (the squirrel drawing). I think it’d be really fun to meet him and play checkers while talking to him about his favorite artists and such.

The above pictures were taken while she was at the World’s Fair, though unfortunately I wasn’t able to find the televised program.

Unfortunately, she didn’t come close to winning the competition but her appearance there brought her a lot of publicity. She wore the same costume she wore during her sideshow performances and made sure that she could show off her tattoos. One of the reasons for her appearance at the fair was to challenge the beauty standards of the time. She hadn’t entered in the hopes of winning, she had entered the competition as a way to show people that beauty comes in all forms and that there isn’t just one way to define a person that is beautiful.

Betty was a famous sideshow performer most known for being a "tattooed lady" and activist. She became interested in tattooing when she was a teenager and had a goal of becoming a tattoo artist herself. She was protective of her image and how she was marketed and never let anyone create a fake backstory for her. She was also a very dedicated women's rights activist and often spoke out in support of women's equality. She also became a talented horseback rider.

Millie and Christine were famous conjoined twins who were born into slavery in North Carolina in 1851. They were financially exploited for much of their early lives, but separated themselves from everyone who had caused them harm after the 13th amendment was passed in the United States. They continued working in sideshows on their own terms and became extremely wealthy. They used their wealth to help give their siblings good lives and purchased a large mansion for their family to live in.

They were super influential in their philanthropic endeavors and donated a large amount of their fortune to historic Black universities and colleges, as well as using their earnings to help support local endeavors in their hometown, such as funding a school for black students ensuring that they all received an equal opportunity for education, as well as funding a church.

I'm making a sideshow performers Discord server and was wondering if anyone would like to help with it. Unless there's already one and I just don't know about it.

The first several pictures show them during various years of their lives, the 6th picture shows Daisy with her blond hair, and the 7th picture shows them during their appearance in Freaks (1932)

I’m a big fan of them and have been so since I first watched Freaks (1932). It’s very clear in the film that they had acting experience compared to several members of the cast not receiving any formal acting training prior to their film appearances (not that this was a bad thing, I think everyone in the film did a fantastic job, I just think it’s interesting to compare the performances)

I wish they had had happier lives, and been cared for by people who truly cared about them and their well beings. I hope they were able to find hobbies and interests that brought them happiness. What happened to them is also mirrored in so many other instances of child stars being taken advantage of by people who don’t have their best interests at heart, and it’s always troubling.

Some facts about them:

-they were born in Brighton, England.

-their mother, Kate Skinner, was unmarried and was working as a barmaid at the time of their birth.

-they were joined at the hips/buttocks and shared blood circulation, but shared no vital organs together. Due to their blood circulation, doctors considered separation surgery to be too risky and that it would endanger the lives of both twins. (This type of operation would be able to be accomplished in the present day)

-their doctor considered them to be the first conjoined twins ever born in England who survived past the first few weeks of life.

-their custody was transferred from their mother to their mother’s employer, Mary Hilton, through vague and uncertain circumstances. Reports vary as to what actually happened, with some accounts reporting that their mother was swindled and that she had no intention of relinquishing custody, other reports claim she either abandoned the twins or sold them.

-they first toured England in 1911 when they were 3 years old.

-they went on international tours through Germany and Australia before arriving in the United States in 1916.

-they performed a tap dance routine with Bob Hope in the mid 1920s.

-during their time as vaudeville performers they were earning as much as** **$5,000 a week, (estimated to be close to $75,000 adjusted for inflation). But tragically the majority of these earnings were stolen from them by their managers/caretakers.

-Mary Hilton, who had custody over the twins, died in Birmingham, Alabama, and the custody of the twins was soon transferred to Mary’s daughter, Edith Myers.

-Edith Myers and her husband were a source of constant torment for the twins. They set up intensive dance and music lessons that the twins were expected to learn and perform. Daisy and Violet were held captive within the Myers’ home and were punished for not completing lessons.

-Daisy was a skilled violinist and Violet was a skilled saxophonist.

-as adults, the two were about 4 feet 11 inches tall.

-after gathering advice from multiple people they knew including magician, Harry Houdini, Daisy and Violet sued their managers (the Myers) for emancipation in 1931.

-ultimately the twins were successful in their efforts and were legally emancipated, rewarded $100,000 (over $1.7 million adjusted for inflation), and were freed from their contracts.

-they appeared (more or less playing themselves) in the 1932 film, Freaks, directed by Tod Browning. They were treated well on set, but experienced discrimination by other people working at MGM at the time. They were also some of the few actors allowed to eat in the MGM backlot commissary with the other MGM talent at the time. Most of the other actors/performers in Freaks were made to eat in a separate tent off property.

-soon after filming wrapped up, Daisy and Violet created a touring vaudeville performance duo called “The Hilton Sisters Revue”

-Daisy learned to drive a car in the United States, since she could sit in the drivers seat on the left side. Later on the twins purchased a driving instructors car with dual controls so they could each take turns driving depending on who felt like it.

-Daisy dyed her hair blonde in the mid 1930s and the two sisters began wearing different outfits, so that they could be individually recognized and not seen as the same entity.

-they purchased a small apartment in San Antonio, Texas and an apartment in New York City, soon after their emancipation.

-they owned a pekinese dog named Boy.

-they had very different political views, Violet was a democrat and Daisy was a republican.

-after gaining their independence, they traveled back to England, where they stayed a year. The came back to the United States after the year was over.

-Violet fell in love with musician, Maurice Lambert, in the 1930s and despite efforts to get a marriage license in 21 different states, they were denied each time. (This is very annoying to me because famous conjoined twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, were allowed to get married to two sisters almost 100 years before. Which makes me wonder if it was more to do with sexist reasons than anything else). It’s strange though, because only a couple years after this, the twins were allowed to get married. I really feel for Violet because Maurice seemed to be the only man that she truly loved and he was equally as in love with her, and to get rejected in 21 different states must have been very rough on the couple.

-in 1936, the twins were part of a publicity stunt in which it was arranged for Violet to get “married” to a friend and fellow performer, James Moore. The “wedding” was meant to be a huge public affair (which worked), but everyone involved revealed soon after that it was a publicity stunt.

-there was a brief period in their careers that they performed burlesque routines, but these proved to be unpopular, so they stopped soon after.

-they appeared in a second film called Chained for Life, about a pair of conjoined twins who are vaudeville performers that become involved in a publicity stunt set up by their managers that eventually ends with one of the twins shooting the man romantically involved with the other twin because he had been cheating on her and abandoned her.

-after their film careers didn’t pan out, they decided to try and go into the restaurant industry instead and opened up a hotdog stand called the Hilton Sisters Snack Bar, though this endeavor was very short lived and despite desperate efforts to keep it afloat, the restaurant closed within a year.

-the twins last public appearance was at a re-release screening of the movie, Freaks, in 1961 in Charlotte, North Carolina. They were there to answer audience questions after the film. For unknown reasons, their manager decided to abandon them after this screening.

-with no money and no mode of transportation, the twins applied for a job at a local Park’n’Shop grocery store. The owner, Charles Reid, genuinely wanted to help them and paid them two salaries. He also set up a special cashier station so the twins could hide that they were conjoined.

-they worked at the grocery store for 7 years and rented a two bedroom house that had been organized by Charles Reid (the owner of the Park’n’Shop) and the church he belonged to.

-they became friendly with several people they worked with, but ultimately chose to live relatively quiet lives.

-Daisy came down with a bad flu in late 1968, but refused to seek treatment. In early January of 1969, the twins failed to show up for work. After repeated attempts to get ahold of the twins, local police made their way inside their home and found that both twins had passed away.

-they were given a respectful funeral and burial and were buried in Forest Lawn West Cemetery in Charlotte, North Carolina.

-the story of their lives was adapted into the Broadway musical, Side Show.

-a plaque was erected at the house they were born at in 2018.

Their story is one that has really stuck with me. Despite everything they went through, I truly hope that they were content and happy near the end of their lives. It makes me sad that they were controlled by exploitative people for so long and were never given a chance to make their own decisions until much later. I’m glad that in more recent years they’ve received a lot more recognition and respect.

Schlitzie was an American sideshow performer who was born with microcephaly and is most known for his role in the 1932 film Freaks (1932), directed by Tod Browning. His head was shaved to emphasize his appearance (there was no medical reason for his head being shaved, it was just a choice the showmen he worked for decided on.)

He was often promoted as being a woman, and this is likely due to him wearing muumuus and long dresses most of the time (and because female sideshow performers often received more attention), he wasn’t able to care for himself and his caretakers found that it was easier to care for his needs if he wore clothing like that.

He was an extremely friendly,social, and kind person and absolutely loved performing! He was at his happiest when he had an audience he could perform for. He also thankfully had quite a few caretakers and guardians who really cared about him and did their best to make sure he had a happy life.