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Submitted by Ed Limbach on 9/26/2006 Last Modified
MICKEY KING, AERIALIST SUPREME
Circus fans world wide consider Mickey King to have been one of the all time great aerialists. Although she performed in a previous era, her skill and dedication to her aerial art form should remain as an inspiration to all young ladies of today who aspire to fly through the air. This is the 1st of a series of articles about this remarkable circus performer.
MICKEY KING ( 1905 - 2004 )
by
Steve Gossard
Illinois State University
One day in June of 1918, two months shy of her thirteenth birthday, Marie Gertrude Comeau (she was called Mickey) stepped out onto the fire escape of the family apartment in St. Albans, Vermont. She had an uninterrupted view of the city, for they lived on the fifth floor of the building. Mickey leaned forward onto the wooden railing, and it fell away. She dropped straight to the ground. Incredibly, she survived, but she did not walk again until Armistice Day, November 11. This was not the last serious fall that Mickey would take, nor her only brush with death.
Mickey had been born on a farm in Sutton, Quebec in August of 1905. Her sisters, Antoinette and Rose, and her brothers, Joe and Ernest were all born at this same location. Years later, she would recall living a pioneer way of life on the farm in Canada. They ate venison from deer that her uncle had hunted in the woods. They butchered hogs and ate head’s cheese, blood sausage, boiled potatoes and baking soda biscuits with cream gravy. Once, as a toddler, when Mickey swallowed some fly-poison her mother made her drink cream as an antidote. Either there was no doctor available or they simply could not afford the treatment. The family moved across the border to Richmond, Vermont, then to Sheldon Springs, where her brother, Clarence was born. From there they moved to St. Albans, where Mickey took her near-fatal fall in 1918.
Following her accident Mickey dropped behind in her schoolwork. She was often nervous, and her attention wandered. The fact that the family moved so often in those early years made matters worse. Eventually they settled in Holyoke, Massachusetts, where Mickey worked in the textile mills when she was not in school. She had little time for recreation, but she did enjoy reading poetry, and she always loved music. The family owned an old Edison phonograph and a few cylinders. The old recordings were simple songs, like “Roll Me Over in the Clover,” and “The Black Eyed Susan.” Mickey and her sisters and brothers would lay on their stomachs on the floor and listen to the music as her mother cranked up the phonograph.
In her teen years Mickey was unhappy, restless and dissatisfied with her life. July 2, 1923, just one month before her eighteenth birthday, a casual encounter changed her life. Mickey and her friend, Polly Bednarski stood outside the front door of the Sells Floto Circus tent at Holyoke. The show announcer was introducing the big cat man, Terrell Jacobs from the platform. With no notion of the etiquette of circus society, Mickey and Polly followed Jacobs into the tent. When he realized that they were not with the show Jacobs told them that they should apply for work. “They’re looking for girls like you.”
Mickey went home and forged a note from her mother to the management of the circus granting her permission to join the show. The next day she hitchhiked to meet up with the circus at Greenfield. The show manager, George Myers hired her on as a bally girl (a chorus singer and dancer). When she began traveling with the circus that day Mickey had nothing but the clothes she was wearing when she had left the house. The women performers made her a dress from discarded bits of costume fabric.
The status of a circus bally girl was only slightly above that of a hired hand on the show, and Mickey began watching the performance, looking for something more ambitious to do. At the same time, it was obvious to everyone with the circus company that Mickey was a young girl on her own, and she needed supervision and protection.
One day between shows the Big Top was empty. The big trapeze rigging was left standing after the Flying Wards act had closed out the program. Mickey entered the tent and climbed the rope ladder to the pedestal board, where the trapeze “flyers” swung off to do their act. Eddie Ward, the owner of the Flying Wards’ act, entered and found this attractive young girl swinging on the trapeze above the net. Mickey was, in fact, trespassing on Eddie’s property. He was impressed with how strong she seemed, and with her apparent fearlessness. Ignoring her obvious breach of etiquette, Eddie hired Mickey into the Flying Wards act on the spot. No doubt Mickey would have preferred to begin as a star solo aerialist, like Erma Hubble, but every new recruit began training with the Flying Wards as a “catcher” with the flying return act, and Mickey was no exception. The catcher with a flying return act hangs by a trapeze head-downwards, and catches the “flyer” after the trick is done.
One evening at the close of the season the circus personnel were having a bon fire in the back lot. Mickey looked up to see a pair of dark eyes watching her. She had attracted the attention of Allen King, the big cat trainer on the show. Allen was a strong, rough sort, a very physical man, a hard drinker and a gambler. His act with the Sells Floto Circus was called “The Cage of Fury.” He worked thirty-two lions and tigers together in one cage, and he was the first man to introduce black leopards and mountain lions into this type of act. Allen began courting Mickey that year. She returned with the Wards to their winter quarters in Bloomington, Illinois at the close of the season, and continued her training < to be continued>
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