Marblehead: Home of an Americana Medicine Show Family

By Ron Stock

Written based on the events of his great grandparents life in the dawn of the 20th century, Marbleheads a classic story with a classic hero one mans selfless journey through rural America, with a supportive caste in tow and a bottle of the divine in hand.
As a natural born storyteller with an eye for the smooth weave of a good plot, Ron Stocks prose pulls us through page after page, casting glimpses of the extents to which hope can carry us. Driven solely by purpose, everyman hero Gay Billings carries us from a well-worn, dirt-caked farm life, to the bustling industry of the big city. With a graceful hand, Ron Stock delivers troves of memorable characters, and chocks them full of spirit. Some struggle with values, and others pivot on a dime, but each one carries a unique essence, all their own.
With the knack for unpredictability and a taste for good humor, Ron Stocks delivered his most layered title, to date. If youre in the mood for that down-home feel with a touch of the sublime, Marblehead is sure to please.
-M. Paris

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496905307

Ron Stock

Reconnecting is Ron Stock's second novel, a major departure from his first novel, the inspirational Moses, God's Blessed Donkey (Amazon and Kindle EBook). A romantic at heart, Ron Stock loves to write passionate stories with unique “Wow!” endings, which the reader will enjoy discovering in both his books. Reconnecting is grounded in witty, true-life stories of the author’s high school years in Jacksonville, Florida. Returning home for the first time in 50 years to attend his 50th high school reunion, Ron Stock, loosely veiled under the character of Rob Strand, reconnects with his fun-loving high school buddies and former girlfriends, newly single again. The result is a humorous and heart-warming story with a poignant conclusion. Now living in California with his wife of 42 years, Ron is working on his next major novel, Montebank, a mystical story interwoven with real-life elements of his grandparents’ own traveling medicine show in the Midwest of the 1930s and ’40s. Besides writing, Ron also enjoys participating in Masters Track and Field events.

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© 2014 Ron Stock. All rights reserved.

Book Cover Photo by Anne McKinnell/All Canada Photos/Getty Images;

Graphics by Andrew Dean

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/23/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0531-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0532-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0530-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014907034

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

PART I

1. Gay Billings

2. Chicago

3. The Silver Moon Tavern

4. Making Beautiful Music

5. Sally Billings

6. Vaudeville

7. Second Wedding

8. The Formula

9. The Marblehead House

10. First Road Show

11. Liberty

PART II

12. The Girls

13. Spanish Web

14. Freddie

15. Two Paths

16. Boss

17. The Roaring Twenties

18. Winds of Change

19. Sixtieth Anniversary

20. Strike Your Tent

21. St. Mary Magdalene

To the all the wonderful clowns,

who give the children joy and laughter.

Acknowledgements

I must fist give special thanks to my wife, Lucille, who gave me the many hours of quiet time I needed to create and write this novel. Also, I am constantly encouraged by the love of my wife, sons, Josh and Derek, daughter-in-laws, Jen and Amanda, and four delightful grandchildren.

I especially want to thank my invaluable editors, Alexandra Napolitano and Amy Nifong/Robert Wood who with their professional editing skills make this novel fun and a joy to read. Also, I want to thank Andrew Dean for his book cover graphics that makes the cover pop! Thank you all!

My sister, Sharon Frampton provided many of the family photos from a family photo album she created and dedicated to our mother, Marian Lois Stock. Without the photos, this novel would not be visually attractive and accurate. Thanks Sha!

The author, editors, and publishers wish to thank the following for permissions to reproduce copyright materials.

Book Cover. Photo by Anne McKinnell/All Canada Photos/Getty Images; Graphics by Andrew Dean.

Figure 1. The Billings Trio-Novelty Sketch Artists Playbill [BillingMerriam Collection 004 JPG.JPG], Billings-Merriam Family Vaudeville Scrapbooks, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Figure 2. Billy and Eva Merriam—The Team with the Changes-Playbill [BillingMerriam Collection 006 JPG.JPG], Billings-Merriam Family Vaudeville Scrapbooks, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Figure 3. Gem Theater Playbill [BillingMerriam Collection 008 JPG.JPG], Billings-Merriam Family Vaudeville Scrapbooks, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

Figure 4. Lyric Theater Playbill [BillingMerriam Collection 007 JPG.JPG], Billings-Merriam Family Vaudeville Scrapbooks, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Figure 5. Ben Davenport—Circus World Museum, Baraboo, Wisconsin

Every effort has been made to trace rights holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers would be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

Preface

During the summer of 1952, for the first and only time, I met my great-grandfather and grandmother, Gay and Essa Billings. I was a gangly ten-year-old when my grandparents, Freddie and Ethel Stock nèe Billings took my six-year-old sister, Sharon, myself and to the Billings’ Marblehead home to show us off. I was the first grandchild of the Stock family, though there were many more born both before and after my sister.

It is possible that my father, Glen Stock, the oldest of Freddie and Ethel’s ten children, had taken me to Marblehead when I was a baby, but I do not remember ever being in their house or meeting them prior to that summer. This trip was the only time that I met Gay and Essa as they passed away in 1953 and 1958, respectively.

My sister and I stayed in Quincy, Illinois at our grandparents’ Cherry Street home for the summer. Every summer my parents sent my sister and me to Quincy from our home in Atlanta on the train. My uncle and aunt, Bill and Maxine Stock, picked us up at Chicago’s Union Station. From there, we would drive more than three hundred miles southwest to Quincy, a sleepy Illinois town of fifty thousand or so inhabitants.

Each summer, a few of my cousins also made the journey to Quincy and the Cherry Street house. Our summer days were filled with nothing more than romping and playing from morning to night. My grandmother loved having kids around, filling her cavernous house with energy and life, running around her kitchen table and up and down the staircase. A few of us were brave enough to try to slide down the banister without injuring ourselves on the railing post at the end. My Quincy summers are full of fond memories of being a member of a wonderfully large and loving family.

That summer when Sharon and I went to meet our great-grandparents was just a simple Sunday family visit. The state highway from Quincy to Marblehead is a straight two-lane road. The highway cuts through farms; the roadway is lined with bright yellow corn stalks from the outskirts of Quincy to Marblehead during the spring and summer. When we drove out to Marblehead, the temperature was perfect. It wasn’t blazing hot and humid as Illinois’ summers often are during July and August. With the back windows rolled down and the warm breeze gently blowing, I was lulled into a sleepy, tranquil state. The sweet smell of the cornfields, fertile earth, fertilizer, and the heat all relaxed me and made me feel at home.

Gay and Essa’s Marblehead house was just off the main highway and up a gravel road. I remember the sound of the car’s tires on the gravel and how the car pitched slightly side-to-side as it rolled gently over the potholes. Freddie was careful as not overly exert the shocks on his new Cadillac.

The trip to Marblehead and meeting my great-grandparents was a poignant experience I will never forget. I was overwhelmed by their house’s musky smell; the lack of air circulation left a stale and stagnant smell from the warm summer day. I could almost taste the pungent, but somewhat sweet scent of pipe and cigar tobacco. I later discovered it was from Gay Billings’ favorite tobacco, Prince Albert, and Rotan mini cigars. Most of all, I can still recall the smell of kerosene from the many years of burning kerosene lamps in the house; the old walls of the Marblehead house were embedded with its musky scent. Overlaying the mixture of unforgettable smells of the hundred-year-old house was the mouth-watering aroma of fresh baked bread. My great-grandmother had made a fresh loaf of bread for our visit.

Gay Billings was a large imposing man, much larger in size that I had envisioned before meeting him. Probably due to his age and diminished mobility, Gay did not stand when I came into the living room. Instead, he sat comfortably in his favorite rocking chair. His legs were long and I had to come to the side of the rocker to accept a hug from him. He put his large paw-like hands on my shoulders, engulfing them. I could tell that while he was quite old, he was still had a good deal of strength left in his hands. Resting precariously on his large, slightly pocked nose were a pair of thick, bifocal glasses. I later learned that Gay had both diminished vision and hearing for most of his adult life. His warm, gregarious smile made you feel like you had known him for years. He laughed and was quite funny. It was easy to see how he had been the comedian and ringmaster of his own medicine show.

As I mumbled something similar to Glad to meet you, my great-grandmother Essa came into the room and hugged my sister who was standing a few feet behind Gay and me. I think Sharon was intimidated by the large man in the rocking chair. She was beautiful and blonde. Essa Billings took hold of Sharon, hugging her, seemingly not wanting to let her leave her grasp. Essa reached out to me and patted me on the head probably like she probably did with Buster, their big, old, mixed breed collie that laid nearby Gay, protecting him just in case one of us made a sudden move in Gay’s direction. After meeting my great-grandfather, I leaned down and patted Buster on the head, letting him know I was not a threat to his master.

After our introductions, Gay rose from his rocker and we all went into the kitchen for some fresh baked bread, homemade jam, and milk. We chatted about how my sister and I were enjoying our vacation before Gay led us out the kitchen door and into the large, weathered barn adjacent to the house. The barn’s rusty-hinged doors squealed defiantly when Gay opened them. Gay muttered about how he would have to eventually oil the hinges. I imagine it never happened.

Inside the barn, my sister and I stood in the middle of the open dirt floor and stared at stacks of dust-covered wooded crates lining one side of the barn. On the ground were long wooden tent poles butting up against very large rolls of canvas. An upright piano covered by a dirty colored cloth tarp sat on a raised stage-like platform covered with dust and bird droppings. The tarp did not appear to have been moved in some time, which probably meant the piano under the tarp had not been played in many years.

We looked toward the top of the barn where there were aged, frayed ropes and a small wood platform. The platform was missing one slat, which hung lopsided by a rope from one of the rafters. The platform clearly hadn’t been used for years, if not decades. While I tried to discern what the ropes and platform might have been used for, Gay walked over to the poles and canvasses. He gave them a little kick and studied them for a moment, lost in thought.

Gay simply said, Great memories in this old barn. He repeated the same when he went to the stacked wood crates and ran his hand over the top of one, brushing away the dust. Gay turned and ushered us outside, closing the barn door. The hinges sounded their complaint again. My great-grandfather never said what the great memories were hidden away in the wood crates or rolled up in the canvasses.

Around the kitchen table, my sister and I listened to the adults talk about Eva and her circus. I had no idea who Eva was, but would learn later that Eva was Etchie’s sister. She owned a real circus, complete with lions, tigers, and elephants. In fact, Eva’s circus, Dailey Bros. Circus, once rivaled Ringling Brothers Circus in sheer size. They had over 50 railroad cars just to get from one show stop to another. Until then, I never knew that my roots were in vaudeville, medicine shows, and the circus.

As the adult conversation was winding down, my sister and I were abruptly told to pick up our belongings and get in the car for the trip back to Quincy. Due to poor night vision, Freddie did not like to drive at night. Essa hugged my sister and me and told us to come back to see them again before we left for our home in Atlanta. Gay put his big hands on my shoulders again and smiled. He moved one of his hands to the top of my head as if he was going to bless me, You’re a good boy.

That short day in Marblehead was my only exposure to my great-grandparents. I wouldn’t find out about the glorious show business lives of both my great-grandparents and grandparents and Aunt Eva until much later in my life. For whatever reason, no one in the Stock family, my folks included, talked much about the family’s show business history. I never saw any family albums about the medicine show or circus. There weren’t any press clippings or playbills. Last year, I searched online for Gay Billings and was rewarded with a single article and photo of Gay’s One Horse Medicine Show. Only one small article, maybe fifty words and fuzzy photo of Gay and musicians in an old show wagon outside a dilapidated tent with the words Gay’s One Horse Circus hand painted on the canvas; that was all the history I could find about my great-grandfather and his medicine show.

Fortunately, a few years ago, a Merriam family member circulated an article about donating The Flying Merriams family album to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. The Smithsonian was doing a show on the American history of the circus and the album was part of that exhibition. Gay Billings’ oldest daughter, Eva, was a performer in the Merriam trapeze troupe and had been married to Billie Merriam for a time. I contacted the Smithsonian, got a listing of the album’s contents and other donated materials and found old playbill photos of Gay and Essa Billings and their daughters, Ethel and Eva. Surprisingly, every one of them was at one time in Gay’s One Horse Medicine Show. My roots were beginning to fall into place.

Since I had little information to go on, this novel is a fictional account of how their lives came together. However, the story is very true in they carved a small niche in Americana history with their medicine show, cure-all tonic, and circus. I only wish that I had had the chance to talk with them about their show business experiences.

The next time I was at the Marblehead house was after Essa’s passing in 1958. I now was sixteen and my entire family was back in Quincy for a summer vacation. This trip was the exception; my father drove us to Quincy to show off his new Ford station wagon. One day, Freddie took me with him to the Marblehead house, which he was fixing up to sell. The house still had the musky scent of old cigar and pipe smoke mixed with kerosene lamps and fireplace smoke. I glanced to the living room area where I met Gay Billings; the room was empty. A feeling of sadness came over me. I knew a piece of history was now gone forever.

Within minutes of arriving, Freddie set about finishing shellacking the upstairs’ floors to give them a shiny new look. Due to the heat in the room, Freddie worked only in his boxer shorts and socks. With not much to do to help him, I went outside and straight into the barn. I wanted to see if there were any treasures left that might have been overlooked when Freddie and some of his boys cleaned it out. They planned to demolish the barn. Freddie wanted to salvage the better pieces of wood and build a garage behind his house.

Once I got in the barn, I didn’t find any treasures that I could stick in my pocket. There weren’t any scraps of old playbills or any hint of Gay and Essa’s life in the medicine show business. Looking up in the rafters, the old ropes and broken platform still hung waiting for their final fate when the barn came down. Fifty years later, I found out that one of the greatest flying trapeze acts, The Flying Merriams, began their aerial act from that platform and those now frayed ropes.

I glanced around the empty barn and looked down at the hard-packed dirt floor. A small marble was half-buried in the dirt. I picked the marble up and brushed the dirt off. The marble was a type termed a cat eyed marble, not a big fat shooter marble. The marble was green in color, the cat’s eye embedded in the center of the marble a very dark green. How the marble ended up in the barn I would never know. Maybe the marble was a free prize Gay put in the popcorn boxes he sold at his medicine show to entice more popcorn sales. Maybe the marble was from one of the many Stock children who came to Marblehead to visit their grandparents, using the dirt floor to shoot marbles while the adults visited.

For me, the little cat eye marble was a cherished memento of Marblehead—especially since the memento was a marble. Unfortunately, I lost the marble at some point in my years of moving, having my own children, who quite possibly borrowed the marble for their own collection. Somewhere in a bag of marbles, my cat eye marble from the Marblehead barn is in good company.

Freddie finished the floors, put his pants back on, and we left the Marblehead house and returned to Quincy. As Freddie’s car slowly moved down the gravel road toward the highway, I turned to see what I could of the house and barn. Even as a young sixteen-year-old, I became misty-eyed as I instinctively knew I would never see that house and barn again. I put my hand in my pants pocket, found the marble, and held it tightly as the car met the highway and the view of the house disappeared from my sight.

I heard recently the idea that you die twice: once when you take your last breath, and the second when the last person on earth who knew your name takes their last breath. Then no one would ever know who you were in this life, unless you were in the history books. Marblehead perpetuates the names of my family: Gay and Essa Billings, Fred and Ethel Stock nèe Billings, and Eva Merriam Davenport nèe Billings. They were truly legends in their own time and in their own field of entertainment. My deepest regret is that I did know who they were much earlier in my life. I hope this novel does them credit.

Enjoy Marblehead-Home of an Americana Medicine Show Family!

PART I

The Miracle Tonic

One

Gay Billings

July 1900

The wooden wheels of the bandwagon caught every rut and scar in the dirt path that made up the main street in Donnellson, Iowa. The furnace-hot Iowa summer days had forged every divot in the road into rusty steel rails. With each step of the horses, the bandwagon slipped from one rut to the next, resulting in a violent, bouncing sway.

Musicians, dressed in blue and gold trim uniforms, sat in the wagon trying to make the Sousa marching songs sound identifiable to the sweat-soaked crowd gathered nearby. Unfortunately, the band could barely get out a single coordinated note before the wagon hit another rut, ruining the song.

Shit Gay! screamed Eddie. I think I just chipped a tooth on my trombone! Can’t you guide those two lame-ass mules you call horses to pull this crappy wagon around the ruts? Any more bumps and I’ll be blowing this here fine instrument out of my ass!

Sensing the band players’ heightening frustration, the aging horses quickly guided the wagon over more bumps. The screams and complaints of the struggling musicians seemed to lift the horses’ spirits and, with ears twitching, they softly whickered their delight to one another.

The pair pulled as a team, plodded as a team, and enjoyed pranking their masters as a team. They soon spotted an enormous chunk of granite in the center of the road that had worked loose from the bedrock. With huffs of pure, impish delight, the horses pulled a wheel over the firmly embedded rock causing the wagon to lurch a full foot off the ground. The musicians’ golden-plumed pith helmets took flight—only to immediately plummet through the flailing legs and arms of the musicians. They unerringly landed in the dustiest corner of the wagon. The drummer dropped his drumsticks, one of which bounced out of the wagon. Trumpets and trombones were raised like pitchforks in the hands of rebellious peasants as the band members were tossed onto the floor, into each other’s laps, and nearly over the sides. Trying desperately to regain his balance, the cymbal player smashed the trumpet player in the face with one of the cymbals leaving a bright red, round impression on the trumpet player’s cheek.

God Almighty, Gay! screamed Eddie, How do expect us to play the music if our balls are in our throats? I can’t take any more of this shit. Let me off this deathtrap!

Gay Billings turned back to Eddie and laughed. Your balls in your throat would make the sound from your trombone seem more like music and less like a tomcat stuck in a barbed wire fence. If you want to feel better, you can put a little of my Knox All Remedies Tonic on them when we set up this afternoon.

Eddie glared at Gay, Your mysterious tonic on my balls with all those strange ingredients you put there? What you trying to do, kill me? And where would you get another trombone player here in this Godforsaken cornfield?

Yeah, Eddie, it might kill you before it cured you; but then you wouldn’t worry the least bit about that chipped tooth. Gay turned away and laughed at his joke.

As the wagon traversed the few blocks of Main Street that comprised the town, the band found their instruments and attempted to resume playing the marching songs. Gay threw handbills to the young children chasing the wagon. He yelled to them, Take a handbill home to your mom and dad, and bring them to the show. Free box of popcorn for you if they bring it with them.

The few folks walking down the only sidewalk in town stopped to watch the marvelous parade of the musicians and their wagons pass by. A few patrons in the town’s only diner stopped talking and eating their luncheon meal long enough to meander out into the summer heat to see what the commotion was. As the wagon passed by, the crowd waved and applauded, remembering the show from previous years. Gay was careful to tour towns like Donnellson every other year as memories of their one horse act and the precious money spent for worthless prizes were long forgotten. Plus, those that had purchased bottles of his Knox All Remedies Tonic had to replenish their supply, which, of course, Gay would gladly sell them.

Gay pulled the reins, stopping the rig in an open field next to Donnellson’s Feed and Seed. Okay, guys, enough bitching. Get those uniforms off and get into your work clothes; we have to set the tent up for tonight’s show. Those dark clouds off to the east could bring us a sudden summer shower.

Raising his voice to a commanding tone Gay continued, I do not want the show grounds under the tent muddy. My wife doesn’t like performing on muddy ground, it ruins her dancing slippers, and makes the girls’ costumes are too muddy for the next show.

Eddie mumbled under his breath, loud enough for the other band members, but not Gay, to hear. Essa, the serpentine dancer with her poses plastique, better be careful dancing around the plops of horse shit from the trick horse. Don’t think her gold dance slippers want Storm’s shit on them. The girls wouldn’t know shit from mud. The other musicians started to laugh and push each other as they headed to their trailers to change.

Small Midwestern towns like Donnellson, Iowa loved traveling shows like Gay’s One Horse Medicine Show, and Gay and Essa Billings loved touring these towns. During the long hot summer days, the cornfields were maturing and needed little daily tending, which left the rural community with some much-needed free time. The summer days in the ages before radio took hold amounted to long hours of daylight and not much in the way of entertainment for the farmers and town folk.

Donnellson, with around five hundred residents, was comprised mostly farmers based within a 20-mile radius of town. Main Street amounted to the Donnellson Feed and Seed store, a small family diner, several small service stores and, of course, the post office. The farming folk looked forward to their weekly, or sometimes monthly, trip into town to pick up their mail. There would often be packages of clothes, shoes, bedspreads, and tools ordered from the Sears and Roebuck catalog. Packages and mail in tow, they visited friends at the diner where they treated themselves to a piece of fresh baked pie and chased it down with an ice-cold glass of freshly squeezed lemonade. The diner was the central news source for political news from the state and the capitol. The local, state and federal representatives frequented the diner during election season and, of course, one had to catch up on the gossip of new neighbors and new babies in the community.

Church on Sunday was mandatory for everyone. As taxing and labor intensive as being a farmer is, all farmers observe God’s dictate, The Sabbath is my day, and you will do no work on the Sabbath. Keep it holy!

The church was the real social center of the town; Sunday school for the kids and an endless sermon for the adults. After church services ended, the families spent the rest of Sunday sharing in a community picnic where tables were covered in delicate, snow-white tablecloths and adorned with freshly cut flowers. The dinner was wholesome and homemade food.

After everyone had completed their dinner, cigars and pipes were lit and the family fun began. There were horseshoe games for the men, hopscotch or dodge ball for the children, and idle conversation laced with juicy gossip for the women. Donnellson on Sunday was truly the Garden of Eden with God-loving and God-fearing tenants of the earth observing His Sabbath.

When Gay and his loud music appeared on Main Street that summer day, it was if God had sent a little bit of manna from heaven as a reward for His children thanking them for their obedience, dedication and hard work. Like Moses, Gay promised his flock that he would deliver them to the promised land of curing their illnesses, improving their health and happiness with each and every purchase of his tonic. Both men, Moses and Gay Billings, were great miracle workers and even better showmen.

#

Gay Billings grew up in a two story, dirt colored, clapboard home in Marblehead, Illinois—a small farming town almost impossible to find on a map. Marblehead is 20 miles south of Quincy, Illinois and a few miles east of the Mississippi River. It was even smaller than Donnellson with a mean population of 346 souls. In the history books, Quincy’s claim to fame is that on one crisp, fall day in October 1858, in Washington Square, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas had one of their seven famous debates over slavery. Even today, every school-age child within 100 miles of Quincy studies the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and, weather permitting, they take a field trip to the debate site, which is marked with a huge and rusting metal commemorative plaque.

Gay’s primary schooling was the best you could get in a farming community. The grade school was a small, cramped and stuffy room in the local church that housed grades one through eight all in one class. Attending high school in Marblehead meant a two-hour trip each way by buggy or wagon to the recently inaugurated Quincy High School. Most farm-town kids barely got through the eighth grade of school before they were relegated to working the farm, but Gay’s father wanted his son to have a better education than what he had.

Sam Martin, one of the Billings’ neighboring farmers, had a well-paying job in Quincy at a farm equipment supply company. Every morning at five o’clock, Sam took his buggy into Quincy, returning home by seven o’clock each night; the same two-hour trip the high school kids made. Gay was lucky to catch a ride every day to attend school. On the way into school and on the way home each day, during what remained of daylight, Gay spent the valuable time studying his lessons, and thus was rewarded with high marks on his exams.

When he got home each night, any daylight that was still available was used to help his dad in the field. When dark had set in, Gay could be found in the dilapidated barn caring for the animals by the light of a smoky kerosene lantern.

The aging plow horse wasn’t much to look at, but Gay loved grooming the horse’s short coat and salt-and-pepper mane. When he was alone with the horse, Gay tried to teach him tricks—such as stomping his hoof to the number that Gay would shout at him. Sometimes Gay would try to get the horse to drop down on his front knees. Gay would mimic the trick by dropping to his knees and yelling in the face of the passive horse. The old plow horse would stare at Gay with a look, which plainly and calmly stated, I’m not stomping my hoofs or dropping to my knees, kid. Got anything to eat?

Since the horse worked in the fields for more than twelve hours nearly every day, it had no desire, and certainly no motivation, to learn to count or do tricks. Having his mane groomed, eating the daily allotment of hay, and getting a fresh treat now and again left the old horse with only the desire to close its rheumy eyes and sleep. While the counting trick never materialized, Gay did learn how to care for horses, take care of their illnesses, and how to talk to them so they would do as he said. The lessons learned in the barn with the old plow horse would serve him well in his training of Storm, the trick horse of Gay’s One Horse Circus.

Gay developed a muscular build from his farm chores. He had to stack hay bales, plow the cornfields, and heft bushels of corn onto the wagon for trips to the market. Hard work added chiseled strength to his six-foot, two-inch height, inherited from his mother’s side. Gay had all the attributes to be great athlete for Quincy High; but getting home right after school to tend to his chores meant Gay would never be one. Five days a week, his transportation home picked him at school promptly at five, leaving no time for school activities. Quincy High lost a potentially great athlete to tending to the needs of farm animals.

At times, Gay felt shortchanged for having to miss participating in the school’s athletic program. He knew he would have excelled in any of the sports, maybe even captained of one of them. Gay knew, however, that his farm chores were needed to help keep his family financially stable. Scoring touchdowns for Quincy High would not get the fields plowed, the livestock fed, the plow horse groomed, and it certainly wouldn’t put beans and salt pork on the table when winter came.

In years to come, Gay’s keen work ethic would serve him very well indeed as he built his traveling medicine show. For him, the long hours, hard physical of labor, caring for the show’s horses and the other various and sundry things would come easy because of his time spent working on the farm. The lost cheers of the stadium crowd would be more than replaced by the adoration and applause of the show’s audiences. The trade-off between high school cheers and the genuine applause of a paying audience was not even an even trade; he loved looking into the wide eyes of young children clapping and laughing at his performance.

Gay was strikingly handsome with dark, wavy, brown hair over hypnotic blue eyes. His chiseled features were set off by an all-American smile that melted girls’ hearts. Gay was deeply self-conscientious of his family’s poor financial situation, of not having nice clothes for dating and certainly not having the spare money to take a date anywhere—not even for an ice cream or soda. Gay had one suit for his Sunday best and even then it wasn’t a matching set. The jacket was threadbare with patches on the worn elbows and the pants were no better.

Church did provide Gay a modest social outlet to meet girls without spending money. Every Sunday without fail, Gay and his buddies, along with the rest of the farming community, would attend church with their family—no excuses. The congregation’s potluck picnic after church services gave Gay a chance to talk with the girls, and occasionally, Gay could catch a quick kiss from a girl safely out of sight of their parents. Gay grew up believing he would marry a girl from his community, all of whom were well-behaved and well-intentioned, but were also familiar and a bit too much like siblings since having all grown up together.

The year after graduating from Quincy High, Gay knew he had to get out of Marblehead and find a life for himself. Gay wondered how it would be to break away from his family and his upbringing. Little did he know that the answer would come tragically and all too soon.

Lemuel Billings, Gay’s father, was strictly a small-time farmer. His farm amounted to just 50-acres producing mostly feed corn and whatever could be planted in the adjoining vegetable garden. Gay deeply loved his parents, but hated the idea of following in his dad’s footsteps. He had a one special talent that his dad, despite his gifts with the crops and wringing life from the damp earth could never match. Gay was loaded with natural charisma, a trait that flowed through his being as surely as blood through his veins.

At the weekly trips to the farmers’ market, people were drawn to Gay as if he were a human magnet. Complete strangers opened up to him; he had a knack for getting people to tell him their life’s stories. Listening to their stories, Gay built a library in his mind of the motivations and loves, the hates and fears of the common man. He could take this knowledge and turn most strangers into trusting admirers. His magnetism and good looks would help him along as the pitchman and ringmaster for his traveling show.

Lemuel, a quiet and introspective man, spent his days doing backbreaking labor toiling the fields alone while Gay was away at school. Even though Lemuel didn’t love the work’s toll on his body, he loved the solitude. In his teenage years, Lemuel had served three years in the Union Army during the Civil War. The memories of the horrors of the war left him with life-long scars and nightmares.

On those nights Lemuel’s wife, Sally, could do no more than try to comfort him. Often, he could not get back to sleep and he would stand for hours staring blankly out of the window and into the pitch black night. In his mind, Lemuel could see the smoke clouded battlefields he had fought in; hear the whine of mini-balls and grapeshot passing so close he could feel the heat as his ears rang with the thunder of gunfire. Yet, none of this had ever been quite loud enough to drown out the screams of his dying comrades. He could smell the sulfurous reek of powder, shot-torn earth and fear-spilled piss as grown men had emptied bladder and bowels in face of the abstract horror of brother against brother warfare.

Only when the moon’s light illuminated fertile fields blossoming with new life and Lemuel could see the corn he had planted and nurtured with his own two hands, could his mind close off the war and produce a mild tranquility enough to allow him to return to bed for a few short hours of sleep before his workday began.

Lemuel looked forward to rising early so he could see the sun spread its rays over the crops. The fresh scent of turned dirt replaced the stench of death, which clouded his nostrils. The humming buzz of flies circling Lemuel’s head was welcome noise, helping drown out the memories of exploding shot and the screams of soldiers as bones were crushed to powder and flesh ripped apart. Bodies were blasted into fragments and pierced by bayonet, bullet, and shrapnel. While the war had tried to take the life from him, his beloved Marblehead and the backbreaking toils of farming were the magic that had put his life back. Lemuel wanted nothing more than to protect his son from the horrors of war and give him a home and a future in creating life, not destroying it. It was the dream of a loving father, but it was a dream that Gay Billings, though he loved his father and at times almost idolized him, did not share.

The day that Lemuel dropped dead, Gay was at Sam Martin’s farm helping Sam put a new wagon wheel on his old wagon. Lemuel died exactly as he had lived and exactly the way he had told wife and son that he wanted to meet his maker: in his beloved cornfield behind the dirt-caked plow with his old horse as his companion. When he grasped his chest and fell forward onto the field, the plow horse stared at Lemuel as he lay face down in the one of the freshly plowed furrows. Lemuel lay dead for several hours before Sally came to bring him his luncheon meal. When she came upon him, the faithful and stoic old plow horse had turned the heavy iron plow around of its own accord and hadn’t ruined a single furrow. He pawed at the damp earth as if to say goodbye.

Lemuel’s funeral services were simple, and Gay’s father was laid to rest in an unadorned pine casket a few feet from his beloved field under the shade of a grand oak tree. Sam Martin purchased the acreage from Sally for his own son, which left her with a nice stipend to live on. With the house paid for, there was little need for income from the farm. Besides, she knew that her son had his own dreams for his future and working the fields was not one of them.

With his father gone and most of the farm sold, there was little reason for Gay to remain in Marblehead. His mother called him to her side after dinner, and together they made plans for him to move Chicago to live with his Aunt Lois; his Aunt had sent an invitation for Gay to come live with her anytime the occasion arose. Both Sally and Gay knew now was the time for Gay to make a change in his life.

Sally had some peace of mind knowing that while living with her sister, Gay would be in good hands in a city that could be every bit as dangerous as the battlefields of the Civil War. Every day in Chicago, innocent people were robbed and killed for nothing more than for the change in their pocket or the watch on their arm.

On Gay’s last day at home, his mother sat him down and told him about his dad’s war days. His father had rarely mentioned his time spent in the army. Gay had come to realize that his father hadn’t wanted him to know the horrors he experienced. Lemuel never wanted his son to feel the barrel of the rife warm in his hand from taking the life of his fellow man, or to experience the sheer terror of facing a cavalry charge with no better weapon than a folding knife and an empty rifle. Lemuel also never mentioned his brothers in arms, even those closest to him, such as Doc, the physician he had befriended who claimed to have a secret healing potion.

#

In October of 1864, while encamped outside of Westport, Missouri, Lemuel had met Doctor Robert Andreen. Doc was a young physician from Galesburg, Illinois who had been conscripted into the Union Army. Just out of medical school and having no time to establish a practice, the Army had pushed Doc to the front lines to do what he could to tend to the injured and dying. Working on lifeless cadavers in medical school had not prepared Doc for the mangled flesh, splintered bones, and broken spirits of the injured soldiers. They were soldiers like himself and many who were even younger than he was would scream themselves hoarse until they passed out due to the lack of pain medication. Doc could barely keep his wits about himself through the endless days and nights of being up to his shoulders in the blood of men who were so desperate to live, but who would die in his care due to lack of sanitation and proper treatment.

Lemuel had survived some of the highest causality battles of the war, often telling himself his luck would soon run out. One cool spring night during a lull in fighting, Lemuel found a spot on a log that had previously towered over them providing shade until an explosive shell had shattered it. He sat silently and began to eat his daily ration of hardtack and dried meat. Lemuel was hidden in shadow when a young man, wearing a bloodied surgical gown sat on the other end of the log, wringing his trembling hands and mumbling to himself.

Lemuel, despite his own hunger and fatigue, slid down toward the doctor in the hopes of calming the young man down. Their battle would be lost if their medic went into shock. Doc opened up to Lemuel and recanted his strange visit to the Abbey of Vezelay, a French monastery located in a small province outside of Paris. Doc Robert, as the soldiers called him, had been on an internship during the summer to further his studies at the Medical School of Paris. At the monastery, the monks had a strange mixture of herbs, spices, oils and minerals that had miraculous effects on the any monk who happened to fall ill. The Abbot wanted Doc to take the formula back to America to educate other doctors and their patients. Before he could test the medicine on patients and write up the results, he found himself in the Union Army as a conscript.

Lemuel shrugged his shoulders and tried, perhaps unsuccessfully, to hide his doubts about secret formulas and magic potions. Doc tried to quietly excuse himself, but only after accepting Lemuel’s promise to wait for him to return. Shortly, he did, bearing a ragged and stained leather folder of loose-leaf papers. From the folder, he handed Lemuel several pages with the details of the medicine’s formula. Doc made him swear to him that if he didn’t survive the next day’s battle, Lemuel would somehow get the papers to a university medical school, in the hopes that some other doctor would research the medicine’s formula and test its efficacy.

Lemuel survived the next day’s battle at a farm in Westport, Missouri, but as soon as the last shot was fired and the last charge made he received news that Doc Robert had been killed. The Doc had been working furiously to staunch the flow of blood from a leg wound in a young man who was barely 17 years old when a stray round of exploding shot had struck the surgical tent. The two of them never heard the explosion, dying instantly, the young man was found dead beneath the shrapnel riddled body of Doctor Robert Andreen who had been fighting valiantly to save just one more life from the hell of the battlefield.

Before parting, Sally Billings handed Gay his father’s personal Bible. The cover was worn from years of daily readings; the spine barely held the crumpled and tears stained pages together. When he opened the Bible, Gay found folded yellow and torn papers: Doc’s magic formula. Lemuel had never lived up to his promise to Doc to get the pages to a university medical school. Why? The answer was simple, for all his honesty and hard work and common sense, Lemuel Billings could read and write little more than his name except for the Bible which he had learned by rote and would make out the words simply from following along during years of Sunday sermons and Bible lessons. For Lemuel, Doc’s pages of formulas and notes were like Egyptian hieroglyphs. Before his death, he had promised himself that he would give the papers to Gay, who would be better able to understand and communicate Doc’s wishes to a medical school. Besides, who would listen to a tenant farmer’s story about a Civil War sawbones’ visit to a French monastery and a miraculous formula that could heal a multitude of ailments?

Lemuel’s only real personal possession was his Bible. Gay was reluctant to take the Bible he wanted to make sure that his mother would have something that would remind her of him, but Sally insisted.

She looked around at the walls of the old house and rested her hands on the timeworn table. Look around, Gay. I have Lemuel all around me. I can’t forget him. And one day, I’ll meet him again, Sally said, wiping a tear.

Gay smiles and knew that his arguments were worthless. He took the Bible. I’ll do what Father needed me to do. I’ll fulfill his promise. Maybe the strange formula on the pages pressed in his father’s Bible will help cure the sicknesses in the world, maybe not. Gay didn’t know, but he was intent on finding out.

Gay knew his promise to his mother was false, and it pained him. He was smart enough to see his ticket out of a farmer’s life; there was money to be made from elixirs. Hell, even if it only makes people feel better even without actually curing them, then I say it’s fair to make and sell it.

As Gay settled down to sleep, the only question remaining in his mind was how to get the bottles in people’s hands? Maybe if he took the formula to a big company that produced drugs and potions and such, they would buy the formula from him. With that money as a grubstake, he could start some sort of a business, maybe buy a house and bring his mother to live with him. Maybe he would even have money left over to buy a couple of well-bred horses to ride in the countryside, and maybe he would do his riding with a beautiful wife from the city.

Gay decided to go to Chicago and sell the formula to a pharmaceutical company. Gay lied to his mother and told her he was going to take the formula to Chicago’s medical college. Gay rationalized that money would help them more, and besides, the pharmaceutical company would be able to produce the mass quantities of the elixir, which would help many more people than he could alone. He smiles as he thought to himself, With one fell swoop, I can fulfill three people’s dreams and set Mother and I up for life.

Less than a month after the death of his father, Gay packed his clothing into his father’s old war pack along with the bible and a few sentimental items. Gay hugged his mother, I love you, Ma. I’ll be back before April. Sally cried and nodded.

Sam Martin gave him a final ride to Quincy where Gay caught the train to Chicago. Gay had promised his mother that he would be back home by spring, but something as small as his thumbnail would change the direction of his life forever.

#

The show tent couldn’t seat more than one hundred people, without getting a citation from the local fire department. Wooden bench seating formed an enormous U around the show’s center ring. The open space allowed Gay’s wife, Essa, and their two daughters, Eva and Ethel, to perform their acts. Essa sang and took the role as the comedic daffy wife in the troupe’s one-act plays. Ethel, just four years of age, was talented. She sang and danced in the show’s plays. Eva, the older sister by five years, was the more athletic of the two girls, performing bareback tricks on Storm, while Essa guided the horse around the small ring.

Once the show was completed, Gay used the closeness to the audience to capture their full attention with an amusing play featuring the entire family. The audience’s favorite was about a bumbling politician, Senator McFee from Washington, D.C. Gay’s repertoire included self-deprecating jokes about himself, warm-hearted stories of other farmers he encountered in his travels, and a little preaching about God’s love for those who care for others. This was, of course, all a lead up for his pitch about the Knox All Remedies Tonic. He weaved a tale about the French monk’s magic potion equating it to the healing touch of the Eternal and Almighty God of heaven. Gay loved it, loved his ability to play off each adult and child in the audience, spinning his words and mannerisms into an ethereal web and bringing them under his spell.

#

Make sure the center pole is set deep and straight! yelled Gay to the crew setting up the tent. Last set-up in Lynnville the damn pole leaned sideways, made the whole tent to droop to one side. Half the audience thought the tent was coming down on them, I only sold a few bottles of tonic, mostly to the few drunken sots who showed up thinking it’s laced with alcohol.

Well, Gay, the stuff you pour in the bottles does give you a little kick in the ass, laughingly replied Slim, one of Gay’s roustabouts who traveled with the show and entertained—and often appalled—the other roustabouts with his impromptu harmonica renditions.

Essa came around the corner from behind the dressing wagon and watched as the tent center pole was being place. Will you please hurry up? I want Eva to practice a new routine with Storm before the show starts.

Gay and Slim looked at Essa and as one they bowed and said, The tent will be ready for our precious princess. Essa simply smiled in reply, though she didn’t miss the sarcasm in the voice of either man. She knew it was a sign of their deep affection for her, an affection they would never admit.

020_a_images.jpg

Figure 1. The Billings Trio-Novelty Sketch Artists Playbill—Smithsonian Institution.

Two

Chicago

November 1889

A pungent, ammoniac reek emanated from the wooden slat benches at Chicago’s first Union Station. The station had seen too many thousands of unwashed bodies over the years and it created a stench that the passengers could not escape. Once proud fathers, sons, and brothers from God-loving and hardworking European families were now drunken bums who had no other option than to sleep on the stained and stinking wooden benches. Years of overindulgence in rotgut whiskey and the cheapest of wines had left many of them with questionable bladder and bowel control which was made evident by the foul air and the stains on the wooden slats.

These German, Irish, and Jewish immigrants had left their families behind to come to America with the hopes of finding a better life than what they had at home. They hoped in vain that they would be able to bring their families to America. What they found in Chicago was a rapidly mounting glut of immigrants like themselves. Their numbers increasing even more due to the swelling Negro populations, now freemen from the War, who were migrating from the south looking for work. The train station looked more like a shelter for the downtrodden than a hub for train travel. Union Station became not only their shelter from Chicago’s harsh winter elements, but also their only source of money. Money was usually gotten from panhandling and begging for a handout or, when truly desperate, they robbed passengers—or even each other.

When Gay Billings stepped off the train from Quincy, he was nearly overwhelmed by the biting atmosphere. Still nauseated from his trip, Gay became light-headed and had to lean against a pillar to regain his balance. He fought to control his stomach as it struggled to expel what little was in there. His entire trip entailed inhaling cigar and pipe smoke, after having skipped lunch at the Quincy train station in order to save the ten cents his mother had given him.

His third class coach ticket had put him in a train car, which was already overflowing with other passengers. Many of them, like Gay, traveled with little or no money in their threadbare pockets. Gay had been relegated to sitting for hours on the end of a wooden bench which had been designed for three passengers, but was ticketed for five