The Bearded Ladies

[Faline]

One of the most beautiful and tragic bearded ladies – though perhaps more a hairy woman than a simple bearded lady – was Annie Jones, born in Marion, Virginia, July 14, 1865. At birth she was covered head to toe in a thin layer of coarse, dark hair, which took the shape of a beard and mustache on her face. "We called her Esau, because of this peculiar growth on her face," said Annie's mother. At just nine months of age, she possessed a full beard and attracted the attention of P.T. Barnum. Annie's parents agreed to let the showman take her on tour, as they sorely needed the funds for their eleven other children, but only on the condition that Annie's mother could travel with her. Before she was a year old, "The Infant Esau", as Annie was called, was bringing in $150 a week (about $2,100 in contemporary dollars) – enough to provide handsomely for her entire family. Her mother remained by her side until she was nine years old, but ultimately had to return to Pennsylvania to care for the other children.
She was, at the time, one of the highest-paid freaks in the nation, and her income only increased as she grew into a classic beauty. Attractively dressed in figure-hugging fashions of the day, Annie lounged provocatively across countless photographer's sets, displaying not only a luxuriant beard (which I suspect was retouched in more than a few prints) but also floor-length raven hair. Her arms were likewise adorned with a fine coat of black hair, though she often modestly hid them under long Victorian gloves. She was said to have a beautiful speaking voice (a common trait among hypertrichotic women, such as Percilla Bejano), and to be a fine mandolinist.

At one point young Annie was allegedly kidnapped by a phrenologist and her mother took the man to court to get Annie back – although this may indeed have been an elaborate Barnum publicity ruse. When she was just fifteen, Annie married a Barnum circus talker named Richard Elliot. He was cold toward Annie, if not downright abusive, and she divorced him five years later. Almost immediately after, she was married again, to circus wardrobe man William Donovan, who whisked her away to Europe. She appeared at the Imperial Palace in St. Petersburg and delighted the Czar and Czarina. In Germany, France and Italy, she met with royals and was showered with tributes. After Donovan took ill and died in Europe, Annie returned to the United States she signed on with the Barnum Circus again and earned an alleged $500 a week – more than the President of the United States at the time.

Unlike many freaks of her day, Annie was said to be a smart investor who put her money into real estate and kept a substantial rainy-day fund, fearing that any day she could lose her beard and her meal ticket. Alas, she was never able to enjoy these savings, as she came down with tuberculosis while appearing at Nimes, France, with the Barnum & Bailey Circus. She returned to the U.S. and moved in to her mother's apartment on Cornelia Street in Brooklyn. Annie's father had died some years before and her mother remarried to a man named Pogue. Mrs. Pogue's attempts to nurse Annie back to health over the coming months were in vain. Annie passed away on October 22, 1902, at the age of just thirty-seven. Her dying request was to be buried with her whiskers uncut.

Photo: Annie Jones Elliot, age 19. Cabinet card by Charles Eisenmann, ca. 1874.

[Faline]

Baroness Sidonia de Barcsy (pronounced "Barchy"), born in present-day Budapest on May 1, 1866, was a double rarity in the show world: a genetically-female bearded lady, and a true member of a royal family. Her husband was Baron Antonio de Barcsy. The lovely young Baroness was beardless until the age of 19, when she gave birth to her son, Nicu, who weighed just two and a half pounds at birth and would stand only three feet tall as an adult. Twelve days after Nicu's birth, Sidonia began growing hair on her cheeks. Her doctor ordered that all the mirrors be removed from her house, lest she be frightened to death by the sight of her hairy face. It was no use delaying the inevitable, however; Sidonia was mortified to find herself possessed of a full, eight-inch beard within just a few weeks. Her husband the Baron expressed a fondness for her new bewhiskered look and even threatened to divorce her if she shaved.
The Baron brought his family to Western Europe in the 1890s to pursue a career in sideshow and museum exhibition. Though some stories blame political upheaval for the Baron's exodus, the latter decades of the 19th century were in fact a time of relative peace and prosperity in Austria-Hungary. A second, more believable account is that the Baron lost a fortune in poor investments and placed his family on exhibition to earn it back. And he was successful: Sidonia was, after all, the world's only bearded mother of a midget son, and the Baron himself, at nearly four hundred pounds, made a passable Fat Man. The "De Barcsy Troupe" was such a success that they soon had enough money to travel to America. They did so in 1903, and for the next nine years were a fixture with the Ringling Bros. and Campbell Bros. Circuses.

While the family was wintering in Drummond, Oklahoma, with Campbell Bros. Circus in 1912, the Baron took ill and died. Sidonia remarried, to the eccentric trick roper C.H. "Cherokee Buck" Tischu, who styled himself as "The Indian Wild Man", and who allegedly treated her and Nicu quite poorly. He eventually abandoned Sidonia and Nicu and fled to Texas, though Sidonia never legally divorced him. After her death, Buck married Dolletta Dodd, the famous midget mother.

Sidonia de Barcsy suffered from diabetes for many years, and she died on October 19, 1925 at her home in Drummond. She was cremated in Kansas City, Missouri, and her ashes interred alongside those of her first husband the Baron. Her son "Little Nick", who had taken the title of Baron after his father's death, would have inherited a $40 million estate in Hungary, but a fire in Illinois some years before had destroyed the papers proving his birthright. He went on to perform at Coney Island as a magician and escape artist until 1932, when he retired to Enid, Oklahoma, not far from Drummond. He spent his time training his trick dog, Snowball, practicing card tricks, and tending his chickens and a flock of inported French doves.

Nicu died in a nursing home in August of 1976, at the age of ninety-one. In life, he always insisted upon being treated as a man, not a child, so he was buried in a custom-built miniature adult's casket instead of a child's casket.

[Faline]

At the time of her birth in Williams County, Ohio, on February 2, 1876, Grace Hester Gilbert was covered in a layer of fine hair, and within a few years she had developed a full beard. When she was a young child, her family relocated to a farmstead five miles north of Kalkaska, Michigan. Although she enjoyed farm work, Grace knew there was money to be made in the life of a professional bearded lady. She signed her first contract with Ringling Bros. at Defiance, Ohio, in 1901. She alleged that her beard measured 18 inches – four inches longer than that of Jane Devere, the confirmed record-holder. Although Grace was a redhead, she was coerced into bleaching her hair and beard with peroxide for the show, and her title was "The Girl with the Golden Whiskers". In public she covered her whiskers, which she called her "alfalfas", with an opaque veil.
A thickly-built farm girl, Grace was a standout among traditional bearded ladies for her rejection of stereotyped femininity. In her private life, she preferred to wear pants, and liked the social company of men rather than women. She enjoyed manual labor and often helped assemble tents and riggings for the circus. During the off-season she returned to her family’s farm to help with chores. She did have a domestic side, however, and counted lacemaking among her favorite hobbies.

When she closed the 1910 Hagenback-Wallace circus season in South Bend, Indiana, Grace married 53-year-old farmer Giles Edwin Calvin, on October 27. The judge who married them mistook beardless Calvin for the bride and Grace for the groom. She and Giles had been sweethearts when she was a young girl, Grace explained, but she expressed no interest in a long-term romance at the time. Then, after his wife died, she took pity on him and rekindled their friendship. He began following her on tour, begging for her hand in marriage, and at last she accepted. Her plan was to leave showbusiness and help her husband on the farm.

Grace died at home on January 11, 1924, of unknown causes.

[Faline]

Considered quite a beauty in her youth, Christine married young to a farmer, Baker M. Twyman, of Peoria, Illinois. After the birth of her son, Baker Jr., she began sprouting hair on her cheeks. Shaving and plucking only made the hair grow in thicker, until she possessed a full, healthy beard. The Twymans consulted specialists and spent thousands of dollars on treatment, but her beard remained.
When Mr. Twyman fell ill and was unable to work his farm, Christine blamed herself, fearing that he had worried himself sick over her and her beard. She felt the only way she could support her husband and son, without having to sell the farm, was to join a carnival sideshow. She left her son at home, vowing never to let him see her as a carnival freak.

While visiting Los Angeles on a carnival engagement, Christine met a woman who had also been bearded, but had undergone electrolysis. Christine had saved up enough of her carnival earnings that she could opt for the treatment herself. In the middle of the 1924 carnival season, she sneaked off and had her beard removed. The show found a last-minute replacement in "Kara", a gruff Syrian-American woman from Brooklyn. Kara, unlike Christine, had "an aggressive manner, and seemed to revel in her freakish whiskers" – while Christine had seemed perpetually embarrassed. Despite her discomfort with sideshow life, however, Christine was welcomed with open arms by the carnival family, who viewed the calm, soft-spoken, intelligent woman as a sister. Even the roustabouts treated her with utmost respect.

Beardless, Christine returned to Peoria, no longer ashamed to show her face to her young son.

[Faline]

Jane W. (or Mary A.) Devere was born in Brooksville, Kentucky, around 1859, of Jewish and French parentage. On October 8, 1883, she married Captain J.W. Devere, a showman. Her beard, which reached 14 inches at its longest hair, still holds with world record for the longest beard belonging to a woman. She was a devout Episcopalian and made time to go to church every Sunday, even while touring.
Jane, known as "The Kentucky Wonder", was a snake charmer and acrobat in addition to being a bearded lady. Her long and varied show career included Sells Bros., Circus, Campbell Bros. Circus, Yankee Robinson Shows, and Patterson Carnival Co. It was while playing an engagement in Oelwein, Iowa, with the latter company that she suffered a heart attack and died on June 18, 1912.

[Faline]

n private life "Mme. Adrienne" was Adele Kis, a Hungarian native born around 1884. Her husband was a lion tamer and the two were said to be quite a devoted couple who could be seen walking hand-in-hand on the grounds of the Budapest circus where they worked.
Adele's stay in the U.S. was apparently short. She was booked with Coney Island for the 1928 season as "The Hungarian Bearded Lady". A low point of her career was when another performer cut off her beard while she was sleeping. Adele successfully sued for $2,500 in damages. Adele returned to Budapest, where she died in January of 1934. Her heartbroken husband cut a lock from her beard to keep as a memento.

[Viking64]

I need a wank.

[corpsehands]

sexy

[Sharon]

Interesting stuff

I'd love to brush the top woman's hair, it looks so silky soft!

[Rachee]

Some of those ladies have the facial and body type of men