Days with the Circus

This is a picture of my grandmother, Winona Fowler.  She's dressed for her day as a part of her father's 3 ringed circus, and yes, that is a whip in her hand.  She and her family traveled with a group of buckskin clad American Indians, all types animals, and many performers including aerialists.  From alligators to the big cats there really was a true menagerie of creeping crawling wildlife.

Over the years my grandmother told her many stories of her life as, "Baby Nona," which because I was so young were gone quickly along with so much of my childhood memories.  Thankfully I have some stories as do each of my cousins and we have begun to share those to put together.  Through the retelling of our stories and the pictures of her, her family and the circus that have surfaced since she died we are getting a wonderful picture of her early life.

My own memories of being touched by that long ago circus can be told through those velvety soft buckskin outfits that were in her upstairs closet when we were little.  A cousin and I would spend long hours imaging a circus life as we touched first and then wore those native American outfits in that attic closet.  We even got to wear them sometimes for Halloween which was a real treat as well as one of the most exciting thing for each of us.  When we wore the buckskins we could almost reach out though the time warp and touch a life we could only imagine.

We never realized the gifts she gave us as children at the time.  Those little tidbits of a her circus life were like fairy stories compared to our 1960s lives in suburbia.

Today I truly cherish the glimpses of those almost still life images from her very real past.  I wish there were enough stories to build a book with, but I have to admit that even though they are scant in number they hold a large part of my imaginary life as a child.