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STATE
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORMA
Circumstances of Interview
NEW YORK
WAYNE WALDEN
51 Bank Street, New York
November 10, 1938
SHOO! BUSINESS and SELECTIONS FROM AN OLD SCRAPBOOK
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
1. Date and time of interview
Evening of Sept. 19 and 20.
2. Place of interview
Bone of informant
3. Name and address of informant
Mrs. Erma Hayes,
332 West 19th Street, New York
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
None
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
None
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Small two or three room apartment, situated in the basement of building,
but neat and comfortable. The informant, formerly Miss Erma Gilson, is
a lady admitting sixty years of age, tall, well preserved, and apparently
a natural blonde. She, beginning about 1900, has for years been
associated with vaudeville and a performer in such still -remembered plays
as "Vanity Fair", "The Crackerjacks", etc. Mrs. Erma Hayes is American
and born in New York, I understand, of Americal parentage. She is over
60 years old.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
FORM C
Text Of Inter Low
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
STATE NEW YORK
NAVE OF VAXUCER WAYNE WALDEN
ADDRESS 51 Bank Street, New York
DATE November 10, 1938
SUBJECT SHOW BUSINESS-- and SELECTIONS FROM AN OLD SCRAPBOOK
ERMA DOES SOME FIGHTING....
"I don't suppose," said Erma Hayes, once known to Vaudeville as Erma Gilson,
"I don't suppose that my experience while following vaudeville was much different
than what the ordinary girl might have.
Generally; whenever we played in a town,
there was some fresh geezer on the lookout to pick us up. Now and then they came
in handy, particularly when you might land in some town with no money and a delayed
payday. At such times these guys might turn out as angels. A girl soon enough
lean= how to get along with them.
note couldn't have held a job unless we had looks. I was rated as being good
lookin maybe not a dazzling beauty but I was a young and giggling girl at
the time and also had my encounters with mashers. I remember once when we were
playing a burlesque in a little town in Florida Mulberry, I think it was a town
reported to have 3000 men and 300 women we were told by the manager to leave the
theatre in a body, as singly we might be annoyed. Well, sure enough, it so happened
that as some of us were walking down the street, a young, rather tough -looking smart
Alick, practically a school -kid, grabs ahold of me and in a harsh voice says, "Come
on with me." I turned and told the kid to beat it. With that he pulled a gun,
a '38 revolver, from his pocket and threatened to shoot if I didn't go with him. Well
sir, I don't know what came over me, maybe the Irish in me, but I lit into that guy
Page 2. Form C.
and gave him the worst beating he probably ever had. At the same time I
was calling him a dirty little coward and everything that he didn't like to
hear. I had to be pulled off, or I might have killed him, I was so mad.
Anyway I then walked to the hotel we were staying in, and all the way the
rest of the girls were telling me how brave I was. But, and here's the
funny part of the story, as soon as we got into the hotel I fainted clear
away.
Itit DANCER KICKS A FRESHMAN
Another time, when we were playing in Laporte, Illinois, or is it Laparte,
Indiana? Apyway, it wasn't far out of Chicago it was another of those
college towns, another girl and I were leaving the theatre when up steps a
fresh college guy and started in to bother us. Finally, when we didn't
pay much attention to him, he grabs hold of the girl with me and started
to drag her along. That proved just too bad for himlbr she was a dancer
and a high kicker. Ihe first thing that fellow knew he got a good swift kick
right on the chin. He then beat it out of there in a hurry. As it
happened we came through that tom about ten days later and learned that
the poor guy was in the hospital with the end of his tongue bitten off.
JOHN L. MAKES A SPIEL
Maybe this will strike you as funny. MO had old John L. Sullivan once,
and his stunt was to do some shadow-boxing during the oleo. We girls were
forced to wear not only the woolen tights, but a pair of silk tights over
them. A moral wave must have struck that town about the time we did.
Page 3. Form C.
Anyway the first thing me knew was that signs were being posted up where we had to
see them, that neither such words as 'damn' nor 'hell' would be tolerated. In
addition to that no jokes of double meaning would be allowed, but worst of all,
especially for old John, the sign also forbid sparring or shadow-boxing. It seems,
too, that the Mayor had said s omethingsbout not caring to see the antics of a
"has-been". Anyhow old John came out, when he was to give his little talk, and
says: "Ladees and Gentlemen, I can't tell you what I'd like to say 'cause there's
some signs around here that won't let me use tdannt or 'hell'. 'Course I don't
give a damn if someone thinks I'm a 'has-been', but I can say it's a donned sight
more to be a hasebeen than to be a never -was'.
That might not have been the exact
may he put it, but he got away with 'damn' at least three times in his short spiel."
SHE MON THE BET
I think it was the year 1905, here in New York, that our burlesque wheel split up
into two circuits, an Eastern and alffestern one. Some of us were feeling rather
bad about being forced to break up. You remember the Miners Well, Eddie
Miner says to MB, "Ch eer up, in another year we will be one wheel again." I said,
"No, I don't think it will ever be." "I'll make a bet with you", he says, "I'll bet
you a long pair of white kid -gloves." "You're on," I said, "I'll bet you a box of
cigars." Sure enough, when we met just a year later, the first thing he said was,
*well here are your long white kid -gloves." And believe me, they were beauties:
Page 4. Form C.
ROMANGE ENTERS THIS ROUND
There was once, I think it was about 1902, that a lull being on, we were sentSouth to
play New Orleans. In Cincinnati we were delayed so that we didn't get to New Orleans
until late on a Saturday night. The hotel we struck about charged us everything we had
for a room, so that we were just about broke for fair. After we got the rooms, a number
of us went down to a restaurant, and in this restaurant we were of course talking among
ourselves about the high prices and so forth. I guess we were talking rather loud, as
a bunc h of girls naturally would in such a case. Well there were some fellows sitting
over at another table, and they, of course, were listening in Pretty soon a tall,
striking, very dark Frenchman COMBS over and very politely says, "Excuse me, but I think that
I can be of assistance in getting you girls placed if you'll wait a minute I'll be right
;Jack." He did come back in a few minutes. He got us a place with a friend of his, a woman
who kept a boarding house right around on another street. Six of us put up there, and hardly
had to pay anything. He had fixed it so that we didn't, but that the charge should be
made to himself. I got to know him quite well while we were there. He certainly treated
me swell. His name was Michele Monier. When at last we left New Orleans, he and I were
standing on the street talking. I told him that a friend of mine, by the name of Della
Faytell, I believe she was in the 'Crackerjack' at the time that her show would be coming
soon, so he instructed me to have her look him up. And, of course, I wrote and told Della
all about him and to be sure to look him up when she got there. Later on I got a letter
from Della saying what a nice fellow he was and everything, but, she says, 'your description
of him was all wrong. He isn't tall, dark and handsome, but short, light complectioned, and
not too good looking. Aid his name, too, you were wrong on his name is not Michele Monier,
but Dick Evans." I'd given up trying to figure out the tangle of it it didat seem to
make sense at all but quite a long white after I again got down there and then I met Della
and also her Dick Evans. The way it turned out was that this Dick Evans was standing near
where Monier and I were talking that time and he overheard what I said about Della
Page 5. Form C.
coming down. He heard the whole story and got it down pat. So, when Della did arrive,
who was there waiting but this Dick Evans. He, of course,
asked if she was Della Maytell. "Why, yes," she says, "it
you about ms, wasn't it?" He said "Yes, I'm the fellow"
Imagine the c rust, would you? Well, they got married and
introduced himself as Monier and
was my friend Erma Gilson who told
and took her in charge right away.
the last time I heard from them they
were hitting it along quite well. Gosh, to think of it, that was over thirty years ago.
44****
written by a professor's wife, anonymously, to satirize the
authority who had ordered removal of certain parts of three statues presented to a Tennessee
college:
IThe second visit at the hone of Mrs. Hayes enabled me to procure this poem which according
to her has never been published. The story concerning the poem would seem to be that it was
one
prudery oOthe president) in
The Sculptor From Tennessee
1.
Oh say, my friend, have you ever heard,
The tale that is told in Weatherford
Of a deed that was done in the Art Musee
By a modern sculptor from Tennessee?
There are other tales that are somewhat gory,
And celebrated in song and story,
But the three blind mice and the farmer's wife
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife
Could not compare with the statues three
Who met with the selfsame cruelty.
Page 6. Form C.
2.
This modern sculptor was fresh aad green,
And evidently had never seen,
Since he left the scenes of his native heather
A statue posed in the altogether.
So he called for chisel, hammer and tong,
To handle the thing that didn't belong
In the realm of Art; and with one swift blow
He removed the cause of old Adam's woe,
And left the poor statue standing there
The picture of impotent mild despair.
3.
That night as he slept in his trundle bed
The spooks came floating around his head,
They pointed their fingers at him in scorn,
And made him wish he'd never been born.
The doctors shrieked, "You measley skate,
Who gave you license to amputate?"
And the sculptors screamed "You infernal quack
You better get busy and put them back."
4.
"For if you don't we'll cut (ahem)
We'll do unto you as you did to them."
And flourished their knives with fiendish glee
While the old man begged on banded knee.
"This world" he said, "will go straight to perdition,
Page 7. Form C.
Unless I can issue a second edition."
At that his inquisitors formed a ring,
(line missing from copy)
They rode him around from Beersheba Dan
Till he woke a sadder mad wiser man.
5.
That day the illustrious president
Bought him a bottle of strong cement,
And returned to the school with the single thought
To repair the damage that he had wrought.
But there's many a slip twixt the cup mad the lip,
And the boys hadn't left him a single chip.
Those innocent cherubs of tender years
Had carried them off for souvenirs.
6.
There was naught remaining for him to do,
But to manufacture a thing or two.
So he worked and chiseled with might and main
Till his mind gave way from the terrible stran,
For the only model he had, alas,
Was the one that he saw in the looking glass.
Imagine the stalwart Hercules
With pigmy attachment, if you please,
And I think you'll then be prepared to say,
"No wonder the old man's mind gave way."
Page &Form C.
7.
Now the modern sculptor is running rife,
With pincers, saw and carving knife,
And, if you linger outside the gate
You'll be a eunuch as sure as fate.
He never stops for bone or gristle
But whittles them off as slick as a whistle,
For he hopes to find when he looks then o'er
An appendage to fit on the Discus Thrower,
A match for Apollo (Belvedere)
And another for Hercules, too, I hear.
8.
But you never can find in a little town,
A very good fit in a whand-me-downw.
Good models seem scarce in these later days
Forsooth average men look more like jays.
And that is the reason I apprehend
That no one can tell where this trouble will and.
The moral to this isn't hard to find,
The nastiness all is in your mind,
So please, if for something you have knack,
Don't take things off you cant put back.
Page 9. Form C.
The poems presented here are selections from an old scrap book of Mrs. Hayes',
in which, affectionately pasted up by the former actress, is a miscellany of
subjects diverse enough to serve the Walrus with 'things to talk about'. Indeed,
the contents of the scrap cooks range from cooking recipes to divorce notices,
from vaudeville itineraries to obita, but among the poems from the scrap book
an old forgotten friend may appear.
Included were a number of "Popular Recitations", published by Claude C. Hale,
1777 E. Oth Street, Cleveland, Ohio,
"Kelly's Dream" by J. W. Kelly
"Hunting the Wily Pole Cat" as to by a French-Canadian
"The Wedding of the Persian Cat" no althor given
"The Shooting of Dan McGfew" by Robert W. Service
"Toledo Slim" no author given
"The Face on the Bar Room Floor" author's name left off
The "Legend of the Loganberry", from "The Seamy Side of Vegetable Life"
by Morris Bishop, written on the typewriter for the scrap book,may or may
not have been published.
"THE LEGEND OF THE LOGANBERRY"
(From "The Seamy Side of Vegetable Life")
A rose once bloomed in a garden
White and dainty and fair
By the garden wall at evenfall
It dreamed and nodded there;
And a raspberry bush climbed over the wall
And hung in a rakish pose;
"Haven't we met somewhere, my pet?"
The raspberry said to the rose.
The pure white rose turns whiter
And trembles upon its stalk
One of its petals slowly settles
Down on the garden walk;
"I'm not the kind of a rose" she said
"That blossoms in studios;
"You're wicked, very, you red raspberry:"
To the raspberry said the rose.
Page 10. Form C.
"Be mine, be mine, 0 maiden rose:"
The wicked raspberry cried;
But the rose was brave and cried,
"Behave:
"Begone to your raspberry bride;
"The rose may only woo the rose,
"The cherry espouse the cherry,
"The gypsy maid gets the gypsy blade,
"The raspberry gets the berry:"
"Rose,you have torn in tatters
"A raspberry heart today;
"To make you share my own despair
"I'll throw myself away;
"And maybe you'll be sorry
"And cease to be so merry
"When it is said that I have wed
"A horrid black, black berry:"
And just to pain a sweet little rose
Lovers are very queer
He made a match in the blackberry patch
And ruined his own career;
And from that shameful mating
'Twas only temporary
Was born that wild, alluring child,
The lovely loganberry:
Morris Bishop.
Attesting appreciation of Eddie Guest are these verses in the "Just Folks"
series: "Smile", "The Purpose", "How do you buy your money?""Uncle Sam",
"He was a decent guy", "The blame", "If I could live it over", "Let er go,
Gallegher", "The Golfer's Wish", "An American Talks", "Do the best you can",
"Woman", "Our country", and may be a few others that we didn't happen to see.
That by no means exhausts the stuff of lighter vein; there yet remains a
variety of poems, or, if you prefer "ponies", clipped from papers in every
section of the land, and over many years.
There is, for instance, "The
Ornery Cuss" (signed "ORY% "No Parking Here", (unsigned), "The Death of
King Jazz" by Tisdle Hairs in the Detroit Free Press; "The Landlubber's
Chanty" by Maoriland, "The Good Old Days" by S. Gillilan in"Farm Life"
"The Love of Riley" (J. W. Riley) by W. L. Lamed; "The Vampire" by Kipling;
Page 11, Form C.
"The Auto Fire Engine" typed by the author, J. W. Foley, and presented to the
compiler of the scrapbook:
THE AUTO FLU ENGINE
*Yes, things are changed doggone the lucks*
Said the Driver of Engine Three,
"For they're going to fires mith an auto truck
And a horse he's a used -to -be.
It was sugar and oats and a shiny coat
That was dappled and smooth and clean,
And now it's a lump in the Driver's throat
And a tankful of gasoline."
"There was romance then in a driver's work
And something you loved right well;
It was snap a collar, a cry and jerk
And off in the streets pell-mell.
It was 'Steady, Charlie'and 'Come on, Dick':
It was sparks where the hoofs came down;
And many a time that they turned the trick
Of saving a slice of town.
"There was something then in the stalls back there
That was human or purty near;
Big eyes and a shiny coat of hair
And a beast that a man held dear,
As a life long friend but the auto truck
Is ousting 'em slick and clean,
For oil and grease, and a lot of muck
And a tankful of gasoline.
"And a driver, it used to be, could stand
And pet 'am and rub 'em down
And feed 'em sugar outen his hand
Dapple and gray and brown.
But now it's a crank and a chug and a wheeze
And a rattle and roar and grind,
With a smell of gas to make you sneeze
And a blue smoke out behind."
"The March of Science along the track
I guess you might call it so;
But gif me the old fire horses back
And le' me hitch up and go!
Fora horse was a human sort of thing
When he ran with that old machine;
But an auto truck for a fire by jinEJ
And a tankful of gasoline!"
Page 12, Form C.
Then he rubbed down its nickled and varnished coat,
And he shined up its great glass eye,
He polished the brass with a lump in his throat
And a sorrowful long -drawn sign.
He lifted the hood where its metal soul,
Lay hidden and all unseen,
Then unscrewed a cap from a yawning hole
And fed it some gasoline!
"That Heathen Chinee" by Bret Harte "Safety Last", a series of four and five
lined rhymes dedicated to the dead motorist whose life was lost, alas, for a number
of no good reasons, and taken from various newspapers: (Sample)
Lies slumbering here
One William Lake;
He heard the bell
But he had no brake.
!Mame
Detroit "News"
At ninety miles
Drove Edward Shawn;
The motor stopt,
But Ed kept on. Little Falls (NY) "Times"
Here lies the body
Of William Jay,
Who died maintaining
His right of way. Boston "Trenccript"
At fifty miles
Drove 011ie Pidd,
He thought he wouldn't
Skid, but did. Rom (NY) "Times"
If you are old enough to remember, you may enjoy "The Woodpile Near the Door", enjoy
reading it, that is, more than you did cutting it. This ought to give a notion of
the amount of loving labor that went to the gayer side merely of the scrap book.
Even Berton Braley is included.
More somber and some lyrical are: Vhein Twilight Comes" from "Exchange"; "The
Deserted Song Sparrows Nest" and "Jack London", these two by Arch Bristow of
Garland, Pa., typed and presented by him to Mrs. Hayes, who believes the poems were
never published:
Page 14. Form C.
JACK LONDON
(By Arch Bristow written Nov. 24, 1916. Garland, Pa.)
On Thursday night, last Thursday night,
We'd planned a pleasant hour
With neighbor friends about the fire
Within our humble bower.
The girls had made a plate of sweets,
The lamp was burning bright;
We waited for the coning guests
With joy last Thursday night.
Outdoors the night was black as ink,
And harshly beat the rain,
And ran in little beaded rills
Adam the window pane.
It was a night no man would wish
To face the driving storm,
And glad were we about the lamp
Where all was snug and warm.
A footstep fell upon the porcli
And after it came more;
We vent to meet the welcome griends
And greet them at the doer.
We did not guess the evening held
For everyone a pall,
That soon it's saddlning form maid quiet
The laughter of us all.
For scarce we'd settled dawn to talk
Till someone who had drawn
An evening paper from his coat
Said, "Boys, Jack London's gone."
It hardly seemed it could be there,
It scarcely seamed we'd read aright.
Yet there upon the printed page
It stood in proof in black andlihite.
The laughs were hushed, the jests were dropped,
No song was in the room,
For each one there felt in the air
The sombre touch of gloom.
No one of us had clasped his hand,
Yet each one felt he knew
The man who gave us *White Fang"
And the tales of "Snake Bellew".
We had not heard Jack London's voice,
But we had cruised with him,
And heard the Sea Mblf's coarse oonnand,
And felt the tempest's vim.
And we had known him in the days
When beaten and forlorn
He fought the long and bitter fight
With Old John Barleycorn.
Page 15. Form C.
(JACK LONDON, continued)
Though none of us had ever seen
The living face of Jack,
We'd sailed the seven seas with him
And heard the big waves smack,
And we had cruised upon the Snark
To many a foreign isle
And heard the combers hiss and foam
And watched the breakers pile.
We'd =shed in many a northern night
And on the trails been lost
In drifting snows and blizzard blows
With "Children of the Frost".
Around the lamps in miners camps
We'd heard the Norther whine
And mat with Jack, in drifted shack,
The Princess of the Pine".
And now three thonsand miles away
The hand that held this pen
Chilled and without a motion lay
Never to -write again.
And each one there in circled chair
Thought of that journey's end
And each one knew how sadly true
It was, he'd lost a friend.
There is "The Light of Asia" by Sir Edwin Arnold, and "The Woodman*
by Robert L. Stevenson, two poems of which a once prominent critic
wrote: "So far as I know these two selections are unequalled in
all literature as graphic descriptions of the murderous nature of the
struggle for existence Arnold for Animals, Stevenson for plants."
There is a poem to "The Brute" by William V. Moody, and to "Eugene V.
Debs" by Douglas, of the International Song Publishers (defunct), "Land
of Beginning Again" by L.F.Tarkington, and "Tired Mothers* by Mary
R. Smith. "Labor" by Edwin Markham, and last but not least, several
verses of Ella Wheeler Wilcox, whose n The Unwed Mother to the Wife" is
Page 16. Form C.
a poem of ringing defiance.
Miss Hayes also clipped and pasted in the scrapbook the account of
OVeteran Actor and Manager in Mix-up",:
VETERAN ACTOR AND MANAGER IN MIX-UP
Latter Attacks Former Who Refuses to Continue in Third
Act at Appleton Theatre Last Night Until He Receives
$42 Back Pay.
Mile the audience was waiting patiently for the curtain to rise
on the third act of "The Sweetest Girl in Dixie" at the Appleton
theatre Sunday night, there was a little performance going on back
of the scenes that would perhaps have been more interesting to
the audience than the show itself, which was not up to standard.
M. A. Moseley, who portrayed the part of Col. John Howard, father
of the sweetest girl in Dixie, refused to participate in the third
act on the grounds that the management of the show owed him $42
back pel.r and he would not go on with his part until he got the money.
The manager of the show made an attaok on Moseley, who is a man about
sixty years of age, and would have perhaps done him bodily injury,
it is said, had it not been for the timely interference of the stage
hands. It was only after Manager Mark Bulhorst of the Appleton
Theatre promised to do what he could for Moseley that the latter
consented to go on with the play. He left the show last night and
joins a company that is playing "The Virginian." The show manager
said that heknew that Moseley intended to quit and for that reason would
not give the veteran actor back pay that was due him.
The curtain was held for such a long time that the audience became
restive and insisted that the performance go on, as practically everyone
present knew that there was no scenery to shift and no costumes to change,
that would bring about such a long delay, over twenty minutes, and the
gallery gods, who were not particularly impressed with the play, set up
a noise that could not possibly have been mistaken for disapproval.
A recipe for Scalloiped Oysters, is short and simple:
Take a dish, put a layer of the oysters as free fram
their liquor as they can be made, and a layer of
rolled crackers; another layer of oysters, another
of crackers, until the dish is full. Add a little
salt and pepper and pieces of butter between each
layer and moisten with cream. Bake about 15 minutes.
Another recipe for Mayonnaise dressing completes the cookery department.