Mabel Stark in Japan
Posted By thecircusblog on June 13, 2009
Look at the love in this lady’s face. There is no doubt whatsoever that her tigers were her life. This is a Christmas card that she sent to her friends while she was in Japan.
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thecircusblog
My name is Ivan M. Henry and I am the 4th generation of a circus/show business dynasty. I hope you enjoy the blog.Comments
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Mabel and husband Eddie Trees left World Jungle Compound (later Jungleland) for Japan in 1954 with 7 tigers. She was to train Japanese performers to work the tigers and then to leave them there. Her contract ran until 1957. Sadly, on March 4, 1957, Edwin Blair Trees died of a heart attack following complications from intestinal surgery, at Army Hospital, in Tokyo. He was 67. Trader Horne, a partner in the Compound, wired Mabel to come home, but she finished the full engagement. She was there for the Nippon Travelling Zoo, not a true circus, but it carried animal acts. She said it was, “The best job I ever had.” She had a personal maid and a private car on the train. Her meals were brought to her on a tray and served in her private stateroom.
Japanese regulations forbade Mabel to bury Eddie.. It was required that she have him cremated and she scattered his ashes “to the four winds over the Pacific”, exactly as she ordered done for her, upon her death in Thousand Oaks, on April 20, 1968. She further instructed there be no funeral or memorial service for her.
CORRECTION: I inadvertantly listed Eddie Trees’ death in 1957. Eddie died March 4, 1954, not long after he and Mabel had arrived in Japan. I regret the typo.
Just after Ivan and I had been on Miller-Johnson, my son, Richard Bennett, was born on June 20, 1969, just 4 months before Jungleland was closed by auction. Ivan came to see us in Thousand Oaks, and realized things were not good for Compound people. He looked around and casually inquired where my newborn son slept. I pointed out Mabel’s sofa which she had given me from her dressing room, which incidentally later became mine. He said, “He doesn’t have a crib?” I explained with things as they were, we were having to make do. Ivan handed me a hundred-dollar bill, saying, “This will buy him a crib.” It took too long to pay Ivan back the money, but I can never re-pay him for buying my son’s first crib.