Lupeta Perea: Mexican Circus Girl An Ambitious Artist

1915--

Mexican Circus Girl An Ambitious Artist

Among the performers whose exploits will thrill and dumbfound spectators at the Barnum and Bailey circus which exhibits here Monday, August 30th, is Lupeta Perea, a newcomer to the world of American "white tops" from Mexico, fleeing gladly from the revolution and its political unrest. Her mother accompanies her with the remnants of a fortune accumulated in cattle-raising near Monterey and which became the prey of insurrectors.

The girl's wonderful agility asserted itself in early life. She was the marvel of her school-girl friends in hazardous feats in mid-air and amazed older beholders who witnessed her exploits.

Then one day there came, during the fiesta days of December, a grand display in El Toreo, Mexico City's famous bull-ring before President Madero and his dignitaries. Senorita Perea's apparatus was stretched from barrier to barrier, and the ovation she received from her aerial exhibition is still remembered in the capital. Her entrance into professionalism dates from her triumph upon that occasion. It was not long before her fame had spread all through the republic of Mexico.

Her talents are not vested solely in her lithe and nimble body. When she isn't amazing onlookers by her feats aloft in the "big top," she may be generally found ensconced in a corner of the circus "green room" with a pad and pencil, perpetuating the forms and faces of her associate performers. Clowns, equestrians, aerialists, acrobats, chariot drivers and all the other multifarious figures and features of the big show are being put in black and white.

This little beauty of the circus, for she is a beautiful girl, has twelve different costumes which she carries with her despite the protests of the circus property men. Then, too, she has stunning street attire, and Senorita Perea has "off and on" the reputation of being the best dressed girl of the circus.

"Not always will I be a public circus performer," she declared in a recent interview. "My real love is for the pencil and paper and maybe my products will yet attract praise worth while. When this big circus folds itself away for the winter, I'm going back to New York and study art in earnest."

--The Sheboygan Press, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, August 27, 1915, page 3.

Hurrah! The Barnum and Bailey Circus Show Coming!

Sheboygan, Wisconsin, 1915--

HURRAH! THE BARNUM AND BAILEY CIRCUS SHOW HERE MONDAY

"Mother" Talbot, with more children than the old woman who lived in a shoe ever dreamed of possessing, will be here Monday, and if hers is not the friskiest lot of children that ever landed in this town -- well, they are, anyway. And for playthings! Elephants and bears, tigers, lions and monkeys, and ever so many other creatures that are not found in the average nursery. Mrs. Talbot is "mother" of the Barnum and Bailey circus and all the people connected with it are her children -- her adopted children. She keeps house for them -- sees that their clothes are kept in repairs -- stores away their savings for a rainy day -- lends a sympathetic ear to their tales of tribulation -- adjusts their differences and counsels them when they are in need of advice. It is a pretty weighty responsibility is this job of being "mother" of such a large aggregation of individuals of different races and widely divergent dispositions as is comprised in the big circus.

As "mother" of the circus Mrs. Talbot is the presiding genius, under Mrs. Wallace the wardrobe mistress, over the "home life" of the show people. Really, the show people have a home life and that, too, while they are traveling the land over entertaining other folks. The domestic instinct is very strong among the circus women particularly for the reason that they are deprived of actual home life a great part of every year. The circus women sew and many do exceedingly pretty fancy work. They don't have to keep their circus clothes in order. The circus mother does that, and a large part of "Mother" Talbot's duty is the care of the circus wardrobe. She has a throng of assistants and is as expert at cutting a pattern for trappings for an elephant or camel as a fashionable modiste is at cutting those for her clientele. She is, in short, the Paquin of circus land. Although over sixty years of age, she is as lively as the proverbial cricket. Mrs. Talbot was a principal danseuse in her younger days and she attributes her splendid health in great part to the training of those days.

Today the circus is exhibiting in Menominee, Mich., and comes here upon its own four special trains early tomorrow morning. The first thing upon the circus day program Monday is the street pageant at 10 o'clock. It is promised to be a delightful reminder of what is in store for those who attend the show. Almost three miles of scintillating, irridescent, gorgeous, glittering, glamorous, awe-inspiring, traffic-disturbing cavalcade, interspersed with elephants, steam calliope and a little of everything else under the sun, stretched out in such a long review that the weary vanguard will almost have returned to the show grounds before the tail end has even started. The parade will take on the nature of a huge moving horse fair, over 500 horses being in line. There will be 12, and where conditions permit, 24 splendid percherons drawing the leading band chariot, and the man who finds two reins perplexing when he takes his girl out for a livery stable ride on Sunday, can look with wonder at the nonchalant charioteer who pilots this remarkable "hitch." There will be large display of wild animal life in open cages and a long string of elephants will make the journey afoot. There will be bands galore.

Gorgeous and ornate floats will form one section of the pageant, and handsome women splendidly costumed and attended by gallant cavaliers will be seen riding thoroughbred horses. Add to the horses and animals the more than 1,000 people in the moving column, all in spic and span wardrobe, and one begins to have a faint idea of the treat in store.

The circus itself, which is scheduled for 2 and 8 o'clock p.m. Monday, is pledged to be the very last word in excellence, and the circus folk say the dictionary would be torn into shreds in even a feeble effort to do it justice.

In its essentials one big circus must be like another, for the public expects the circus of today to be at least reminiscent of the circus of a generation ago. It is in keeping the circus circusy and at the same time in step with the march of progress that the ingenuity of the managers is taxed. This year's Barnum & Bailey's show has all the old circus atmosphere with 1915 decorations, and presents what has everywhere been characterized as the most novel and diverting program of its long career.

The circus will open with a pageant which, for beauty of design and gorgeousness of color and costume, surpasses anything presented in former years.

It will represent in processional form the journey of the Princess Lalla Rookh from Delhi to the Vale of Cashmere and will be a veritable eye feast of Oriental and barbaric splendor with which to dazzle and beguile. Over 1,000 persons take part together with scores of horses and elephants.

After which comes the circus -- the real, dyed-in-the-wool, honest-to-goodness circus. It starts off with the elephants -- war elephants, they call them this year, who put on a mimic battle and do a lot of other interesting things betokening careful training. Heretofore, mere man has trained and presented the elephants, but this year we find the huge creatures obeying the whims and commands of women trainers. More than ever before the circus presents this year a multiplicity of animal acts. Did you ever see a bear walk a tight rope? Well, you'll see one do so at the circus -- a huge shambling creature, who, after he gets tired walking the rope, sits down and rides a bicycle. He's a bear! One of his mates roller skates all over the stage and cuts the figure 8 like an expert.

That's nothing. M'lle Marcella presents a cockatoo who rides a bike on a wire, and in addition presents trained parrots and macaws displaying almost human intelligence. And then there is Adgie and her lions -- twelve tawny creatures -- whom she exhibits within a steel enclosure and fearlessly compels them to obey her. With one of the largest of the group she dances the tango while the others snarl and chafe. Then there will be cowboys and cowgirls. Three Chinese troupes direct from Pekin; Bagonghi, the midget equestrian; bareback riders, including the famous English Hannaford Family, ground and lofty tumblers, equilibrists, wire walkers -- all kinds of gymnasts and athletes. Many of the cowboys are prize winners from the remote ranges of the West, and the political wire-pullers are not in it with them when it comes to manipulating the lariat.

Other acts include the posing horses, dogs and ponies, beautiful white creatures, occupying seven revolving platforms, placed the length of the tent; Thalero's trained monkeys and fox terriers; Madam Bradna's wonderfully intelligent pets; Bird Millman; the Davenports, the DeKoes; Paul Gordon; The Toscas; The Siegrist-Silbons -- Lupeta Perea and half a hundred others.

There's nothing the Barnum show hasn't got that any circus ever had, and there's a whole lot they will present Monday which no other circus could afford to present. It will be the zippiest, yippiest, nippiest circus that ever flashed through three solid hours of solid fun and wonderment, making memories of former circuses fade into limbo.

Tickets may be bought throughout the day, Monday at Thomas Drug Co. at exactly the same prices charged on the grounds.

--The Sheboygan Press, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, August 28, 1915, page 8.