Pansy: The Texas Trapeze Artist: True Texas Tale: The Beauty Who Never Left

By Roy E. Peterson

Pansy was a beautiful trapeze artist who became a living legend in my West Texas hometown of McCamey, because she never left the grave of her husband. She and her husband were members of a ragtag circus troop in 1927 touring the new oilfields of the Permian Basin south of Odessa. She had the Mary Pickford look with golden curls and face made for movies. They were performing in a matinee when the rope on the trapeze broke. Her husband was killed instantly in the fall, but she land on top of him saving her life. She had severed lacerations to the head and was cared for by a doctor who had come to join the quest for oil. As the next great oil rush after Ranger, Texas, McCamey mushroomed into 30,000 tent dwellers, some of whom became wealthy from things like grocery stores, ice plants and other goods and services. A small circus could command a big crowd and earn some of the money being thrown around by drillers and roustabouts with nothing else to do in the land of the perpetual mesquite.Pansy never left McCamey, except to walk a hundred miles one way once a month to San Angelo to do banking. She never accepted rides. She never learned to drive the Ford that brought Pansy and her husband to town. Pansy put it in her backyard and had it cemented in place so no one would steal it. She earned a living by constructing wooden shanties from whatever boards she could find and renting them to the transients. Kids were frightened by her appearance later in her life as she pulled her little red wagon of choice, a radio flyer roaming the streets and back alleys in search of anything reusable that may have been thrown in the trash. She was a recycler before the term was ever used.Pansy's legend is bolstered by mysteries no one can explain: What circus? No one seems to know, but legend says they came from Ranger.Who was her husband for certain? Was her last name really Carpenter?Where was he buried? There is no Carpenter in an Upton County grave.Why did she never remarry? Afterall she was young and beautiful.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B08MSNJ2N1
• ISBN13: 9798557780551
• Release Date: November 2020
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 116 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"