MOLLIE BAILEY

Mollie Bailey as portrayed by LaJuanna Faught.

As a young woman, Mollie Bailey, "Circus Queen of the Southwest," eloped with Gus Bailey, who played the cornet in his father's circus band. With Mollie's sister Fanny and Gus's brother Alfred, the young couple formed the Bailey Family Troupe, which traveled through Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas acting, dancing, and singing.

During the Civil War, Gus served as bandmaster for a company of Hood's Texas Brigade. Mollie traveled with the brigade as a nurse and a spy. Mollie disguised herself as an elderly woman, passed through federal camps pretending to be a cookie seller, and claimed to have taken quinine through enemy lines by hiding packets of it in her hair. During the war, Gus wrote the words for "The Old Gray Mare," based on a horse who almost died after eating green corn but revived when given medicine. A friend set it to music, and it was played as a regimental marching song.

Mollie came to Texas in 1879 when the troupe traded their showboat for a small circus that became successful as the Bailey Circus, "A Texas Show for Texas People." The show became the Mollie A. Bailey Show after Gus's health forced him to retire and Mollie became known as "Aunt Mollie." At its height, the one-ring tent circus had thirty-one wagons and about 200 animals; it added elephant and camel acts in 1902. After Gus's death in 1896, Mollie Bailey continued in the business, buying lots in many places where the circus performed to eliminate the high taxes levied on shows by most towns. When the circus moved to the next town, she allowed these lots to be used for ball games and camp meetings and later let many of them revert to the towns.

In 1906, when the circus began traveling by railroad, Bailey entertained many distinguished guests in a finely appointed parlor car. She was also said to be a friend of Comanche chief Quanah Parker.

In 1906 she married Blackie Hardesty, a much younger man, who managed the circus for her.

After her youngest child, Birda, died in 1917, Bailey ran the circus from home, communicating with the road by telegram and letter. She died on October 2, 1918, at Houston, and was buried there in Hollywood Cemetery.

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