thedrifter
06-10-07, 07:17 AM
Circus life's highs and lows kept mom fun and flexible
Aleta Payne, Correspondent
Anyone can joke about running off to join the circus, but Cora Mae Kent Teander had the gumption to do it. It was the early 1930s, the start of the Great Depression, and Teander was one of nine children. When the traveling circus arrived in Alford, Florida, it promised adventure and offered escape from a hardscrabble life.
"She was determined not to live like the rest of her family. She wanted to make it on her own," said Teander's oldest son, Jeneal.
Cora Mae Teander lived 10 years with the circus, adopted a son as a single mother, drove a taxicab and ran an arcade back when that meant balls pitched at milk bottles rather than neon-lit video games. She was 95 when she died May 14 in Cary.
"When you asked her favorite part of her life, she always recalled the circus days," said Jeneal Teander. "They were hard days, but she remembered them as happy days."
As a performer, Cora Mae's specialty was to put each foot in a ring and perform a split, suspended in mid-air, while another girl stood on her shoulders. She told the Jacksonville Daily News in 2002 that she had tried the tightrope, but it wasn't for her.
"I tried it one time and fell on my tail, and I didn't want to do it anymore," she said.
As part of the circus' parade, she rode elephants through the towns where they played. And when she couldn't afford to buy spangly costumes, she learned to make her own -- so well that others asked her to make theirs, Jeneal Teander said.
If performing was a way out of her old life, she didn't forget those she left behind.
The performers were given 50 cents for breakfast each day, which she saved and sent home to her family.
"Her mother really appreciated that," he said.
And the circus provided the start for a new family. She met her future husband, a Polish emigre, who was leader of the band. She and Joe Teander traveled up and down the East Coast as performers. After Jeneal was born in Pennsylvania in 1937, Joe had to double back 200 miles to get them so they could rejoin the troupe. Back then, doctors kept new mothers in the hospital for 10 days, but the circus couldn't stop moving.
The family left that life around 1940, and Joe Teander eventually moved them to North Carolina, where he started out working as a carpenter. They went on to open a service station near Camp Geiger. But in the late 1950s, Cora Mae Teander suffered almost back-to-back losses: Joe died in 1957, and a son, Mose, in 1959.
Coming out of that double tragedy, she did something almost unheard of at the time - in 1961, as a single woman approaching 50, she adopted the two-day-old infant born to a friend who couldn't care for him.
That child, named Joseph, remembers his mother's tales of circus life and her work ethic. She talked about the "towners and people looking down on them because they were in the circus," Joseph Teander said. But, "she always said she'd never trade [her experiences] for anything in the world."
As a small child, he remembers his mother running an arcade with basketball hoops, target shooting with a .22 caliber rifle, darts tossed at balloons, and a game of pitching a baseball to knock down milk bottles. The arcade was popular with Marines from nearby bases, and she would run the games late into the night, with a pallet for him to sleep on underneath the counter.
"I'd try to stay up as late as I could, but she'd give me the evil eye," he said. After she closed up, she'd carry the sleeping boy to bed, up until he was 7 or 8.
"How in God's name she ever thought to raise a kid and have a business, I'll never know. That wasn't something that happened then," Joseph Teander said.
"She was a strong-willed woman," he said. "She was very independent. She took a lot of stuff that other people would have cracked under. She did a lot to put food on the table."
Her strength, he believes, came from her time with the circus, and so did a need to hit the road pretty regularly. They'd often travel up and down the East Coast to visit family, Joseph Teander said. He would navigate and she would drive. He was a young teenager, and she was in her 60s.
In other ways, she was a typical mom.
Her son saw it as a step forward in his own independence when she finally let him ride his bike to school as a fourth-grader. "I looked back," he said, "and she was driving behind me."
Both brothers say their mother remained a great storyteller, even as a stroke and declining health forced a move in 2003 to Cary, where Jeneal and his wife Judy live.
Judy Teander said of her mother-in-law: "She added a little spice to life, a little flavor."
Cora Mae Teander is survived by her sons, a daughter-in-law, four grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews.
Ellie
Aleta Payne, Correspondent
Anyone can joke about running off to join the circus, but Cora Mae Kent Teander had the gumption to do it. It was the early 1930s, the start of the Great Depression, and Teander was one of nine children. When the traveling circus arrived in Alford, Florida, it promised adventure and offered escape from a hardscrabble life.
"She was determined not to live like the rest of her family. She wanted to make it on her own," said Teander's oldest son, Jeneal.
Cora Mae Teander lived 10 years with the circus, adopted a son as a single mother, drove a taxicab and ran an arcade back when that meant balls pitched at milk bottles rather than neon-lit video games. She was 95 when she died May 14 in Cary.
"When you asked her favorite part of her life, she always recalled the circus days," said Jeneal Teander. "They were hard days, but she remembered them as happy days."
As a performer, Cora Mae's specialty was to put each foot in a ring and perform a split, suspended in mid-air, while another girl stood on her shoulders. She told the Jacksonville Daily News in 2002 that she had tried the tightrope, but it wasn't for her.
"I tried it one time and fell on my tail, and I didn't want to do it anymore," she said.
As part of the circus' parade, she rode elephants through the towns where they played. And when she couldn't afford to buy spangly costumes, she learned to make her own -- so well that others asked her to make theirs, Jeneal Teander said.
If performing was a way out of her old life, she didn't forget those she left behind.
The performers were given 50 cents for breakfast each day, which she saved and sent home to her family.
"Her mother really appreciated that," he said.
And the circus provided the start for a new family. She met her future husband, a Polish emigre, who was leader of the band. She and Joe Teander traveled up and down the East Coast as performers. After Jeneal was born in Pennsylvania in 1937, Joe had to double back 200 miles to get them so they could rejoin the troupe. Back then, doctors kept new mothers in the hospital for 10 days, but the circus couldn't stop moving.
The family left that life around 1940, and Joe Teander eventually moved them to North Carolina, where he started out working as a carpenter. They went on to open a service station near Camp Geiger. But in the late 1950s, Cora Mae Teander suffered almost back-to-back losses: Joe died in 1957, and a son, Mose, in 1959.
Coming out of that double tragedy, she did something almost unheard of at the time - in 1961, as a single woman approaching 50, she adopted the two-day-old infant born to a friend who couldn't care for him.
That child, named Joseph, remembers his mother's tales of circus life and her work ethic. She talked about the "towners and people looking down on them because they were in the circus," Joseph Teander said. But, "she always said she'd never trade [her experiences] for anything in the world."
As a small child, he remembers his mother running an arcade with basketball hoops, target shooting with a .22 caliber rifle, darts tossed at balloons, and a game of pitching a baseball to knock down milk bottles. The arcade was popular with Marines from nearby bases, and she would run the games late into the night, with a pallet for him to sleep on underneath the counter.
"I'd try to stay up as late as I could, but she'd give me the evil eye," he said. After she closed up, she'd carry the sleeping boy to bed, up until he was 7 or 8.
"How in God's name she ever thought to raise a kid and have a business, I'll never know. That wasn't something that happened then," Joseph Teander said.
"She was a strong-willed woman," he said. "She was very independent. She took a lot of stuff that other people would have cracked under. She did a lot to put food on the table."
Her strength, he believes, came from her time with the circus, and so did a need to hit the road pretty regularly. They'd often travel up and down the East Coast to visit family, Joseph Teander said. He would navigate and she would drive. He was a young teenager, and she was in her 60s.
In other ways, she was a typical mom.
Her son saw it as a step forward in his own independence when she finally let him ride his bike to school as a fourth-grader. "I looked back," he said, "and she was driving behind me."
Both brothers say their mother remained a great storyteller, even as a stroke and declining health forced a move in 2003 to Cary, where Jeneal and his wife Judy live.
Judy Teander said of her mother-in-law: "She added a little spice to life, a little flavor."
Cora Mae Teander is survived by her sons, a daughter-in-law, four grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews.
Ellie