Marjory Ann Hill

Born in Chicago, Marjorie was the oldest daughter of William F. and Margaret (Christensen) Hill. She was born into the life of carnivals and circuses as she spent her formative years traveling across the United States in a Pullman train car with her parents and younger sister Marion. Marjorie’s father was trainmaster for Dodson’s World Fair Shows and the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, and her mother was a Ringling dancer.

While growing up on Ringling, she received dancing, trapeze, and high wire training. However, it was animals that were Marjorie’s true passion. Ringling’s elephant trainer Hugo Schmidt, regarded as one of the world’s best pachyderm trainers, took Irish under his guidance. Following a highwire fall in 1954 that ended her aerial career, Marjorie became Schmidt’s elephant assistant.

Following her father’s passing, she took over his nickname “Irish.”

In the early 1960s, she joined elephant trainer Steve Fanning with his pachyderm show. With Fanning, Hill worked with animals on the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus and the Cristiani Wallace Bros Circus. In 1964 Irish and Fanning joined the James E. Strates Shows’ Wild Animal Menagerie. The “traveling zoo” included a variety of non-performing animals on display including a hippopotamus named “George,” a polar bear, horses, a tiger, and various farm animals for petting. Hill & Fanning featured a small group of elephants in a “grind show,” which is a carnival term for a small side show that operates continuously all day.

Longtime Strates Shows employee George Beecher first met Irish in 1962 when she was with Cristiani Wallace Bros and developed a sixty-year friendship with her. Beecher described her personality as “strong and independent” but always putting the Show and her fellow circus and carnival workers first.

“If she could help you, she’d drop everything and would give you 100% of her time and energy,” said Beecher. “She was always looking out for others.”

Following the closure of the Strates’ menagerie exhibit, Hill took a brief “sabbatical” to take care of her mother but was soon back on the road as the operator of a Strates Shows’ pony ride. While on Strates, she delivered mail and sold copies of the industry trade publication, Amusement Business (AB). For those workers who could not read or write, she would assist with the writing of letters to friends and family.

“It was a common site to see her hiking down the Midway with a bundle of mail in one hand while juggling a stack of ABs in the other… followed by her pack of pets,” said Strates Shows Road Office Manager Paul Meyers. “It was well known along the route that Irish had a deep love for all animals. If there was a stray dog found on the Midway, guess who adopted it?”

“Her animals would eat better than her,” joked Beecher.

After her pony ride was retired from Strates Shows, Irish continued to serve the Show working at Winter Quarters in various capacities until the end of her life.

Hill was preceded in death by her parents and by her only sibling Marion J. Hill of Miami who passed away in 2006.