Lucía Zárate: The odyssey of the world’s smallest woman

by Cecilia Velástegui

  Lucía sighed. “Yes,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “But you also said that during an odyssey one faces both adventure and hardships. And I’ve had enough hardships, don’t you think?”

  With her parents in tow, navigating the crammed streets of New York City, Lucía’s entourage expanded to a pack of a half dozen snarling members. Each one craved a morsel of Lucía’s money-making starlight. Her parents didn’t bother to enjoy the sights of the city; not even the jaw-dropping construction of the Brooklyn Bridge piqued their curiosity. They simply sniffed the air, following the appetizing scent of Lucía’s future wealth. At the same time, Mr. and Mrs. Uffner and their own retinue of lackeys formed a salivating pack of hounds hot on Lucía’s trail. They congratulated one another on their success showcasing Lucía’s charms to the physicians and newshounds alike. They understood that New York’s sideshows and dime museums displayed all manner of human curiosities, fake and real, and it was imperative to strike with Lucía while the iron of her uniqueness was hot.

  Lucía’s vast entourage milled around narrow hallways and small rooms of the airless Uffner residence, waiting to go out to an important appointment. Francis Marion Uffner ignored them all. He had more urgent matters to attend to before he was ready to open the floodgates and lure the masses to pay to see Lucía.

  When he was ready, he adjusted his tie, combed his long whiskers, and barked out the order, “Let’s get this show on the road, people!”

  Francis rounded up Lucía’s group in the crowded foyer of his shabby townhouse, exasperated that so many hangers-on were necessary to escort Lucía to her appointment. He was willing to put up with it—for now. He had big plans for the newest and tiniest addition to his specialty act of “little folks” —one of the more polite terms he used in promotional material about his acts.

  In private, of course, Francis Uffner shouted any insulting term that came to mind at the time toward his money-making little folks. He was the foremost promoter-agent specializing in the world’s smallest persons, and in just one month he planned to shock the world. At Philadelphia’s Centennial Exhibition, he would introduce his newest diminutive duo, Francis Flynn and Lucía Zárate.

  Uffner wracked his brain to create original monikers for all his acts. He knew that specially selected words created vivid images that enticed audiences to hand over their hard-earned pennies. He’d already devised the name “General Mite” for Francis Flynn*, the serious, twelve-year-old boy from Greene, New York, who was ready to appear in Philadelphia alongside Lucía. This stage name had been easy to create. First, Uffner reckoned, audiences would make the connection with General Thom Thumb, who charmed audiences with his oversized personality, as well as by singing, dancing, and performing his hilarious impersonations of famous people. General Thom Thumb— whose real name was Charles Sherwood Stratton—was a true showman who’d been drawing audiences of thousands for more than twenty years.

  Francis Uffner was wily enough to capitalize on this persona already created by General Thom Thumb, and he knew that simple-minded audiences would transfer all their enthusiasm for the famous, charismatic General Thom Thumb, managed by none other than the great showman P.T. Barnum, to his own youthful sour-puss, General Mite. Even if you held Uffner’s hand over a flame, he would never admit that General Mite was a dull and shy boy, but in private he cursed the boy’s introverted nature.

  In teensy Lucía, Francis Uffner saw colossal promotional possibilities with equally massive profits. He told his wife, “By God, the sky’s the limit with the Mexican midget!”

  Mrs. Uffner was used to such enthusiasm from her husband. She’d heard him talk about the hundreds of thousands they’d make from previous acts, but all of those acts seemed to fall short, really short, of their potential—but she didn’t want to cross her husband today.

  “Sure thing, Frank,” she said, fastening the frayed ribbons of her bonnet.

  “Look here,” he said, hearing the hint of cynicism in her tone, “Lucía loves music and she dances like a twirling top. Don’t you think we can create a dance routine for her?”

  “She only dances when she feels like it,” Mrs. Uffner muttered, keeping her voice low so Lucía’s entourage couldn’t hear. “And you know she don’t do nothing she don’t want to, Frank.”

  “Oh, I’ll get her to do as I say,” Uffner boasted, “or she’ll get the back of my hand.”

  Zoila, standing close by in the unswept hallway, glowered at Uffner.

  Francis pointed at her and commanded, “Down, girl, down,”

  Both he and his wife laughed. They didn’t care if Zoila was humiliated by being spoken to as if she were a dog. At first Zoila seemed to cower, looking towards the open front door and possibly considering bolting away. But this submissive behavior didn’t last. She turned back to stare down both Uffners in her intense and unsettling way. Frank just ignored Zoila’s insolent glare: he was too busy announcing to anyone who cared to listen how he was going to promote Lucía to the newspapers. He planned to invite every newspaper reporter in Pennsylvania—and beyond—to see her once his troupe of little folks arrived in Philadelphia for the Centennial International Exhibition.

  Though there were other more sensational—and maybe more lucrative—acts touring the dime museums and sideshows of major American cities, Frank Uffner chose to specialize in little folks. He’d always avoided representing people whose physical disabilities made audiences cringe. Instead he believed that by working with little people he could take advantage of the luck of the leprechaun. This superstition was based on the legends about the small, fairy-like creatures that were a part of his Irish ancestry. These legends had survived since before the Celts arrived in Ireland for a reason, Uffner thought, and there just might be some truth to the belief that each leprechaun hoarded a pot of gold. It was a message, Frank Uffner decided, to hand-pick the smallest of little people to perform for audiences, and thus to fill his own pot of gold to the brim.

  Uffner was a performer himself, in a sense. Every day he had to walk a tightrope trying to make his little folks appear delightful, elegant, and all-around enthralling—no easy feat in the competitive circus environment that exhibited the likes of Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy or the giant-footed Fanny Mills—known as the Ohio Bigfoot Lady. These were people whose physical disabilities and peculiarities caused them great personal anguish, but made their promoters a lot of money. Audiences loved to pay to be shocked or repulsed.

  There was enough time before they had to leave for Frank Uffner to throw out some of his clever ideas for his wife to shoot down. After half a dozen names, he snapped his fingers.

  “By Jove, I’ve got it,” he said. “I’ll name her the Mexican Fairy.”

  Mrs. Uffner rolled her eyes. “You gotta be joking, Frank. Don’t you remember the fiasco with the Sicilian Fairy? Sad little thing.”

  “What happened to the Sicilian Fairy?” asked Zoila.

  Uffner couldn’t resist telling her the story. Until his wife mentioned it, he’d almost forgotten about Carolina Crachami*, the Sicilian Fairy. In 1824 she was billed as the smallest person in the world, and had been exhibited in London to much acclaim. But a dark cloud hovered anytime the words “Sicilian Fairy” were uttered. Even in a violent city like New York, where gangs roamed dispensing brutal justice, the facts of Carolina Crachami’s death and the disposal of her body sent spine-chilling memories. How could the beloved child of classically trained, Italian musicians, members of the Theatre Royal in Dublin, lose charge of their daughter to one Dr. Gilligan*, a disgraced physician? He not only pretended to be Carolina’s father but, in a most macabre ending, handed over her corpse to John Hunter, the famous anatomist. Hunter dissected her and displayed her skeleton at the Hunterian Museum in London, next to the remains of the Irish giant, Charles Byrne. Poor Mr. Byrne had paid his buddies handsomely to bury his body at sea, only to have the body taken from the funeral boat and sold to the Hunterian Museum. The fates of both the Sicilian Fairy and the Irish Giant were
sealed by a cold and heartless society that could not be satiated while they were alive, and demanded the right to ogle them in death, gawping at the extreme dimensions of their skeletons hanging side by side at the museum.

  Zoila gaped in disbelieve at the grisly story Uffner recounted. To think that a young girl had been taken advantage of in such a barbarous way made her want to pick up Lucía and run away from these cruel circus people. She imagined the worse that could happen to Lucía and vowed that as soon as she could save enough money, she would find a warm hamlet in Mexico—a place where she and Lucía could live peacefully away from curious onlookers. Perhaps if there was enough money, she could also take Señora Zárate and the children she had left behind, to find refuge somewhere far away from prying eyes and evil tongues—and Mr. Zárate’s tyranny. The thought of doing good warmed Zoila’s heart. She inhaled the scent of the vanilla at her bosom and reminisced about the carefree fun she and Felipe had shared as youngsters. This was the same sunny childhood she wished for Lucía.

  Frank Uffner had to admit that his wife was right. He paced back and forth, deliberating the morbid connotations of the word “fairy” since the awful fate of Carolina Crachami. It might cost him money.

  “Nah, we won’t name her the Mexican Fairy,” he said to his wife.

  “Whatever you say, Frank,” she answered.

  “Well, then. There’s no need to carry those wings with us today, is there?”

  Mrs. Uffner and one of his portly male assistants followed his directions. Each lifted a gossamer wing and carried it back to an armoire at the back of the house where the costumes were stored. The wings were as light as a feather, and either one could have carried them alone, but they both wanted to be out of Mr. Uffner’s ire. The presence of too many additional people in the narrow townhouse and the pressure of getting everyone ready for Philadelphia had worn him down and made him very cantankerous.

  Uffner attempted to speak with Lucía, but she was in one of her bad moods herself. The day before she’d seemed clever and had even spoken a few sentences in English to the journalists and the doctors, but today she sat stone-faced and relied too much on Zoila. Uffner decided there and then to get rid of Zoila, his heftiest expense, as soon as possible. He would have preferred to keep Señora Zárate as Lucía’s only caregiver because she was docile and small-framed, and she wouldn’t eat him out of house and home like Zoila. As it was, his modest house was bursting at the creaky rafters with little folks and their families and hangers-on. But Señora Zarate spoke not one word of English, and worse, she shadowed her husband at all times, and Uffner couldn’t suffer that obnoxious fool.

  Like any ravenous dog, Señor Zárate had sniffed out that he was losing grasp of his bone, his own Lucía, the fruit of his loins. So he tried to outmaneuver Uffner by barking commands and questions in Spanish to Zoila, who then translated them for Uffner’s benefit. Since Uffner knew he was the alpha dog, he ignored every single one of Señor Zárate’s demands. Señor Zárate persevered, his fury rising with every new command.

  “Tell the gringo that I’m her father, and I will be the only one who counts Lucía’s money.”

  Señor Zárate didn’t wait for Zoila’s English translation. “And tell the gringo that I need my cut of the deal paid today, this minute, or I’ll take it out of your own tough hide.”

  By now he was so angry that he was foaming at the mouth. His spittle splattered Zoila’s cheek, and she wiped it off, disgusted.

  “Tell him that I won’t be left behind this time,” he ranted. “These gringos think they can outwit me and leave me stranded, like the other big Yankee did when he left me behind in Veracruz.”

  Frustrated by the barrage of Señor Zárate’s comments, Uffner started yelling.

  “Tell him to keep his trap shut or I’ll send him back to sit on giant cactus in Mexico!” He shouted. Both his assistant and Mrs. Uffner snickered at this comment, and this only got Uffner more upset. He didn’t need anyone backing him up: it made it look as though he were a weakling. He was the leader of the pack and needed to herd the whole lot of chattering Mexicans into his corral.

  “I’m going to take the midget and leave you all behind to starve,” he threatened. “I own her. Period.”

  This seemed to shut everyone up.

  “You’d better get Lucía dressed in her finest gown,” he told his wife. “We’re expected at Charles Eisenmann’s* photography studio, and you know what a pain in the—”

  “Lucía ain’t paying me no mind, Frank,” Mrs. Uffner said. “Lucía only listens to what her mama or Zoila say.”

  Francis slammed his fist down on the spindly hall table. “Damn you all! I got a business to run! Do you think that managing a passel of midgets is easy? These runts make my life a living hell.”

  Nobody said anything, so he jabbed an accusing finger at Zoila.

  “You!” he snapped. “Get Lucía dressed in that pink silk gown with her matching hat and gloves. And tell her mama that I’m the boss.”

  He pointed another accusatory finger, this time at Señora Zárate, who started to cry. Her husband covered her mouth and pinched her nose until she calmed down, retreating to the bench where Lucía sat, cheerless and depressed. Mother and daughter looked at each other with glassy eyes, and pouted.

  “How many times do I have to tell you that we’re expected at Eisenmann’s studio in the Bowery?” Francis asked the whole group. “He’s the best photographer of freaks, but he’s got a short temper. Don’t you realize how important this is?”

  They were going to get Lucía’s photograph taken for a carte de visite, which Uffner could then sell and use to promote her appearances.

  “Why do I continue to surround myself with idiots, midgets, and freaks?” he asked, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. “Do you understand how important this is?”

  Only his wife nodded in response. Because her husband was in such a foul mood, she decided not to correct him: they weren’t getting photographs for a carte de visite. They’d decided to pay for cabinet-card size photographs of their acts, because these larger photo cards of their little people sold quickly at their shows.

  Neither Zoila nor his assistant knew what a carte de visite was; much less understand its importance. The craze for exchanging these small photographic cards had begun in Europe and quickly spread to the United States where people frantically exchanged them with friends or displayed them in photograph albums and glass cabinets. The profit margin on the sale of the larger cabinet cards was much higher, hence the Uffners’ decision to invest in these for Lucía.

  Mrs. Uffner supervised Zoila as she dressed a disheartened Lucía. Señora Zárate packed a valise full of Lucía’s wardrobe in case other clothing items were required by the photographer. Once Lucía was ready to leave the house, the entourage followed the lead dog as he took long strides toward the studio at 229 Bowery.

  Uffner had chosen the photographer for a reason. Charles Eisenmann considered himself an artist specializing in the art of photographing human oddities. He believed his lens captured the kernel of human soul trapped inside the tortured exteriors of his subjects. Within his studio, he painstakingly arranged classical sets with pillars, flowers and tufted chairs in which he posed his gnarled and unusual human phenomena. He fine-tuned the studio’s lighting and tinkered with his photographic equipment in order to produce the most theatrical and heart-wrenching portraits of his afflicted subjects. Eisenmann had a profound compassion for these freaks of nature, and this made him able to mine from deep in their souls a human essence that his camera lens then captured for eternity.

  When they arrived, Eisenmann was ready to photograph Lucía and motioned for her to be brought to the back of the studio. Zoila and Señora Zárate exchanged panicked looks at the sight of the studio walls, which were cluttered with photographs of the most alarming human beings they could have imagined. Fortunately, Lucía was being carried by her father, and didn’t look at the photographs. Señor Zárate followed the photographer int
o the back studio and he yelled at Señora Zárate to hurry up. He set Lucía down on an elegant tufted mohair chair.

  Neither the short, stout photographer nor his assistants paid any mind to Señor Zárate Zárate’s attempts at asserting dominance; nor did they pay any attention to Frank Uffner, who was attempting to banter in a mishmash of Eisenmann’s native German and English. Eisenmann elbowed past both men and orchestrated his photographic session with professional resolve.

  Mrs. Uffner sat quietly with Señora Zárate while Lucía dozed on the tufted chair. Eisenmann set up lights and arranged the set to maximize the comparison in height between the chair and Lucía. He added a plant stand topped with a full potted fern pot to show depth, and again to emphasize the smallness of Lucía. Eisenmann had an exacting eye for details, proportions, perspective, and above all for capturing the expression of human suffering behind the forced smiles of his tormented subjects.

  Only Zoila remained in the foyer of the studio analyzing the photos on the walls. She was mortified at Eisenmann’s display of so many forlorn human tragedies. She sat down and opened a photo album, the cover of which was stamped “Julia Pastrana” in gold leaf. One look at Julia Pastrana’s* photographs and Zoila’s heart broke. She slammed shut the album’s cover, her heart thumping violently. She was crying and her hand protectively covered the name on the cover. It had been a long time since she’d thought about Julia Pastrana, the Bear Woman.

  A flood of memories rushed through Zoila’s mind, flashing gory details about the pathetic life of the Mexican girl, Julia Pastrana. Her life story had ended as appallingly in Moscow—mummified, in a glass case—as it had begun in Mexico. For the first time Zoila recalled how she’d heard the name of Dr. Alexander B. Mott before, the same Dr. Mott that had just inspected Lucía like a prized specimen for dissection. Dr. Mott was the man who had declared that Julia Pastrana must be the child of an orangutan.