Marie O’Day Midway Show

One of the strangest and most macabre shows to ever grace a midway was Marie O’Day and her Palace Car. Marie O Day was supposedly killed by her common law husband, who stabbed her in the back and cut her throat, a crime for which he was sentenced to 99 years at hard labor in the Utah State Penitentiary. Upon her death, he threw her body into Utah’s Great Salt Lake, where it remained for twelve long years. It had washed ashore in a desolate area but remained covered in salt, silt, and sand. When it was discovered in 1937, it was said to be mummified due to the more than 20% salt content of the lake.

Her mummified remains were exhibited by Charlie Campbell, Professor “Hoot” Black, and at least two other showmen. Over the decades, she toured 38 states and Canada in her “Marie O’Day’s Palace Car”. The story is that in 1955 the then Chief of Police in a town where she was being exhibited in Louisiana demanded a preliminary autopsy to dispute claims of fraud and was convinced of her authenticity when a forensic inspection of the body by a qualified professional proved her legitimacy and determined a stitched incision in her neck and stab wound in her back appeared to be consistent with what was known as the cause of her death.

Admission in 1970 was 50 cents, and the ad (falsely) claimed “the remarkable thing is the hair is still growing”. The mummy’s skin was said to be leathery, with her red hair still full. There are several stories about this mummy that contradict the original story as being probably untrue. One says that Marie most likely died as a result of tuberculosis, not stab wounds, and that the mummification resulted from using arsenic to embalm the body, which was a common form of embalming in those days. One is that she was a well dressed woman found dead in a Mississippi bus station and was an unclaimed body sold after a few years of sitting at a funeral parlor to a passing showman by an unscrupulous undertaker trying to recoup his costs.

In 1975, she was sold to Capt. Harvey Lee Boswell, who abandoned her ‘Palace Car’ and casket ( it offended the public, especially the recently bereaved ) she became part of his “Palace Of Wonders” side show, which was billed as The World’s Largest and Strangest Tented Museum, joining his collection of oddities such as shrunken heads and six legged cows. Boswell had her until he died in 2002. I don’t know if, today, she’s been resold or remains part of the late Capt. Boswell’s estate rests in storage in North Carolina somewhere. What is known is that this story is better than anything you could possibly make up.

You can check out more info on Marie O’Day by going to Sideshow World’s link at: SideShow World Marie O’Day