The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-08-28
SEEING Is BELIEVING.
A Spiritualistic Story by Parker of the
Boston Lyric COMPANY

Abostoh company.
You can't exactly call me a spiritual
ist" says Charles Aston Parkery who IS
now in Butte in the interest of the big
Boston Lyric Opera company, be
cause ! do not give much attention to
any particular faith, but when / see
things with my own eyes no one can
scott or talk me out of it. 1t is.all very
well to pooh-pooh a lot of beliefs that
do not meet your own views, yet
would not care if all the theorists in
Christendom were to ridicule my story,
seeing is believing. l have had some
very remarkable experiences, yet do not
attempt to explain them.
Il was sitting in the dressing room Of
theater with six other members of
the Boston Lyric Opera company one
night after an opera performance last
May. The dressing room was cheerfully
lighted, for there was heavy, rain and
terrible windstorm outside and we had
decided to remain in the theater until
the storm abated. 1t was the night Of
the awful tornado at New Richmond
Wis. We were then playing in Mime
apolis, about so miles from the place
where the cyclone struck the hardest.
There was a young woman with us
who had but recently married rail-
road man whose run was on the Wis.,
consin Central railroad, one of the lines
running through the Inflated village of
New Richmond. We all noticed that she
sat there looking into space, a vacant
stare in her beautiful eyes. There came
a lull in our conversation; each one
seemed to know where the woman's
thoughts were and the silence was SYM
pathetic. Presently, in the midst of it
all and amid the mighty roar of the
wind and thunder, we heard a voice
call the woman by name:
Hattie! Hattie!
THE voice seemed weak and gut
tural as if calling from some distance
outside the theater. The woman sprang
to her feet and fled out into the rain.
We followed her. Her husband was
never seen alive after that night; in
fact, he was killed by the cyclone at
about the hour we all heard his cry
"The mother of one of the chorus
girls in the Boston Lyric Opera COM
pany is woman far above the average
in intelligence and mental ability and
before her marriage was a teacher in
a young ladies' school in Boston. Of
her three children. two were boys. One
died when 6 or Z years of age; the
younger boy and the girl survived.
This girl and the dead boy had been
extremely attached to each other, yet
after the death of the boy his sister
never seemed to miss him, nor does she
to this day, and when alone in her
dressing room in theaters where the
company plays members of the opera
company often hear the chorus girl
laughing in childish glee. When ques-
toned she answers that her little
brother is again with her. Once when
passing the dressing room the costume
woman of the Boston Lyric Opera COM
pany was about to throw a big pile of
costumes upon the floor, when the girl
screamed out:
Don't! Don't, You'll hurt my lit
tie brother. Don't you see him playing
there on the floor"
There is no question but what the
chorus girl mentally is all right and has
a talent for music almost amounting to
genius, and one of the best dispositions
and voices in the entire big chorus"