The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-13
ANNIE YEAMANS
 TELLS OWN STORY Spent Sixty-three Years on the
 Stage THE GRAND OLD WOMAN Accounts Incidents of Her Early strug- ges-Always Worked Hard, but Ever Enjoyed Good Heath-Is
 Now Rehearsing.

hearsing for the part of an Irish land lady in Margaret Wyeherly's new play, Her Other Self" I love Irish parts. They are satisfactory. True Irish wit never fails to please an audience. Why should not one of my age still be play ing2 If they have good health and the interest in the thing. why not? I have never taken any special care of my health except to avoid the things I should not do such as keeping late hours. drinking and failing to breathe Gods pure air.
 Every afternoon when l am not work ing I walk from my apartments in the Hotel Grand or Central Park and spend a couple of hours feeding and playing with the squirrels After I went into this work 1 was compelled to keep it up to support not only myself, but my par ents and then my little family. But to any girl who has a good home I should say, do not go on the stage. It is hard life, and there are few who reap great reward
 Only Manx Woman.
 So far as l know, l am the only Manx woman on the stage, and I am proud of 1t. My people moved from the Isle of Man to Sydney, New South Wales, when l was a mere infant. I was scarcely 10 years of age when a manager of a thea Ire in Sydney persuaded my parents to let me play child parts. Actors worked hard in those days. In this stock com pany where 1 got my first experience they played tragedy one night, comedy the next, Shakespeare the next, melo- drama the next, and so on every night in the week. I played every night where they needed child for the part
 Besides this I got valuable experience in the circus business. It was about 1S4s, I believe, that a hotelkeeper of Sydney started the first circus in Australia. He thought he would like one because it occurred to him he could make use of a vacant lot adjoining the hotel. I had good knowledge of the stage before I went into the circurs business.
 Among the thousands who rushed to Australia during the gold fever in 1852 were my father, my brother Billy and myself. Billy and I got an engagement almost immediately upon our arrival in Melbourne with an American circus which was playing there. 1 got the nu- nificent sum of e15 a week. Here I met MT. Yeamans. He was playing the clown in the circus I was engaged for circus rider and was a success, Nothing lately naS impressed me so LuucH as LIOSe llllS scenes from Polly of the Circus,' of the little one-horse travelling show.
 Circus Experience.
 The first days of my circus experience were not enviable ones from the stand point of comfort. We travelled all through Australia There were no press agents or advance agents in those days. Hotel ac- commodations were scarce or none at all, so we travelled and camped along the way cooking our own food, and l did considerable of this myself.
 Often the town we came to consisted of little else besides a church and blacksmith shop. But we always had days rest after a journey, sometimes through forest, while a boy on horse- back carrying banner, would ride through the country announcing our en- gagement We always had good audi ences. I realized for the first time, when I saw Polly of the Circus" last year, that things had changed a bit with me. As I watched the circus riders and re- called my early experiences as one, had to admit that l was not able to do that sort of thing now, and for the mo- ment l felt regret, too. In spite of those early hardships of travel, l believe this out of doors life gave me the splendid health needed in later years to carry me through many trials and sorrows.
 Those early days were hard ones. Be- sides the cooking and taking care of my baby, and appearing in the circus daily, I made all the clothes wore
 Joins Burton Circus.
 After the American circus broke up in Melbourne and the managers sailed back home with fortune MT. Yeamans and I Joined traveling circus run by Henry Burton, an Englishman. and we toured Australia. Then we went to Java, play ing later in Singapore. I expected to be away only a short time at that time. I had three little daughters, the young est baby. I took the baby with me and left the two other children with my mother. But we went Mo Hong Kong, then to Shanghai, and later to Yokohama We were in Japan nearly a year. We played in Yokohama under military pro- lection before that port was opened to the western world The earthquakes made 1t Interesting for us. Sometimes they shook us out of bed.
 When we arrived in San Francisco finally we heard for the first time of the end of the civil war and the assassina- tion of President Lincoln. Through Charles Wheatley. late of Augustin Da- ly's company, who was then playing in San Francisco, we got an engagement and played there for some months. A tleatrlcal agent was forming a com pany to come east, and we were both anxious to go we joined his company with several others. We came by steamer It was an awful trip. When we got to New York the agents offer failed to materialize, and we were left to paddle our own canoe. One day when I was walking along Broadway. hardly knowing what we were going to do. I met charming woman I had known in San Francisco playing leading parts. She had just returned from Paris with a play of her own she was putting on. She gave me part
 Goes to St. Louis.
 When this engagement finally ended. instead of getting another my husband and I accepted an offer from a manager taking out a circus, and we went to St. Louis But that was failure, and the sheriff took everything, even our trunks, to pay the bills. But the clowns wife, a clever little woman, who did some rope dancing, sacrificed her gold watch. and we got our trunks. After despe- rate effort to get something to do we finally got an engagement playing in a variety theatre for two weeks. An am obo uhn from St