The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-12-06
BACK IN KANSAS
Stephen LOsh and Miss Hupp
Get Big Reception.
RichIand People Come to Nov
city to See Their Act.

The roads from Richland this week
have been busy with conveyances
coming to Topeka, carrying people to
see Stephen Losh in the top-line act
at the Novelty this week. For all
Richland remembers Stephen Losh,
the boy who used to make the rounds
of the school sociables and county
fairs, astride of big boned nag. with
his sleight of hand apparatus in his
pockets, a bag containing the per-
sonages of a puppet under his arm
al a sheet around his heck which
he used in the show for makeup
room.
Stephen was the neighborhood en-
tertainer of those times, his tricks of
magic and ventriloquism being well
coined more heartily around Richland
than Eva Tanguay is welcomed in
New York.
His narrative of from the farm
to vaudeville is absorbingly interest
ing.
Dad Started Fever.
My dad started the fever in me
when boy" he says. He used to
tell me about the magicians, shows
and the circuses that e had seen. 1
was convinced at that time the tricks
But one day l saw an advertisement
in a paper telling How to Lean Mag
ic'
1T got. my rs cents by return mail
In a day / could work all those tracks
and in a week I had improved on
them and invented new ones.
Then Yankee Robinson's circus
came to town. The horses on our big
farm led hard life after that.
had them jumping fences and run
ming chariot races.
Prank Hardesty, who I understand
is in trouble now, was responsible for
my learning to ride.
He used to say, Steve, I'll bet you
half dollar that you can't ride that
horse standing up to that rail there,
let him pass under the rail and you
jump over. 1 won his half dollars,
and other neighbours money on banters
and also did a little race riding.
The First Contract.
Il pestered my relatives to death to
get them to go into cahoots with me
in my stunts. l succeeded in develop
ing two nephews and a brother into
pretty fair performers. Then my
niece, Alwilda Hupp, became interest
by applying to Yankee Robinson's cir
Gus and furthermore being accepted.
We stayed with them a year doing half
the things in the program, at the sal
airy of the least of the performers. We
were green grass from the country and
hadn't learned to be lazy yet. We quit
the circus after year, on the advice
of a friend, urging us to go to New
York and try out for vaudeville.
The whole neighborhood laughed
at us for fools when we announced
that we were setting out for New
York. 1t was a joke they said for green
country folks to think they could go
on the stage. And besides 1 was leav-
ing good chance on my dads farm.
For some reason in New York they
sized US up as foreigners. And a Paris
theatrical agent there booked our act
Immediately
Long Tour in Europe.
| In the east Losh adopted little
| ''Goldie,'' years old, and the daugh-
| ter of an over-large family of Swiss
acrobats. They took her to Paris with
| them
| That was eighteen years ago. They
played all the principal vaudeville
houses in France, and then went to
Germany Booking succeeded book
| ing and for years they played in every
| country in Europe without losing a
days work. They played only one
short engagement in that time in the
| United States on return from South
/ America. Then they went to Aus
I tralia and while there the war broke
out, terminating the possibility of Eu-
Francisco from Australia they were
twice stopped by big, gray British war
vessels searching for German citizens
For two years the trio have played
| in all the eastern circuits Ihey want
| ed to get back home to Kansas but
| the Keith agents could not book them
that way. At Grand Rapids, Losh
wired his agent that he was sick and
disappeared Then he hunted an
agency that could book his act in
Kansas
/ Miss Hupp and Losh are happy
Each morning and after the second
| evening show they meet their old
childhood friends. And their long
residence in Europe has not changed
| them a particle. according to Richland