Mignon Laird

Lately I have been rereading my book, the one about my mother and her family, looking for errors, awkward sentences, etc., and I discovered a really interesting story that I just have to share, even if it means interrupting the story of my dad’s life.  

In the chapter I just finished editing, my mother Wenonah is telling about a time when she was ten. It would have been about 1923. During that year her older sister, Kaliteyo, who was thirteen, had a toothache. The toothache kept getting worse, until a swelling developed under her jaw. One day she was riding a horse across the yard, forgot to duck and a tree branch struck her right under the jaw, knocking her off the horse. 

Kaliteyo wasn’t hurt by the fall, but the limb of the tree punctured an abscess that had extended from the root of her sore tooth completely through her jaw bone. I remember the scar. Grandmother ran outside when she heard the commotion, and saw pus and blood running down Kaliteyo’s neck.   

Well, Pauls Valley didn’t have a permanent dentist at the time – that’s the reason Grandmother hadn’t gotten help sooner, but after seeing the huge abscess she knew she had to do something. It just so happened that a dentist had just rolled into town, in a Pullman car. I found a picture of the car in a Pauls Valley. Centennial brochure. 

 

 

 

The dentist’s name was Dr. Laird, who lived with his family in a Pullman car which he moved from town to town. When he came to a new town, he would have his Pullman car rolled off onto a side track and stay there until he saw as many patients as needed him. Then he would move on.  

My mother told me that Grandmother let her go along when she took Aunt Kaliteyo to see Dr. Laird, so she got to see the inside of the Pullman car. She told me that the inside was really fancy. It had beautiful velvet drapes with tassles on the pull cords, and elegant rugs and furniture.  

Oh, by the way, Dr. Laird pulled Kaliteyo’s tooth, and her jaw eventually healed, even though it took a long time and a lot of follow up visits to Dr. Laird.   

The other thing that my mother mentioned was that Dr. Laird had a daughter who played the harp. She told me that she heard her play and that she was very good.  

I found out a little more about Dr. Laird from a brief note on the Pauls Valley Centennial brochure. It says there that Dr. Laird’s daughter, whose name was Mignon, went on to become a professional dancer in New York City. I didn’t look into the story any further at first. It did strike me as funny to imagine Mignon running and leaping through a railroad car, trying to practice her dancing.  

But on rereading my chapter, I got curious about Mignon’s career, so I “Googled” her. Isn’t the internet a wonderful thing? The first thing that I encountered was the Mignon Laird Municipal Airport, in Cheyenne, Oklahoma. She had an airport named after her! 

Digging deeper I found a book about the Katy Northwest Railroad which describes a local service they ran from town to town in Oklahoma. The book says that Dr. Laird used that service to move his Pullman car from town to town. Also, according to the book, Dr. Laird did a lot more than pull teeth. He put on “medicine shows” by which I suppose they mean he sold some kind of tonic which was supposed to heal whatever ailed you, and part of the show was Mrs. Laird and Mignon giving readings and singing, and Mignon playing the harp. It might have been at one of these performances that my mother heard Mignon play. 

In looking for information about Mignon’s career, I found a blog by a lady named Laura Haywood about the “Ziegfield Club” which was a group of ladies in New York who had performed in the Ziegfield Follies, and who would get together from time to time to reminisce. Ms. Haywood attended some of the club’s meetings and got to know Mignon Laird, who was one of the club’s charter members. Mignon’s told her that her act consisted of dancing with her harp, which she somehow managed to play at the same time.  

Mignon was also part of the cast of a broadway show called “Who Cares” which played for 32 performances in 1930. 

Finally, I found on the New York Public Library site a spectacular photograph of Mignon, playing the harp and dancing in the Ziegfield Follies!

 

Mignon Laird in the Ziegfield Follies - 1920's

(Files of New York Public Library)