On July 4, 1922, Houdini was enjoying an Independence Day picnic and fireworks display at the suburban New York home of his lawyer and friend Bernard Ernst:

…my greatest feat of mystery was performed in 1922 at Seacliffe, L. I., on the Fourth of July, at the home of Mr. B. M. L. Ernest.  The children were waiting to set off their display of fireworks when it started to rain.  The heavens fairly tore loose.  Little Richard in his dismay turned to me and said:

“Can’t you make the rain stop?”

“Why certainly,” I replied and raising my hands said appealingly, “Rain and Storm, I command you to stop.”

This I repeated three times and, as if by miracle, within the next two minutes the rain stopped and the skies became clear.  Toward the end of the display of fireworks the little fellow turned to me and with a peculiar gleam in his eyes said:

“Why, Mr. Houdini, it would have stopped raining anyway.”

I knew I was risking my whole life’s reputation with the youngster but I said:

“Is that so?  I will show you.”

Walking out in front I raised my hands suppliantly toward the heavens and with all the command and force I had in me called:

“Listen to my voice, great Commander of the rain, and once more let the water flow to earth and allow the flowers and trees to bloom.”

A chill came over me for as if in response to my command or the prayer of my words another downpour started, but despite the pleading of the children I refused to make it stop again.  I was not taking any more chances.

[A Magician among the Spirits]

Note:  Although there is no reason to doubt Houdini’s story, Ernst himself omits it from his book (Houdini and Conan Doyle) about his friend.

According to the New York Times, the local weather that July 4 was “extremely humid”, though with no mention of a storm.  In that same week, the Brooklyn Bridge was closed to automobile traffic after engineers discovered a slipped suspension cable that had “warped in the drought.” [Master’s of Mystery]

H A P P Y  4 T H  O F  J U L Y  !

How many times was Bess Houdini married?

“I’m the most married person I know, three times and to the same man”.

She claimed the marriage ceremonies were performed by Johh Y. McKane, “Boss of Coney Island”, a Jewish Rabbi, and a Roman Catholic priest.

According to Kellock:

Bess and Houdini wondered how they might get married.  She thought of a man with whom her father had once had some business – John Y. McKane.  The date as recorded by the bride was June 22, 1894.

However, on that date John Y. McKane was securely behind the bars of Sing Sing!

According to Christopher:

Following the civil ceremony on June 22, 1894, Harry and Bess, to please their parents, repeated their marriage vows in separate ceremonies before a Catholic priest and rabbi.

According to a story in The Coney Island Clipper, a small weekly tabloid devoted to news of the Island, for the issue of July 28^th, 1894, said in part:

“Miss Bessie Raymond, the petite soubrette, was married to Mr. Harry Houdini on July 22^nd by Rev. G.S. Loui, of Brooklyn.” Note the date of July 22^nd, not June 22^nd.

However, there does not appear to be any such person named Rev. G.S. Loui, of Brooklyn.

According to a Letter from Houdini in an envelope marked “Not to be opened until after my death”:

Rabbi Tintner of Mt. Zion Temple married me. His father, Mortiz [sic] Tintner buried my mother.  He was a lifelong friend of my own father, Rabbi Weiss.  I wish Rabbi Tintner to say the last farewell over me — the man who married me to the woman I have never ceased to love.”

However, Rabbi B.A. (Benjamin Abner) Tintner who conducted the funeral services would have been only 14 years of age in 1894 and much too young to have performed any marriages at that time. [Weltman]

According to Silverman:

The rabbi who married Bess and Harry was the father of the Rabbi (B.A. Tintner), who buried Houdini.

However, there is no source or date mentioned.

Note: Benjamin Abner’s father was Rabbi Moritz (Morris) Tintner.

According to Weltman:

He could find no record anywhere of any registered marriage between Harry Houdini (or Ehrich Weiss) and Willhemina Beatrice Rahner.

As for the marriage vows repeated before a priest and a rabbi, Weltman, for one regards this as unthinkable.  Weltman, a Jewish man himself, says categorically that no rabbi anywhere back in 1894 would have presided over the nuptials of a Jew and a Catholic.  And the same was true in those days of a Catholic priest officiating at such a mixed marriage. [Rauscher]

According to a reliable source at the Magic Castle:

Bess married her significant other and personal manager, Edward Saint, secretively sometime after Houdini died.

Note: Bess and Ed met in the early 30’s.

So Bess may have been married up to four times, one to three times with Houdini and possibly one time to Edward Saint. However, as far as I know there is no documentary evidence that shows Bess was legally married to Houdini or Edward Saint even once.  Perhaps one day, someone will publish some.

Anyway, Happy 121^st Anniversary Harry and Bess!

Mayer Samuel Weiss – photo by J. L. Koonz, Appleton, Wisconsin

Since today is Father’s Day, I thought I would do a post about Houdini’s Father, Mayer Samuel Weiss, born August 27, 1829, died October 5, 1892:

• When did Houdini’s Father depart for America and arrive in Appleton?

According to Hardeen notes for an unpublished Houdini biography:

Chapter one

Father insulted by prince Eric — challenged to dule- which was fought following morning and _ather killing his opponent Then fled to London and stayed there for a time after which he took sailing vessel to New York.

After reaching New York kept going to Appleton Wis.  where he had friends by the name of Hammel, one being Mayor of Appleton at thattime.. About 1874.

A short time passed and as there were no syniogues in the town, the Mayor wanted to send to Milwaukee for one, but up spoke Mr. S.M. Weiiss and said “why I am a Rabbi” and was given the job.

He at once sent for Mrs. W. and soon after her arrival Houdini was born April 6^th, 1874.  And he was named Ehrich Prach after Prince Ehrich.

[The Houdini Birth Research Committee’s Report]

Harry Houdini also gave dissimilar accounts of his father’s reasons for coming to America, and way of reaching America.

In one of them, Mayer Samuel had been an “honor student” in England who won a prize of a trip through America, given by Lord Rothschild.  On the train going to the Pacific coast, he met a congenial man who appealed to him to stop off at Appleton, in northern Wisconsin, as his father did, establishing himself as a rabbi there and making it his permanent home, and the birthplace of his son.

[Silverman Notes to Houdini]

Birds eye view of Appleton Wisconsin – 1874 shows a growing community along the Fox River

According to Weltman (Houdini: Escape Into Legend The Early Years: 1862-1900):

Soon after the American Civil War ended, between 1865 and 1866, the two sisters [of Cecilia], Rose and Sally, moved to the United States with their families and their mother, taking up residence in New York.  Rabbi Weisz, not having enough money to make the journey, had to stay behind.  He was to toil and save for several years before he would see his in-laws again [no date given].

Life in Budapest was hard.  One legend has it that Rabbi Weisz got into a duel with a Hungarian nobleman over an aspersion the nobleman cast on the Jews. It seems unlikely, however, that Weisz would have had the weapons or would have come into sufficient contact with nobility for this to have occurred, although as a people, Jews were forced to move from town to town and in fact, the birth records of his children list several different addresses.  In any event, with four children to feed, Rabbi Weisz needed more for survival.  It does seem likely, as has been reported, that answering an ad in a German periodical, Weisz was offered the position of Rabbi for a new congregation being formed in the small American town of Appleton, Wisconsin.  The purported annual salary of $750 being offered seemed like a fortune to the poor struggling Rabbi and his family.

According to Christopher (The Untold Story):

Shortly after this Samuel left Budapest [no date given].  It is said that a nobleman slandered him and his religion.  A duel was fought and his opponent was killed.  To escape arrest and the vengeance of the dead man’s family, Samuel fled to London and there embarked for the United States to seek refuge with Hungarian friends who had settled in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Cecilia, her mother, and the four children may have been there before Samuel arrived; if not, they joined him soon after.  There was no synagogue in Appleton.  When one was formed in the spring of 1874, Samuel became its rabbi at a salary of $750 a year.

According to Hilgert (Houdini comes to America):

Houdini, then Ehrich Weiss arrived in New York City with his mother and four brothers on Wednesday July 3, 1878 aboard the Frisia, a steamship of the Hamburg Line.

The Weiss family may have been met at Castle Garden by Cecelia Weiss’s sister, Rosalie Schonberger.  She lived in New York and may have helped the family to find a temporary place to stay before they left for Appleton. Mrs. Schonberger came to New York in the 1860s.  Her death certificate dated February 26, 1915 shows she had resided in the U.S. for 47 years, implying that she arrived in 1867 or 1868. The 1900 census shows the year of emigration to the U.S. as 1865.

On July 3, 1878, or some time shortly thereafter, the Weiss family was reunited with Rabbi Weiss.  Apparently within a few weeks the family set forth on their journey, probably by railroad to Chicago, Milwaukee and finally to their new home in Appleton, Wisconsin, where Rabbi Weiss was to lead a small congregation.  There Harry found his American home from which he was to go forth to become famous throughout the world as “the elusive American”.

Well, so far the above sources do not tell us when he actually departed for America or when he arrived in Appleton, Wisconsin.  Not to worry, Silverman (Houdini!!! The Career of Ehrich Weiss) finally provides an answer:

When he departed Europe, Weiss (originally Weisz) was no longer young.  A rabbi with several years’ education at German universities and some training in law, he emigrated from Budapest in 1876, when he was forty-seven.  He temporarily left behind his family: his second wife, Cecilia Steiner [who was pregnant with Hardeen], a small, stocky woman twelve years younger than he; their four sons, ranging in age from infancy [Hardeen not born yet] to six years; and a fourteen-year-old son from his first marriage.  After two years in America he located a rabbinical post in the Midwest, where Cecilia and the children joined him.  They embarked from Hamburg, among 322 steerage passengers of the single-screw steamer Frisia, a fifteen day voyage reached New York City on July 3, 1878, in ninety-five degree heat.  By September the family had reunited and settled in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Note: The September date is apparent from the announcement of Mayer Samuel’s arrival in the Appleton Crescent, 28 Sep 1878.  And the 1876 date is based on a remark Houdini made that upon Hardeen’s birth [March 4, 1876], Cecilia wrote to Mayer from Hungary, “Da haben wire in Dezso.”; Since Hardeen was two when the family arrived in America, the separation must have lasted about that length of time.

Houdini and Hardeen 1877

If you are looking for additional information, I highly recommend you read the following posts by our friend David Saltman, who has done some extensive research on the subject:

• Who was Houdini’s Father? The Duel
• Houdini’s Father Escapes Budapest

H A P P Y  F A T H E R ‘ S  D A Y !

• No. 5:

The final letter is from the widow, Beatrice and tells of her surprise at seeing Ponzi again.

• No. 6

Ponzi died while Hardeen was playing Hellzapoppin in the early forties. If it was the original Ponzi, he was almost 20 years of age.

• No. 2:
• No. 3:
• No. 4:

To be continued!

I thought I would do a series of posts on a story and some correspondence I recently acquired on eBay about Houdini and Ponzi Gwynne.

In Part 1, we get introduced to Houdini and Jack Gwynne, a Young Magician who fooled Houdini with a Sucker Chicken Vanish.

Jack Gwynne performing the Chicken Trick

The other parts of the story will describe Ponzi Gwynne the chicken that Jack Gwynne gave to Houdini, then back to Jack, and finally to Hardeen.

Here is the story of the Vanishing Chicken as told to Jay Marshall by Jack Gwynne.

Enjoy!

• No. 1:

To be continued!

Bess, Mama and Harry

But no one worshiped his mother more passionately than Harry Houdini.  Ever since that day on his twelfth birthday when his father had made him swear on the Torah to take care of his mother, Houdini had more than fulfilled his pledge.  As the country sang “I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl that Married Dear Old Dad,” Cecilia Weiss’s adoring son sought to be with her whenever he could, most especially on that Second Sunday in May 1912 – a day then gaining nationwide observance as Mother’s Day.

While playing in Hammerstein’s Victoria Theatre in New York in 1912, Houdini asked Willie Hammerstein for his weekly salary in gold.  Hammerstein acceded to his odd request and gave Houdini a heavy canvas bag laden with one thousand dollars in gold coins.  Then after having his assistants polish the “double eagles”, he entered his mother’s room at 278 and is said by Bess to have cried, “Mother, Mother, do you remember the promise I made to father years ago; that I would always look after you? Look what I bring you now! Hold out your apron!  And with that he poured the glittering contents of the bag into his mother’s lap.  His mother clasped her son to her bosom, and tears streamed down the cheeks of both of them.

H A P P Y   M O T H E R  ‘ S  D A Y !

Source:

• Houdini: Escape Into Legend The Early Years: 1862-1900 By Manny Weltman
• Houdini His Life and Art by Bert Randolph Sugar
• The Great Escaper Illustrated by Annabel Large

Congrats to Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brookz for the Houdini Museum being one of the best things to do in Scranton, PA.  Check out the article below by Malerie Yole-Cohen:

• Best Things to do in Scranton PA

Visiting the Houdini Museum in Scranton, PA is definitely on my To-Do list in the near future and it should be on your to-do list.

I was fortunate enough to not only meet Dorothy and Dick during their historic visit to Hollywood, but also to be one of their invited guests that got a reserved seat at the TCM screening of The Grim Game.

Here is an incredible 101 year old playbill that recently sold at Fraser’s Autographs auction in the U.K. for £6,500 on March 20^th.

It is annotated and hand signed by Houdini, “my dear Herwin Here is one of my bills, it might interest you.  Come up and see me ‘magisch’ signed (H. Houdini)”.

Note; Professor Herwin, whose real name was William Humpage, was born at Birmingham on October 31^st, 1861. He gave us the metal thumb-tip and made props for Houdini.

In honor of my beautiful granddaughter, Lily, who was born today, I thought I would share a baby photo taken by Houdini.

Image courtesy of Houdini and John Hinson