Early Life and Name Change
Harry Lewiston was born Israel Harry Jaffe in Lithuania on April 2, 1900, and emigrated to the United States with his family in 1906. The eldest of four siblings, he was raised in Worcester, Massachusetts in a strict Orthodox Jewish household. In 1914, he ran away from home and joined the combined Sells Floto Circus / Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. He claimed that he was seventeen years old in order to be allowed to stay with the circus, and was renamed "Lewiston," reportedly assigned based on the first major city he worked in, Lewiston, Maine. While the circus toured the United States, Lewiston worked as a pony groomer and led the animals in the parade, wearing what he called an "Arab costume" as part of that year's "East Meets West" theme.
Read more about this topic: Harry Lewiston
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or change:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“We are all conceived in close prison; in our mothers’ wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its nature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own; that we may be well, yet not pure.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)