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:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“On the Coast of Coromandel
Where the early pumpkins blow,
In the middle of the woods
Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo.
Two old chairs, and half a candle,—
One old jug without a handle,—
These were all his worldly goods:
In the middle of the woods,”
—Edward Lear (1812–1888)
“Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life ... would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The higher the mountain on which you stand, the less change in the prospect from year to year, from age to age. Above a certain height there is no change.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)