here is their next event.
WEIRD NJ MESSAGE 3/9/06
Next Wednesday, March 15, Weird NJ's "Editor-In-Freaks" Heather Wendt Kemp will be giving a presentation at the Senior Center on North Main Street in Boonton about her favorite subject—freaks in New Jersey! The talk starts at 2 pm and admission is free and open to the public. Why not stop by and get your freak on?
The following article about the event appeared in the Star-Ledger on Thursday, March 2.
For Boonton Talk, Sideshow Freaks Take Center Stage
By Paula Saha
Heather Wendt Kemp of Denville is a chronicler of "freaks," as they once were called -- bearded ladies, Siamese twins, the very small and the very tall -- a cast of characters for a vaudeville sideshow or old time carnival. She delved into this world about six years ago.
Call it ancestral curiosity.
Kemp's family has a long and storied history in Boonton. Her cousins are major figures in the volunteer fire department and her great grandfather wrote a popular history of Boonton. But there was this other relative, too. At the turn of the century, Frank Wendt owned a photography studio on Boonton's Main Street. Wendt was her great-grandfather's uncle, she recalled. "I think he was considered some sort of eccentric," Kemp said. "I know he didn't have a really close relationship with my great-grandfather and his side of the family. Nobody really knew much about him other than he was a photographer." Kemp actually inherited some negatives of Wendt's work, mostly local sites around Boonton. Then, over the last few years, she collected more than 30 of Wendt's "sideshow" images, and she will be giving a talk this month at the Boonton senior center for the town historical society.
Wendt apprenticed under another photographer, Charles Eisenmann of New York City, who was something of a pioneer in the photography of "sideshow freaks," Kemp said. When he left his business in New York, Wendt took over. Eventually, he moved to Boonton, where he took more traditional portraits. Boonton at the time had three theaters, Kemp said, so Vaudeville performers would come through on a regular basis, and that side of his business thrived, too. Wendt would make "cabinet cards," Kemp said. The performers would pay him to take their pictures, which would be mounted on cardboard so they could be sold on the road as souvenirs of their performances. "He photographed the famous Siamese Twins, Millie-Christine," the Carolina Siamese Twins,"Kemp said. "There is a three-legged man who's pretty famous -- Francisco Lentini."
Kemp splits her talk into different segments -- there are "actors and athletes, family acts of acrobats, knife-throwers, strong men, long-haired ladies and bearded women, fat people and thin people, giants, dwarfs" and "people with physical anomalies." The whole political-incorrectness of it all gives Kemp some trouble, she said. "These are people," she said. "A lot of them have handicaps or physical anomalies that today we don't have anymore necessarily because they can be corrected." At the same time, she said, "I think it's fascinating that it was a way for them to earn money." Kemp's talk will take place March 15 at 2 p.m. at the Senior Center on North Main Street. Admission is free and refreshments will be served.