Thelma the Fire Dancer

This article was taken from an August 17, 1972 article in the Minonk News-Dispatch and was written by Babe Smith who was Minonk's historian at that time.

ALONG WITH A STREET FAIR held here in Minonk in 1903 there appeared Thelma the Fire-Dancer. As we can decifer from the billing on the tent her dance was “ serpentine snake dances with "mysterious” or "mystifying’ 'poses and also "Butterfly....dances.

She evidently attracted a good crowd of Minonk residents and visitors of that era, at least for her appearance outside the tent. She can be seen on the left of the stage in her silk "butterfly” dress. This consisted of long panels of silk attached to either side of her dress at the bodice. The panels were fastened at the other end to broomsticks and could be stretched out to expanses of nine or ten feet on each side. When she waved the broomsticks, the expanses of silk would be caught by the air and waving to and fro in graceful gyrations would resemble the wings of a butterfly in flight.

She performed on a stage of 3/4” thick plate glass under which burned an open fire. This was a dangerous feat to dance over the open flame with yards of silk waving around the dancer. At her performance in Minonk the flame got out of control and set the tent in which she was performing on fire. The Minonk Fire Department, according to some reports, was not long in getting to the scene as it was stated that about half the members of the department had escaped from their wives and were seated in the tent attending the show when the conflagration commenced. The tent, in spite of all the heroic efforts on the part of the firemen, burned to the ground. Thelma herself was uninjured.

Babe Smith, too young to be a fireman at that time, nevertheless had a relic of the occasion - a piece of the glass stage upon which she had danced.