Ed Mhyre "The Norse Magician"
and his wife Blanche
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Ed Mhyre got a job playing slide trombone with Dan Rice Combined Shows in 1906 and as a trapeze artist, Blanche joined him with Barlow Brothers' Wagon Shows in 1907. They made their home in Grand Meadow, Minnesota when they were not playing hundreds of small towns from Washington State to Texas. Ed and Blanche were vaudevillians who did shows that included trained dogs, trained bears, Blackface comedy, Magic acts and everything in between, including movies.
Music was Ed's introduction to Show Business and he became accomplished at playing not only the trombone, but guitar, mandolin and the accordian. The story has been often repeated that in a small town in North Dakota one night he was approached by a local boy who wanted to get into Show Business himself. Ed suggested he take up the accordian and he did pretty well. That of course would have been Lawrence Welk !
Ed and Blanche performed into the 1960's and another story is that they were reminiscing about the "good old days" one afternoon when Ed said "Well it might have been tough at times, but at least we always had enough to eat". Blance thought a moment and replied, "That may be true but there were quite a few times I could have eaten a whole lot more!"
Copyright 2000 George C. Hall