COVER STORY
26
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JOURNEY’S END
“Death came,” her obituary said, “as the setting sun cast
its lengthening shadows on palm-fringed Indian River, at her
home a few miles south of Fort Pierce.”
Zora, it appears, had made her mark on Fort Pierce, if not
on the circus world. “A woman lovable, fascinating, cultured;
a woman actively interested in the commonplace things of
her community; yet a woman of boundless fortitude and
diversity of experience,” her obituary read.
Fred Alispaw eventually married Mary Esther Hoeflich, a
Fort Pierce resident who continued to live in the house after
his death in 1957.
Their house on Indian River Drive still stands and is little
changed, a reminder of a bygone era and a woman who lived
her life as “The Bravest Woman in the World.”
Jean Ellen Wilson, Linda Hudson Bailey and Anne Sinnott contributed
information for this article.
This illustrated display of Zora’s life appeared in a Chicago newspaper in
1927 promoting her autobiography, “Sawdust and Solitude.”
ELIZABETH SUMNER
/www.indianrivermag.com