The Lives and Loves of Daisy and Violet Hilton: A True Story of Conjoined Twins (20 page)

For years, whenever they traveled to a new town, Myer and Edith made a point of exploring the leafy neighborhoods of the rich and well born. They were searching for the one manor somewhere in the country that met all their ideals of perfection, a domicile of beauty, taste, and grandness that could be recreated on their ranch property. Their scouting ended when, while in Springfield, Illinois, where the twins were performing, they saw the home that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for Susan Lawrence Dana, a wealthy heiress.
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With 12,000 square feet on three levels and thirty-five rooms, the brick and stone Dana residence was the largest of Wright’s Prairie School homes. With some downsizing and the addition of some flourishes of their own, Myer and Edith agreed, it would serve perfectly as their model.

The new home that Myer and Edith had envisaged was to be a tasteful blending of Japanese influence and German modernism. While there already were examples of the new architectural style in the Northeast, the Myers residence, as was noted by the
San Antonio Express
, was likely the “first of its type” anywhere in Texas.
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The Myers family, of course, became immediately popular with local
craftsmen. Their transformation of the ranch provided employment for dozens of skilled workers and artisans, including masons, carpenters, plumbers, cabinet makers, landscapers, metal smiths, and stained-glass designers.

In published accounts that appeared years after it was completed in 1927, the Myers’ house was often incorrectly identified as a Frank Lloyd Wright creation, and tour guides showing off San Antonio’s landmarks often referred to the residential masterpiece as a Wright project, explaining that the architect’s cataloguers had somehow missed recording it as part of his oeuvre. The house, in fact, was designed by Harvey P. Smith, a native of San Antonio. Smith was a talented architect in his own right and would later become a major force in the drive to restore San Antonio’s mission buildings, including the Alamo. At the time he was approached to design the Myers’ home, however, he was still largely untested and was eager for commissions. He acceded to the Myers’ request that in developing the plans, he quote liberally from Wright’s architectural vocabulary.

Soon after its completion, the Myers’ showplace received a two-page layout in the Sunday edition of the
San Antonio Express
. Among the spread’s many photographs were two with Daisy and Violet, one of them showing the pair outside the tea house, the other depicting them before the manse’s imposing arched portico. The
Express
account reported that the home had been paid for entirely from the twins’ stage earnings, and that they had freely given it to Edith as a birthday gift for having “mothered and raised them from the day of their coming into the world.”
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If it was true that Daisy and Violet had presented the home to Edith as an outright gift with no strings attached, then surely the bequest must rank with the most notable presents made since Caesar took delivery of an oriental rug and found Cleopatra wrapped inside.

The newspaper put the cost of the Myers’ home at a $100,000. In
addition, the
Express
said, the home’s furnishings, including a large collection of antique Japanese porcelains, vases, folding screens, hand-painted scrolls, and Shinto and Buddhist altar items that Myer had amassed, had been given a “conservative estimate of $35,000 to $40,000 or more.” In current dollars, that would place the dream home’s construction bill at about $5 million and its collection of Asian antiquities at about $2 million.

S
ince becoming celebrated as belles of Broadway, Daisy and Violet were enjoying their life as troupers more than ever before. They gloried in sharing bills with such stars as Eddie Cantor, Sophie Tucker, Jack Benny, and Fanny Brice. Their joy was apparent whenever they were on the stage. It was the one place where they could give and receive love. Increasingly, however, Daisy and Violet chafed at the control Myer exercised over them. Because of their far flung travels and associations with other entertainers, they were becoming ever more worldly.

But Myer continued to treat the sisters as though they were his chattel. He refused to relax any of his restrictions. Over even Edith’s objections, he maintained the rule that when the family was staying at a hotel, Daisy and Violet were to occupy the same bedroom he shared with his wife. The sisters were nineteen.

Daisy and Violet weren’t unaware of the money they were producing. The trade papers such as
Variety
and
The Billboard
reported regularly that the San Antonio Siamese Twins were the highest paid attractions in vaudeville. But Myer turned a deaf ear to the sisters’ requests for even some small part of their earnings. He told them they already were enjoying a grander life than any freaks had a right to expect. He was seeing to it they had the finest clothes and a place to sleep in one of the most gracious homes in all of Texas.

He also turned down their requests for the freedom to do some things on their own, like shopping or, when the family was home in San Antonio, going into town to visit a restaurant or take in a movie. He reminded them over and over that if the public were able to see them in the everyday world, they would lose their mystique as stars of the stage.

Myer felt so confidently in control that he almost dared Daisy and Violet to try breaking his rules. He told them that if ever he had a mind to, he could see to it that they were deported to England and locked up in an asylum forever. Myer, in fact, had gained full legal control over the twins in 1927, soon after their nineteenth birthday. He had petitioned a San Antonio court to declare that because the sisters were hampered by an extreme physical disability, he was to serve as their legal guardian. Not only did Myer gain custody of the twins through the ruling, but he was given full authority to hire them out for stage appearances and collect all the income they generated.
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Daisy and Violet felt thoroughly beaten down when they learned of the court’s ruling. They concluded that their situation was hopeless and that they would remain forever indentured to Myer. In 1927, however, while the twins were out on tour, Myer finally so angered his wards that they decided to take a stand.

It happened without so much as a brush of the hands between Don Galvan and Daisy or, as far as anyone knew, even an exchange of words. Galvan had become smitten with her, and she with him. Born of Mexican parents, he had black wavy hair, brown eyes, and dark skin. When he was smiling, which was just about all the time he was awake, he looked like he had sixty teeth. He was movie-star handsome and he was a singer and guitarist. Whenever he was on stage, Daisy found an excuse to drag Violet into the wings with her. Daisy was sure she was the subject of every romantic ballad Galvan sang, an assumption he encouraged during his performances
by regularly looking to the left or right of the stage to make sure she was there.

Violet and Daisy with Myer Myers and Edith Myers, mid-1920s. Boy, their first Pekingese, is in Edith’s arms. (Author’s collection)

Galvan was twenty-four or twenty-five, five or six years older than Daisy, and he was one of several entertainers who appeared on the same vaudeville bill with the San Antonio Siamese Twins during the 1927–28 touring season. He sang with the plaintiveness of one who had had his heart broken by earlier romances. It was clear that Daisy was experiencing the stirrings of love for the first time. Certainly Violet saw the changes that came over her sister, as did others in the traveling troupe. One moment she could be giddy or dreamy and the next, snappish or gloomy.

Myer was aware that Galvan was captivated by Daisy and cautioned him against ever attempting to make an advance on her.

For several weeks, Galvan did try to suppress any outward signs that he was attracted to Daisy. He averted his eyes whenever he passed her entering or leaving the theater. When he was onstage, he no longer searched for Daisy in the shadows beyond the curtain, signaling her that his trillings were meant for her. Daisy was so heart-sick over what she thought was his sudden change of feelings toward her that she cried herself to sleep each night.

What she didn’t know was that Galvan, too, was aching. Finally he decided he had to somehow let her know that he still cared deeply for her. He placed a vase of yellow roses outside the twins’ dressing-room. Myer was first to spot the floral offering. When he looked at the card and read Galvan’s note of endearment to Daisy, he erupted. He kicked the vase, smashing it into shards and sending the flowers everywhere.
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The twins flew into a rage when they learned what Myer had done. When he entered their dressing room, they leaped onto his back, pounding and scratching at him.

“You still keep us caged up like animals at a circus,” Daisy
screamed. “But tonight is different.… Don’t you strike either of us or we’ll yell like wildcats. And get us separate rooms. We’re grown ladies and you should be ashamed to force us to share your and Edith’s room.”
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Publicity photo, mid-1920s. (Author’s collection)

The assault ended only when Edith intervened. She pulled the twins off Myer’s back. His neck and back were raked with scratches. His shirt was in tatters. But, probably most troubling to him, was his sudden realization that he was going to have to give up some of his control over the twins. Sheepishly he told Daisy and Violet that, yes, they were probably old enough now to sleep in their own room. Feeling vanquished for maybe the first time ever, he also agreed to the
demand that he start paying Daisy and Violet a share of the money their act was producing. He said he would immediately see to it that a trust fund was established at a bank in their names and promised to start making weekly deposits of $500 into the fund.
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Whatever other concessions Myer said he was willing to make in the wake of the attack, the truth was he had reached a point in life where he was ready to slow down. A wanderer since he was a boy, what he wanted most now was to relax at the ranch and watch his roses, his bankroll, and his daughter, Therese Mary, grow. He decided to assemble a management team to take over many of the business affairs of the San Antonio Siamese Twins. He would still be able to collect a large percentage of their earnings.

A short time later Daisy and Violet had just settled into their seat and they could hardly believe the sight just outside their train window. With Edith and eleven-year-old Therese Mary at his side, Myer was standing on the platform of the San Antonio station. He was finally letting them travel on their own.

Daisy and Violet kept waving and blowing kisses, but they were anxious for the train to start moving. They worried that if it didn’t leave the station soon, Myer might have a change of heart and drag them off the train. Finally, they felt a lurch, and the train began rolling.

Daisy and Violet were brimming with more anticipation than ever as they started on their journey East to begin the 1928–29 vaudeville season. Myer had decided to stay home in San Antonio and enjoy the life of a rancher. For the first time ever, the sisters were traveling without their guardians. They would now have the freedom to do what they wanted to do, go where they wanted to go, and, most important, see who they wanted to see. They were only a few miles outside the city when they brought out their mirrors and began coloring their faces with lipstick, eyeshadow, and rouge.

From the beginning of their bloom into adolescence, the sisters had taken notice of boys and young men who appeared to be looking them over not as physical curiosities, but as potential conquests. With a blush or a shy turning away of their eyes, Violet and especially Daisy tried to signal to these admirers that their attentions had been duly noted and were appreciated. With their guardians always hovering close by, none of these occasions had ever been allowed to advance beyond the most nascent stage of flirtation. Without around-the-clock bodyguards at their sides, perhaps things would be different. The twins were open to anything.