Medicine show entertains 1800s style

PENFIELD, Ill. — Historic Farm Days will be a “maven of music, magic and mirth” with an old-fashioned traveling medicine show July 8-11.

Sanford Lee and Associates will bring history alive with a 19th century medicine show featuring music from the 1800s, Civil War songs, cowboy songs, magic and juggling.

“We’ve been doing this show for 35 years. I’m a lover of American history and a lover of old folk music and I was able to put it all together and make a living at it. It’s a show that appeals to kids and seniors and every age in between,” said Sanford Lee, known as Professor Farquar in the show, performing alongside Mary Kathryn Lee as Miss Polecat Annie.

“We do a lot of audience participation, teaching them juggling, which is a nice pre-show opportunity, and between shows we do a little close-up magic and teach a few magic tricks along the way.”

The Lees have performed at more than 1,000 venues across the United States, including fairs, festivals, historic sites, wild west shows, concert halls, amusement parks, colleges, museums, libraries, art expos and other events.

Lee has been a history buff since he was a youngster and believes it is important to show the real story behind traveling medicine shows.

“People have kind of gotten the wrong idea of what medicine shows were because from movies and television they always think of the medicine show huckster as a quack selling a dubious product. In actuality they were legitimate businessmen. They traveled all over the country,” he explained.

“Some of the companies were really big. There was one company that had like 200 wagons on the road and one time. Most of the patent medicines were herbal. Of course, they had alcohol in them for a preservative and a lot of the companies that manufactured the products were out of Chicago. There were about 1,500 different products sold by traveling medicine shows.”

During the visit to Historic Farm Days, stop by the traveling medicine show for toe-tapping tunes performed on acoustic guitar, banjo and a collection of unique percussive instruments and be dazzled by intriguing illusions of magic.