Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. It's
Speaker 1: an English proverb that means the strong are able to
Speaker 1: weather the most difficult of circumstances. But in one case
Speaker 1: it took on a whole new meaning, one in which
Speaker 1: a group of people looking for acceptance got much more
Speaker 1: than they bargained for, and they got out of there
Speaker 1: as quickly as they possibly could. Henry S. Club had
Speaker 1: a problem in eighteen fifty five. He was part of
Speaker 1: a collective facing a major societal hurdle. They were vegetarians.
Speaker 1: The problem was that their dietary choices. It was because
Speaker 1: Club and his people were alone in a world of
Speaker 1: meat eaters, and they just wanted to find a place
Speaker 1: where they felt like they belonged. Aside from their abstinence
Speaker 1: from meat, they also refused to consume alcohol, tea, coffee, tobacco, fowl,
Speaker 1: and dairy products, making them closer to vegans than vegetarians,
Speaker 1: and they stuck out like a sore thumb among everyone else.
Speaker 1: Around the same time, the Kansas Territory became hotly contested
Speaker 1: between pro slavery and abolitionist groups. Gallons of blood were
Speaker 1: shed on both sides, resulting in a nickname for both
Speaker 1: the area and the time period, Bleeding Kansas. But the
Speaker 1: new territory also spelled opportunity for Club and his fellow vegetarians,
Speaker 1: so he and about fifty families formed a new coalition
Speaker 1: called the Vegetarian Kansas Emigration Company, with one goal to
Speaker 1: move to Kansas and establish a new community of their own.
Speaker 1: The rules for joining their club were simple. New members
Speaker 1: were required to pay ten dollars to help fund the project,
Speaker 1: and they had to adhere to the established dietary restrictions
Speaker 1: of vegetarians at the time. There were also moral obligations
Speaker 1: toward abolition and a better society for everyone involved. Club
Speaker 1: immediately got to work fundraising by soliciting local business owners
Speaker 1: for capital. He wanted to raise enough money to build
Speaker 1: homes and infrastructure so the community could be self sufficient.
Speaker 1: He even took out ads in the newspapers, encouraging lovers
Speaker 1: of carots to join him. As for the settlement itself,
Speaker 1: Club turned to the work of eugenicist Orson Squire Fowler,
Speaker 1: who has served as Vice President of the American Vegetarian
Speaker 1: Society in eighteen fifty two. Fowler was a proponent of
Speaker 1: octagonal living. He believed square and rectangular homes were old news,
Speaker 1: and quite literally thought outside the box when designing his
Speaker 1: own home. It was shaped like you guessed it, an octagon.
Speaker 1: Fowler claimed that octagonal houses had more room and cost
Speaker 1: less to build. The style of architecture piqued the interest
Speaker 1: of Henry Club as he started planning his new vegetarian
Speaker 1: town in Kansas. Club envisioned an octagonal town square, out
Speaker 1: of which would spring eight roads that led to a mill,
Speaker 1: a library, homes, and farms. He called it appropriately Octagon City.
Speaker 1: The Vegetarian Kansas Emigration Company set out in eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: six for their new eight sided utopia, a dream full
Speaker 1: of promise and potential where animals could thrive without fear
Speaker 1: of being slaughtered and eaten. Instead, what they saw was
Speaker 1: nothing like what had been promised. The company had traveled
Speaker 1: twelve hundred miles, only to find their octagonal paradise nothing
Speaker 1: more than some shacks and a couple of ovens. None
Speaker 1: of what Club had described had been built. Many of
Speaker 1: the members of the company abandoned him immediately. They felt
Speaker 1: that he had misappropriated the funds that he'd raised. The
Speaker 1: group that stayed did their best to make a go
Speaker 1: of things, but their efforts did not go far enough.
Speaker 1: Everything their leader had promised was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 1: The plows they needed to cultivate the land had not
Speaker 1: been delivered. Swarms of mosquitoes brought disease, including chills and fever.
Speaker 1: The freshwater springs that were thought to be endless dried up,
Speaker 1: and crops died before they could even be harvested. According
Speaker 1: to a historical marker near the site, four thousand O
Speaker 1: Sage Indians who traded with them living in the area
Speaker 1: could do little to help. A large number of children
Speaker 1: and elderly people died. But the time winter arrived, most
Speaker 1: of the colony had left town. Only four people remained.
Speaker 1: Henry Clubs vegetarian utopia had all but withered away. All
Speaker 1: he wanted was a safe place for he and his
Speaker 1: vegetarian friends to live their lives in peace. Unfortunately, sometimes
Speaker 1: the curveballs that life throws us are curious, and sometimes
Speaker 1: they're tragic. In January of nineteen forty five, Smokey made
Speaker 1: her way through a dark tunnel. It smelled like dirt, mildew,
Speaker 1: and the sharp tang of metal. Barely able to see,
Speaker 1: she felt along the edges of the passageway and followed
Speaker 1: it as it twisted and curbed. Every now and then,
Speaker 1: the tunnel would get tiny, and Smokey would have to
Speaker 1: hold her breath as she squeezed through. She wanted to
Speaker 1: turn back, but she couldn't. The mission was too important.
Speaker 1: Smokey was a member of the US Air Force's twenty
Speaker 1: six Reconnaissance Squadron, and she and her fellow servicemen were
Speaker 1: on Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines. It was
Speaker 1: the tail end of World War Two, but of course
Speaker 1: Smokey and her comrades couldn't have known that they were
Speaker 1: still in the thick of it, unsure when the war
Speaker 1: would finally end, and they had a job to do
Speaker 1: as bombs exploded in the distance. They were working to
Speaker 1: build an air base for Allied warplanes, one of the
Speaker 1: most crucial parts of the base was the installation of
Speaker 1: telegraph wire. This was kind of like an early telephone line.
Speaker 1: It would allow servicemen to communicate using electrical signals delivered
Speaker 1: over the wire. Without it, they would be completely isolated,
Speaker 1: which is how Smokey wound up in that dark, winding tunnel.
Speaker 1: The passageway was seventy feet long, but it was too
Speaker 1: small for any of the men in the squadron to
Speaker 1: fit inside, so it became Smokey's job to pull the
Speaker 1: telegraph wire all the way through. The fate of the
Speaker 1: airbase rested on her back. Smokey took deep breaths. It
Speaker 1: felt like at every turn the tunnel got smaller. The
Speaker 1: sound of the telegraph wire rattling along behind her made
Speaker 1: her jumpy. Finally, Smokey saw light beginning to filter into
Speaker 1: the passageway. She heard her favorite comrade, Corporal William Wine,
Speaker 1: calling her name. The tunnel got just big enough for
Speaker 1: her to stand up straight, and she sprinted forward, the
Speaker 1: wire flying behind her. The end of the tunnel came
Speaker 1: into view. Smokey ran into the sunlight and jumped right
Speaker 1: into William Wine's arms. Other air Force members crowded around
Speaker 1: and cheered, They scratched behind her ears. Somebody fed her
Speaker 1: a chunk of canned spam as a treat. Because you see,
Speaker 1: Smokey was a dog, a tiny Yorkshire Terrier who weighed
Speaker 1: just four pounds, and that telegraph pipe she had just
Speaker 1: traveled through was a mere eight inches wide. But Smokey,
Speaker 1: the canine hero of the day, was seven inches tall.
Speaker 1: William Wine had adopted her about a year earlier after
Speaker 1: a fellow serviceman found her hiding inside a foxhole in
Speaker 1: New Guinea. At first, she was sort of like a
Speaker 1: mascot and emotional support animal, but Smokey quickly became a
Speaker 1: real veteran. She backpacked through the Pacific Islands right alongside Wine.
Speaker 1: She participated in a dozen air and sea rescue missions.
Speaker 1: She parachuted thirty feet down from the top of a
Speaker 1: tree using a special teeny tiny parachute created just for her.
Speaker 1: She survived over one hundred and fifty air raids on
Speaker 1: New Guinea and then lived through a typhoon in Okinawa, Japan.
Speaker 1: According to William Wine, Smokey once warned him about incoming
Speaker 1: enemy fire, thereby saving his life. This telegraph wire, by
Speaker 1: the way, was a small achievement compared to everything else
Speaker 1: that Smokey had done, but it was a shining moment
Speaker 1: for her. What would have taken days for the US
Speaker 1: Air Force to complete on their own, Smokey had achieved
Speaker 1: in a matter of minutes. When the war finally ended,
Speaker 1: William Wine brought Smokey home to Cleveland, Ohio. He taught
Speaker 1: her hundreds of tricks, including how to walk across a
Speaker 1: tightrope while blindfolded. She and Wine went on to perform
Speaker 1: shows in Hollywood, which were broadcast on television all over
Speaker 1: the country, and on top of her career in showbiz,
Speaker 1: Smokey also visited veterans' hospitals to comfort those who were
Speaker 1: injured or suffering from PTSD. Smokey passed away in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, but she left a legacy that is still
Speaker 1: honored today. According to Animal Planet, she was history's most
Speaker 1: recorded therapy dog, and in twenty twenty two, sixty five
Speaker 1: years after her death, Smokey received the Animals in War
Speaker 1: and Peace Distinguished Service Medal from the US government for
Speaker 1: her role in World War Two. If you needed one
Speaker 1: more achievement to add to the list, though Smokey is
Speaker 1: also credited with renewing interest in Yorkies everywhere you see.
Speaker 1: Before she made headlines for her heroism, Yorkshire Terriers were
Speaker 1: a relatively obscure breed, but Smokey brought Yorkis to the mainstream.
Speaker 1: These days, they consistently rank in the American Kennel Club's
Speaker 1: top one hundred most popular breeds. So the next time
Speaker 1: you see a Yorki running around, spare a thought for Smokey,
Speaker 1: History's cutest and most curious Air Force veteran. I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Speaker 1: M HM.