On a recent trip to Oklahoma, while riffling through boxes of photos at a junk shop, I came across this terrific, and rather intriguing, postcard-size ballyhoo advertising a freak bull and a two-headed calf. It was a natural purchase.
When I got it home, I began digging for more information based on what few clues I had: a map on the back of the ad coupled with the name "W.A. Rasor." Turned out, the story behind the postcard was even more interesting than the ad made it sound.
In 1941, Ohioans and dairy farmers Wilbur and Nessie Rasor became the happy foster parents to a calf sporting twice the number of heads one is accustomed to seeing on such an animal. It didn't live long, but even after it was stuffed, the rarity proved to be a popular roadside attraction that patrons were more than willing to pay 10 cents apiece to see in person. It's said the calf was such a draw that Mr. Rasor used to buy cars with buckets of dimes.
In an effort to expand the freakshow, the Rasors purchased a second anomalous bovine from a man in Arkansas. This one, alive and fully grown, had a single head, but with double the features: four horns, four eyes and four working nostrils. Andy D-Day, as they named him, warranted an increase in admission to 25 cents and bumped the calf to second billing.
Andy died in 1956 and the Rasors had his bizarre head preserved and mounted alongside the calf. No longer able to eat crackers from tourists' hands, however, the binary beast lost its pulling power. Interest in the sideshow waned and the phenomenon that was Andy D-Day and the Two-Headed Calf fell into obscurity. Eventually, the pair was forgotten and their postcards were shuffled away among the ephemera of junk shops.
Eventually, people like me discovered their story, but Andy and his sidekick seemed to have disappeared. Some suspected that the two-headed calf had found its way to an attraction called Prairie Dog Town in Kansas, while the Ohio Historical Society thought they had him. Still, no one was sure and nobody had a lead on D-Day.
My resourceful friends over at Roadside America, however, discovered both Andy and the calf, still together, just 2 miles from their home at the Rasors' farm. Today, they reside in the basement of the Samuel Spitler House Community Museum in downtown Brookville.
They still have their own exhibit, but these days the cost of admission is $1.50.
