SISSY COOK

NANY MAE HILL

Nany, as "Sis Cook" was originally billed as an "Armless Wonder" but because of her absent forearms, the three toes on each foot and they way she walked she became better known as "Sissy Cook, the "PenguinGirl"  when touring with the Foley and Burke Shows.    Nany started in the show business in 1938 when she joined up with a carnival in Sweetwater, Texas, the state she was born and raised in. She lived for a time in Lubbock before moving permanently to Keyes, California in 1947.    By this time she had married six-foot tall farmer Benjamin Hill and the two toured together for awhile before retiring to Keyes.    Before she was in show business, Nany was an artist.  And in 1924 she earned her way through a year in college  by selling her landscape paintings. She was still at it in 1952 when she was seen at a hobby show in California selling her oil paintings and demonstrating to her patrons her technique.    Mrs. Hill was never ashamed of her handicap and was even known to joke good-naturedly with her audience about her disability.

As you can plainly see, Nany had only  six toes.  Did you notice the  wedding ring she wore on the middle toe of her left foot?

When Nany's husband, Ben, died in 1968 the Stanislau Co. welfare department offered to provide her a live-in caretaker but Nany would have none of it. After all, this was a woman who would demonstrate to the carnival  spectators how she could sew, embroider, crochet, knit and feed herself!  She used to get around Keyes in her specially-equipped golf cart and in her later years even managed a small group of apartments.    Nany Mae Hill once toured military hospitals

(at her own expense) to offer hope to amputees in overcoming their acquired disabilities and hoped one day to get a job with the government working with disabled veterans, but it never panned out.    Nany died in 1973 at her home in Keyes. She was 72 years old and it is believed was survived by brothers and sisters still living in Texas.