Page 122 – LIFE

LIFE With Mike the Headless Chicken: Photos of a Famously Tough Fowl

August 11, 2021May 30, 2013 by

Beheaded Chicken Lives Normally After Freak Decapitation by Ax

No, it’s not the latest eye-popping item from the Weekly World News. Instead, it’s an actual headline from the October 22, 1945, issue of LIFE magazine, from an article about … well, a headless chicken.

“Ever since Sept. 10,” LIFE breezily informed its readers, “a rangy Wyandotte rooster named Mike has been living a normal chicken’s life though he has no head.”

Mike, LIFE went on to say, “lost his head in the usual rooster way. Mrs. L.A. Olson, wife of a farmer in Fruita, Colo., 200 miles west of Denver, decided to have chicken for dinner. Mrs. Olson took Mike to the chopping block and axed off his head. Thereupon Mike got up and soon began to strut around…. What Mrs. Olson’s ax had done was to clip off most of the skull but leave intact one ear, the jugular vein and the base of the brain, which controls motor function.”

The rest is poultry history. Mike lived for 18 months after losing his head, finally succumbing at a motel in the Arizona desert in 1946 during one of his many appearances as a sideshow attraction in the American southwest.

Here, LIFE.com presents Mike’s unlikely story, as well as the utterly unsettling pictures by Bob Landry that ran (and some that never ran) in LIFE. Brace yourself. . . .

Mike The Headless Chicken

Bob Landry—Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mike the headless chicken “dances” in 1945.

Bob Landry—Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mike the headless chicken stands atop a lawn mower in Fruita, Colorado, 1945.

Bob Landry—Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mike the headless chicken in his Colorado barnyard, with fellow chickens, 1945.

Bob Landry—Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

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Bob Landry—Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mike the headless chicken is fed through an eye dropper, directly into his esophagus, in 1945.

Bob Landry—Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Hope Wade, a promoter who took Mike on the road and charged money for folks to take a look, holds Mike the headless chicken, Fruita, Colorado, 1945.

Bob Landry—Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mike the headless chicken rests in the grass in 1945.

Bob Landry—Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

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Bob Landry—Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Fighting Teen Pregnancy: Portrait of a Radical High School Program, 1971

January 17, 2020May 24, 2013 by

A remarkable cover story in the April 2, 1971, issue of LIFE magazine titled, “Help for High School Mothers” chronicled the day-to-day lives of teen moms and moms-to-be in the otherwise typical southern California town of Azusa:

“In a public high school classroom [the article began], a 16-year-old student, eight months pregnant and unmarried, presents a book report. Her classmates and teacher are unruffled, for the quiet scene is an everyday event at Citrus High in Azusa, Calif. and elsewhere around the country where educators are taking radical new approach to an old and painful problem. Until a few years ago, the nation’s public schools dealt with teenage pregnancies by expelling the girls or by putting pressure on them to leave. Many humiliated families arranged secret and illegal abortions for their daughters. Others sent them away to “visit relatives” or, if they could afford it, hid them in private nursing homes.
“Today the attitude toward high school mothers is changing dramatically. While teenage pregnancy is just as unwanted and undesirable as ever, more and more parents and schools are trying to help the girls put their lives together again instead of ostracizing them. In nearly every major city programs now exist to meet the special educational, medical and psychological needs of teen-age mothers. In almost every case the programs have won strong community support. . . . Many communities provide medical clinics and counseling for the new mothers who will number an “estimated 200,000 this years.
“[That said], there are still not enough programs in the country. A recent study concludes that 75 percent of pregnant teen-agers drop out of school. But more and more girls are making the tough decisions to stay in school, for their own good and for the future of their babies.”

A few weeks after the story ran, the letters to the editor published in LIFE in response to the story were mostly negative, along the lines of one from a reader in Manitou Springs, Colo., who wrote that “the April 2 cover sets some sort of new dimension of achievement in crass, lurid, inelegant journalistic bad taste. To proffer a picture of this pathetic schoolchild with her grotesque maternity figure over the bold type ‘High School Pregnancy’ simply makes a bad, sad scene.”

The vice-president of a senior high school class in Redondo Beach, Calif., on the other hand, applauded the teen pregnancy program at Citrus Hill, but went to note that he felt “that the LIFE story was done in the epitome of poor taste. The entire tone of the article was such that one would think the greatest way of getting through high school is by having babies.”

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

At Citrus High School in California, honor student Judy Fay worked at the blackboard during an English class.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Linda Twardowski, a recent Citrus graduate, explained the basics of diaper-changing in a childcare class, using her son Charles. The girls also were taught prenatal care, cooking and budgeting.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lupe Enriquez, 17, took notes on nutrition in homemaking class and received a playful pat from another expectant mother, Lynda Kump. Like several of the girls in the maternity program at Citrus, Lupe got married after learning she was pregnant.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Cheryl Gue, 17, quieted her son Michael with a bottle. Although the sound of crying babies was a normal disruption at Citrus, the more vocal ones were usually hustled out of class. The school was equipped with playpens, cribs and toys. The mothers were required to come to school for the morning child-care courses, but could study academic subjects at home.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Pregnant high schoolers, Azusa, Calif., 1971.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

High school students with babies, Azusa, Calif., 1971.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Vicki Conger, 17, with her 13-month-old daughter, Shawn Michelle, Azusa, Calif. 1971.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sandy Winters, 13, who recently enrolled at Citrus, talked about her courses with principal James Georgeou, founder of the program for young mothers.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Expectant mothers were allowed to take naps in homemakeing class. Here Lori Cardin, 17 and six months pregnant, tried to catch 40 winks despite playful attention from young Shawn Conger.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

In the courtyard outside the school, Vicki Conger, 17, took a stroll with her 13-month-old daughter, Shawn Michelle.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Judy Fay chatted with a group of students outside class. With pregnant girls at Citrus, the boys cleaned up their language and courteously held open doors and even pushed strollers.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Toward the end of her pregnancy, Judy Fay’s father, an aerospace worker, drove her to and from school each day.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Judy’s parents, Henry and Luella Fay, found to their relief that the neighbors were sympathetic to Judy’s plight. “We have had a lot of compliments because of the way we faced up to the problem,” said Mrs. Fay.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

In the canopied bed where she had slept since childhood, Judy cuddled her son Dylan. “My son may have been unplanned,” Judy said, “but he is not unloved.”

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Inside Baseball Clubhouses with Some of the Greats

January 5, 2020May 20, 2013 by

,LIFE photographers have made memorable and intimate images from the clubhouses of America’s National past-time. The Mick, Jackie, Yaz, and many more: Here are some candid inside moments from some great players over the years.

New York’s Don Larsen spoke to the press after hurling a perfect game against the Dodgers in the 1956 World Series, Yankee Stadium, Oct. 8, 1956.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Milwaukee Braves’ Lew Burdette shared a moment with his son, Lewis, after a game. Lewis was excitedly reenacting one of his dad’s pitches, August 1956.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Willie Mays, October 1954

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

New York Yankee Jerry Coleman took a drag from a cigarette in the locker room of Yankee Stadium, April 1952, after learning that he has been called to active duty for the Korean War. Coleman was a Marine pilot who previously served in World War II.

Allan Grant/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jackie Robinson after a game, May 12, 1955.

Francis Miller/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Carl Yastrzemski, left, and Joe Foy horsed around in the Red Sox locker room, May 1968.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sandy Amoros (with cap), Pee Wee Reese (on trunk), and Duke Snider (with beer) of the Brooklyn Dodgers joked around after a game, May 1955.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Boston’s Ted Williams, left, talked with teammate Gordon Windhorn about (what else?) the finer points of hitting in the clubhouse during spring training, Sarasota, Florida, 1956.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Yogi Berra (l.), who caught Don Larsen’s Oct. 8, 1956, perfect game and the Dodgers’ losing pitcher, Sal Maglie, chatted afterward in the Yankee Stadium clubhouse. Between Berra and Maglie, clutching a can of beer, is Yankees’ public relations man, Jack Farrell.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Pittsburgh’s Dale Long ate a sandwich in the clubhouse at Forbes Field between games of a double-header against the New York Giants, May 1956.

Hank Walker/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Cincinnati Reds manager Birdie Tebbetts talked on the phone during a Labor Day doubleheader against the Milwaukee Braves in 1956.

Francis Miller/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Brooklyn’s Gil Hodges smoked and talked to the press after a World Series game, October 1956.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Cleveland’s Larry Doby— the first African-American player in the American League, and the second in the majors—received a rubdown in July 1955.

Francis Miller/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Yankees manager Casey Stengel, September 1953.

Howard Sochurek/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mickey Mantle after a World Series game, October 1952.

Mark Kauffman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Brookyln Dodgers property manager John Griffin, 1955.

John Dominis Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Orlando Cepeda dressed in the San Fransisco Giants’ clubhouse in June 1958.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Sal Maglie, New York Giants, 1951.

George Silk/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Frank Howard sat in the locker room during the winter league season, December 1959.

Hank Walker/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Roger Maris at the 1960 All-Star Game in Kansas City.

Stan Wayman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Minnie Minoso, Chicago White Sox, August 1955.

Francis Miller/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Pittsburgh’s Elroy Face celebrated his team’s win against the Yankees in the World Series, October 1960.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dodger Don Newcombe enjoyed a beer in the locker room Brooklyn won the World Series, October 1955.

Grey Villet/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Buzz Thrill: LIFE Goes to a Bee Market

August 11, 2021May 16, 2013 by

A recent report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the still-mysterious and, frankly, frightening phenomenon known as Colony-Collapse Disorder the massive die-off of honeybees throughout the U.S. has cast a worrying light on the health of our small, busy friends. After all, a world without bees, nature’s premier pollinators, would be a dreary, depleted place for us humans. (Not to mention for the bees.)

Here, LIFE.com celebrates the at-once humble and remarkable bee by transporting our readers back six decades, to a bustling bee market in the Netherlands as photographed by Thomas McAvoy. At the annual bee market at Veenendaal “the biggest in Europe,” according to LIFE (August 1956) beekeepers and prospective buyers of bees go through the ancient motions seen at markets the world over, for countless centuries: purchasers considering the wares, haggling over prices, considering the wares again … and eventually, a sale, with (relatively) happy faces all around.

As for the striking first image in this gallery, LIFE explained that beekeeper Gerrit Norssleman “wore the hood to protect his face and eyes from the swarms, had the pipe because its smoke calmed the bees and kept them at a safe distance. His hands, tougher than the sensitive area of his face, were bare so he could handle his bees dexterously without crushing them.”

If only the most dire peril facing bees today was the not-so-dexterous hands of their keepers! Something worth remembering the next time you bite into a peach, a strawberry, an apple, a pear anything that grows with the quiet, restless, diligent help of the irreplaceable bee.

Beekeeper, Netherlands, 1956

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Dutch Bee Market, 1956

Thomas D. McAvoy Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Born Under Fire: Rare Photos From the Birth of Israel

August 17, 2021May 10, 2013 by

Seven decades ago, in the midst of a civil war and at the tail end of the decades-long British Mandate for Palestine, the state of Israel was born. The post-World War II era’s premier powers the United States and the Soviet Union recognized the young state at once. Official recognition from many other nations took longer; Spain, for example, did not establish diplomatic relations with Israel until 1986.

Many of Israel’s neighbors, meanwhile, as well as more than a score of other countries around the world, from Afghanistan and Algeria to North Korea, Somalia, Yemen and beyond, have never officially recognized Israel, while others that shared diplomatic relations have, at one time or another, suspended or broken ties completely over the years.

Thus, in the years since its birth in May 1948, Israel—a country roughly the size of New Hampshire—has arguably played a more salient (and divisive) role in international geopolitics than any other non-superpower on the planet. Surrounded by enemies, today and at the hour of its creation, Israel remains what it has to some degree always been: a kind of Rorschach state that assumes myriad shapes for myriad observers—aggressor, defender, usurper, bastion, homeland.

For example, far from being universally celebrated, the period when Israel won its independence i.e., the era of civil war and of the war against neighboring Arab states after May 14, 1948 is commemorated by Palestinians as Nakba, or “the catastrophe.” And no wonder, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes during, and long after, those wars of the late ’40s. In recent years, the contentious (to put it mildly) issue of Israeli settlements and continued Palestinian displacement on the West Bank has added fuel to what has always been a dangerous, smoldering fire.

In other words, for an awful lot of people around the Mideast and around the world, the intractable “Palestinian problem” might be better characterized as “the Israeli problem.”

In light of this fraught legacy and the nature of the enmities that have, in large part, come to define the region long-time Middle East watchers can perhaps be forgiven a certain pessimism when discussing the prospects for a lasting peace from the eastern Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea.

Here, however, through a series of rare photos most of which never ran in LIFE magazine, LIFE.com looks back not at the Mideast’s thorny, enduring troubles, but at the immediate aftermath of Israel’s independence. A conflict photographer who made some of the most devastating images to emerge from the Second World War, Frank Scherschel brought to his coverage of Israel’s birth a correspondent’s cool, clear eye, and a storyteller’s ability to find the smaller, quieter narratives amid the ruin and chaos of a war-battered landscape.

For its part, in an article published just weeks after Israel’s official independence, LIFE magazine acknowledged the ancient hopes of the Israelis at the dawn of their new nation, while presciently noting that nothing, nothing at all, was ever likely to come easy to the fledgling, embattled state:

In the deepening dusk on May 14, 1948 which to them was the 24th day of the month of Iyar in the 5,708th year after creation the Jews of Palestine gathered in their cities and villages to celebrate the most fateful moment in their history. The British mandate still had eight years to run, but already the last high commissioner, Gen. Sir Alan Cunningham, had retired to the cruiser Eurylas in Haifa harbor. There he sat watching the night creep across he eastern Mediterranean and the twilight envelop yet another fragment of old empire. He was too far offshore to hear the Jews chanting their ancient “Hatikvah” (Song of Hope), but he well knew the words: We have not forgotten, nor shall we forget, our solemn promise. . . .

In the all-Jewish city of Tel Aviv, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ended nearly 2,000 years of Jewish longing for a homeland with a great blow of his fist upon the speakers’ table. “The name of our state shall be Israel,” he intoned, and a new nation was born.

Encouragement for the new state was not long in coming. Neither was trouble. Both the U.S. and Russia promptly recognized Israel and thus gave stature to the provisional government. . . .

But as these diplomatic bouquets were tossed, the embittered Arabs threw shells and bombs. From the ring of Arab states around Palestine the long-threatened attack had begun. King Abdullah of [the British protectorate of] Trans-Jordan sent his Arab Legion against Jerusalem and by week’s end had the Jewish defenders compressed into an ever-narrowing sector within the old walled city. Egypt’s planes repeatedly bombed Tel Aviv. Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia pitched in for whatever their scattered efforts might be worth. Israel was born indeed, but the Jews would need of the Shield of David to keep their nation alive.

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizabethRonk.

ISRAEL PROCLAMATION OF NATIONHOOD

Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Graphic Warning Slide

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Frank Scherschel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Waco, 1953: Photos From the Aftermath of a Lethal Tornado

April 3, 2023May 8, 2013 by

On the afternoon of May 11, 1953, an F5 tornado made a direct hit on Waco, Texas. (On the scale for rating rotational intensity created by storm researcher Ted Fujita, an F5 twister is capable of “incredible damage.”) In a matter of minutes, in the face of cyclonic winds that likely topped 300 mph, hundreds of homes and businesses were utterly destroyed; thousands of cars were damaged or totaled; almost 600 people were injured and 114 were killed.

It remains one of the deadliest tornados in American history.

In the immediate aftermath of the tornado, LIFE’s John Dominis and correspondent Scot Leavitt, who had just recently moved to Texas, made their way to the devastated city. All of the photos in this gallery, many of which never ran in LIFE, are Dominis’s; in a note sent to LIFE’s editors in New York, Leavitt noted that “through virtually all [of Dominis’s] shooting, rain fell, the sky was dark and the mood was somber.”

For its part, LIFE wrote of the disaster in its May 25, 1953 issue:

By May 11 the warm, close weather was uncomfortably routine to the people of Waco, Texas. The day before had been muggy and the day before that, too. The big news in the Morning News-Tribune was of a tornado in far-off Minnesota. At mid-morning the New Orleans weather bureau warned there might be a few tornadoes close to home. But an Indian belief that tornadoes would never strike Waco had always held true and no one in the city worried about the report At 1:30 .m. the Waco weather forecaster announced, “No cause for alarm.”

Three hours later the skies suddenly darkened. people scurried for shelter from the hail and slashing rain, and at the edge of town a cemetery workman looked up to see a thick black wedge forming under a low cloud … At 4:37 p.m. the black wedge in the sky struck Fifth and Austin [streets], gouged the earth for a block and left the heart of Waco a broken coffin for scores of schoolboys, housewives, motorists….

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Rescuers attempted to free a woman trapped in rubble, Waco, Texas, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the city, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Scene of destruction in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

In the downpour which followed the twister, a group of volunteer workers stood aside as another body was found in the ruins of the Torrance pool hall where 25 players, mostly teenagers, were trapped and killed when the roof caved in.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

At 2:30 A.M., a power saw was used to cut away some timbers. Afraid she might be cut, Lillie [Matkin] said, “I’ve been here 10 hours, a little longer won’t hurt.”

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A human chain of rescue workers operated outside this building throughout search for Lillie.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

At 6:45 A.M., Lillie Matkin’s ordeal ended, 14 hours and eight minutes after she was trapped and able only to wiggle her feet. Gently as they could, the men who had labored through night to disentomb her carried her out of the wreckage. Near the end of her entrapment a worker removed her shoes and before she was lifted out she cautioned, “Don’t lose them. They’re old but comfortable.” The shoes were brought to her later at the hospital.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Lillie Matkin, a Waco tornado survivor, was freed from rubble, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A vigil without hope was kept by Beth Parten, 25, whose husband, Cecil, was missing. She alternated between listening to reports coming in by portable radio in the store and keeping watch in a car parked outside the Red Cross headquarters. After two nights of waiting, workers found her husband’s body.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Men looked out at destruction in Waco, Texas, after an F5 tornado hit the town, May 1953.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A respite from horror came for Seaman Howard Wilkerson, 18, after a dreadful moment. Just before this picture was taken he had helped to remove the bodies of a dead man and woman from a car which had been crushed by a falling wall. Shaken by the sight, he said, “I wonder if I will ever sleep again.”

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock