Lady Wonder
Lady correctly predicted the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the repeal of Prohibition and the entry of Russia into World War II.
Lady Wonder told the future, found missing persons and read minds. Your normal psychic, right?
Not quite. The Lady was a horse.
Lady Wonder communicated with a typewriter contraption about the size of a piano keyboard. When she was asked questions, she'd press down with her nose on the keyboard and a card with a letter written on it would pop up. Her owner, Mrs. C.D. Fonda of South Richmond, sometimes switched the cards around. It didn't make any difference, although Lady did appear to appear to be an occasionally poor speller, endearing her to those of us similarly afflicted.
In 1932, she correctly predicted Franklin D. Roosevelt's nomination and subsequent election to the presidency. After nosing out "ROO," she stopped and nuzzled a visiting reporter's hand. Then she spelled, "I CAN'T SPELL IT."
The reporter, Katherine Warren of the Richmond News-Leader, had a New Year's ritual of visiting Lady to gather prophecies for the coming year. Lady correctly predicted the 1927 victory of prizefighter Gene Tunney over Jack Dempsey, the repeal of Prohibition and the entry of Russia into World War II. On Warren's final visit, in 1950, Lady spelled out, "I LOVE YOU."
The affection was returned. In Lady's 1957 obituary, Warren called the horse "an old friend." Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of Lady's story is the gentleness with which she was treated by the press, then and now a notoriously skeptical bunch. The opportunities for slamming her must have been multiple, yet you look through the ancient yellowing newspaper clips in vain for examples of a journalistic nudge nudge wink wink: "Get a load of this: a psychic horse."
Lady must have charmed them. It helped that the Fondas "made no claims." Besides, at a buck for three questions, they weren't getting rich. Lady was right often enough to silence the skeptics. And when she was wrong, she often missed in intriguing ways, as though there were static on the psychic radio.
In January 1951, 4-year-old Danny Matson wandered away from his home in Quincy, Massachusetts. The police searched in vain. Friends of the parents visited Lady Wonder, who said the boy's body was near the "PITTSFIELD WATER WHEEL."
Pittsfield was searched without result. Then, according to Quincy District Attorney Edmund R. Ewing, "We got to mulling over the message and we thought it might have been twisted--that the horse meant to say Pit Field Wilde Water." Danny Matson's body was found when they dragged the Field-Wilde quarry pit, about four miles from his home.
Lady had a sense of humor, which must have helped when she was examined by experts and professional debunkers. Duke University parapsychologist J.B. Rhine subjected Lady to 500 tests during a week in 1928. At one point she became mischievous. "What makes you so bad?" asked Rhine.
"IT'S FUN," she replied.
Lady Wonder's final resting place, Pet Memorial Park, is a curious spot, well worth a visit. The entrance is off the Terrell Road cul-de-sac in Richmond's West End. Better tended than some human cemeteries I've visited, the place has a feel that is touching rather than sad. The inscriptions make good reading, with names ranging from the amusing "Sad Sack" to the politically incorrect "Tar Baby" to the Austin Powers-ish "Little Me."
Lady Wonder's grave is located near a central island of boxwood and cedar. As far as I could determine, she's the cemetery's only horse.
"Lady Wonder" first appeared under the title "The Lady was a Champ" in the April 2002 issue of 64.