101 Ranch Star
Jackie Laird DiesPonca City News December 5, 1990
Jackie McFarlin Laird will ride and rope no more. The 101 Ranch Wild West Show and Great Far East Show trick rider and roper died Tuesday in Shawn Manor Nursing Center at the age of 94. The western showgirl had preformed on the same bill with Hoot Gibson, Jess Willard, Buck Jones, Tom Mix, Will Rogers and Pawnee Bill.
Jackie rode with the famed Miller Brothers show working with a quartet of horses trained by the late Wes Rogers. Her horses were Alice, Major, Zack and Colonel. Her favorite was Alice, who would kneel, pray or lie down at Jackie’s direction.
The most dangerous trick she performed was known as “tail back”. This difficult trick involved sliding off the backside of the horse and being dragged around the arena. She was with the show from 1914 to 1926.
Her costume was a buckskin skirt with deep fringe and shirtwaist silk blouse. A wide-brimmed Stetson, wide-cuffed leather riding gloves and expensive boots completed the costume. She was the lead rider for the “Oklahoma Cowgirls”. The cowgirls were to appear wholesome and were not allowed to wear rouge or lipstick.
Jackie was her stage name. She was born Mary Ellen Laird and close friends called her “Leasey”. But to the public she was “Jackie”.
After the 101 Ranch Wild West Show folded she was chef for hotels in California and later returned to be chef of the Arcade Hotel and Jens-Marie Hotel for a number of years. She often told about Will Rogers’ fondness for her special chili. The recipe was given her by Mexican Joe. In later years she was the chef for the American Legion Home School.
During her show-business career she was married to Johnny Roubideaux, an Indian of the Missouria tribe. After she separated from Roubideaux she married Dewitt Laird, a cattleman who died a few years later.
In 1983 she was named by Governor George Nigh as the recipient of the Pioneer Woman Award given annually here at the Renaissance Ball at the Marland Mansion.
Jackie joined the show business world at an early age running away with the circus at the age of 11. While she was performing in Madison Square Garden her father J.A. McFarlin wired her to come home at once, but she stayed on for 12 years.
A trick rider, Jackie appeared in one of the most popular acts of the 101 Wild West Show. She sat in a covered wagon when the Indians set fire to it during the popular “Indian raid” act. Although Laird was with the show just a dozen years of her nearly nine and half decades, she was always in her heart a young rider and roper...riding with the best.
Another chapter of the 101 Ranch Wild West Show enters the history books with the death of a cowgirl named “Jackie“