Saturday Streetscapes: Cora Street

By Michael Walmsley

During this past year, as president of the PROBUS Club of Muskoka North, I have put fingers to keyboard and written a weekly article to our membership which has included a focus on Huntsville’s streets. Essentially, I have looked into the names of individual roads in order to understand where the names came from and just who the persons are whose names grace our street signage. 

These articles have been combined into book form which will be published in the summer of 2021. What will appear on Doppler each Saturday for the foreseeable future are excerpts from that book with the hope that the names of Huntsville’s streets will become more than just addresses and direction markers for those who would travel along them. The lives behind the names may just present a surprise or two. So, buckle up and enjoy your ride!

Cora Street (runs E – W from Brunel Road to Lorne Street)

Cora Street is not Huntsville’s shortest street, but the lady who lends her name to its recognition is definitely the shortest Huntsville resident to have her name grace a street sign.

Born in Huntsville on April 23, 1886 to Allan and Mary (nee Hanes) Shay, Cora was the second child in the Shay family to be afflicted with a genetic disorder resulting in dwarfism. In that era, it was common to refer to little people as midgets and Cora and her brother Orville were often referred as such in community affairs. Whereas Orville gained notoriety as a “fire and brimstone” preacher with the local Salvation Army, Cora seemed to register acclaim strictly from her lack of physical stature.

Indeed, Cora became one of the wealthiest Huntsville residents of her time as a result of her unusual profession. In September of 1902, at the age of 18 years, measuring 32 inches in height and weighing in at 32 pounds, Cora joined the circus. In Bostock’s Show at South Bend, Indiana, she became known as “Princess Corita, The Doll Lady”.  Between the Bostock Circus and Kern Brothers Circus in New York, Cora became an immensely famous attraction, so much so that she travelled in her own private rail car and commanded a formidable remittance for her appearances.

Cora lived the majority of her life in Huntsville and, no doubt, spent a good deal of her childhood playing in the vicinity of the street that would be named after her. The family home was located at 15 Centre Street, a short hike from Cora Street. Her name ended up on the street’s sign because her father, Allan, filed a number of plans of subdivision for his Huntsville acreage in the late 1800s.  It was his decision to name many of the streets after his children.

Cora died of pneumonia in the Chatham Hospital in October of 1961. She was living with her youngest sister Florence during her final years. Consider the irony of these two sisters born one after the other, growing up together, and then being together at the time of Cora’s passing. By the way, Cora Street and Florence Street run side-by-side one another thus maintaining the sisters’ close connection in the annals of Huntsville history.

Michael Walmsley is a retired elementary school principal who resides in Huntsville. He enjoys looking at things with a bit of “outside-the-box” perspective and totally believes in living today with a hand on the past and an eye on the future. He has published articles in Kanawa and Adventure Kayak magazines and has recently published a book entitled The Joy of Kayaking – Including the Kayak Quiz.