They met in the circus where 600-pound Hannah worked as the Fat Lady and John was billed as the “Living Skeleton.” He weighed in at about 50 to 60 pounds.
Apparently, their marriage was not a circus publicity stunt because they stayed married and settled in Frankford. Retired, thin man John started eating and ballooned up to 130 pounds. He quit the sideshow business totally and became a carriage builder.
The couple probably settled in Frankford to be among fellow carnival and circus people. In the 19th century Frankford was the home of the John “Porgy” O’Brien Circus, which was later taken over by the larger Adam Forepaugh Circus.
A whole bunch of acrobats, clowns and lion tamers lived and worked in Frankford.
According to a small booklet by the Frankford Historical Society, the pair lived in a house at Unity and Waln streets. The researchers found a newspaper clipping from the 1870s declaring that Hannah became ill “while presiding at a fat ladies convention in Providence, Rhode Island”
She died in 1889 and is buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery. Twelve man carried her casket where “a derrick” lowered it into the grave.
One account claims that the Battersbys adopted a carnival sideshow girl from Africa billed as ‘The Cannibal Girl” but also famed for having webbed fingers. A brief New York Times item noted the girl, whose name was Zanie Zanobia, died in 1886 at age 19 in Frankford at the Battersby residence. According to the Find A Grave site she is also buried in Cedar Hill.