She never missed sending me flowers on my birthday. And she was in the hospital that week and everybody was expecting her to be released. I got up the next morning and I turned on the morning news and there it was. She died on my birthday. And that afternoon … her flowers arrived for me. — Carol Burnett
The flowers came with a note that read “Happy Birthday, Kid. Love, Lucy.”
life:
From a story on the Ringling Bros. Circus in the April 4, 1949, issue of LIFE. The caption for this picture: “Nothing but circus all day every day is the happy fate of these two performers’ tots, who sit around the big tent watching as the pretty Miss Lola practices on a tightwire and an acrobat balances an odd contraption on his feet.”
See more photos by Nina Leen here.
(Nina Leen—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)










