Life Stunk For the Skunk Lady Of Howe, Indiana
Think your life stinks? Try living one day in the life of the "Skunk Lady of Howe" Crissy Hand, dubbed the filthiest woman in the world. Crissy lived in Howe, Indiana, and became a somewhat famous tourist attraction with visitors flocking to her house to meet the woman who never bathed or change her clothes and was always adorned around the neck and shoulders by a pet skunk. As she lived until 1924, it's not hard to imagine Hand becoming an attraction in the age of travelling side- and freakshows.
Most of us would flee as fast as we could upon coming into contact with skunks. Not Crissy, she embraced her skunk lifestyle even competing with her pet on who could smell the most raunchy. The noses of those who finally tracked down the skunk lady often regretted it the minute she came bouncing out of her run-down stinky shack. With skunk in tow, she would race up to people the minute they arrived to do a little dance and beg for coins.
Not sure how people did it. Who would spend their vacation driving across the country to a little rural town in Indiana just to be accosted by a woman whose stench would put to shame the worst odor her pet skunk could concoct. But, people did it and it did help the troubled woman eke out a living.
A few facts about skunk lady:
- Years would go by before she would even think about changing her clothes
- She lived and slept with Skunks, rabbits, snakes and birds
- Believe it or not she was married at one point in her life
- She had one piece of furniture in her run down shack - a wooden box that acted as a table to eat on and to skin skunks and other animals on so as to sell their skins
- She died after taking a bath
Gravesite images from FindAGrave.