(Hank) Moorehouse 1934 – 2011 - The Society of American Magicians

The Houdini Award
By Julie Sobanski
Magic clubs have come and gone, but not many have
endured year after year. The Houdini Club of Wisconsin
will be celebrating its seventy-third annual convention this year
in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Labor Day weekend, September
2-4, 2011. It’s a convention that, throughout the years, has
attracted many of the greatest magicians of our time.
The beginnings of the club can be traced back to 1915 and
Oshkosh. For many years, magicians in Wisconsin had talked
about organizing a statewide club dedicated to magic. Five
magicians started the Houdini Club, named to honor that great
native son of Wisconsin, Harry Houdini. The name “Houdini
Club” is not original, because many other towns, including
Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and others cities, also had that
name. The Wisconsin meetings were informal, and the membership
small. The club flourished for several years, but soon
fell to the wayside. In 1928, two magicians tried to resurrect
the group, but this club also fizzled within a few years from
lack of interest and support.
M.F. Zens, Dr. R.C. Finkle, Frank W. Carter, and Joe Walter
built on the failed clubs to form the new Houdini Club of
Wisconsin. It was organized on May 28, 1938, with Joe Walter
as president, M.F. Zens as vice-president, Frank W. Carter as
secretary, and Dr. R.C. Finkle as treasurer. At first, the club
only accepted membership from residents of Wisconsin,
Chicago, and Upper Michigan, but soon the by-laws were
amended to take in any eligible magician anywhere in the
U.S.A. The timing must have been right because the membership
swelled to a record fifty members. The four men built
upon the success of the club and organized Wisconsin’s first
magic convention, which took place in Oshkosh in 1938.
Quite a bit of newspaper press mentioning the Houdini
50 M-U-M Magazine
Program of the first Houdini trophy
Club of Wisconsin and the convention coming to Oshkosh
can be found in the Oshkosh Northwestern. Headlines
included girl to lose her head at Convention and Creator
of famed Charlie mcCarthy is at Convention here. (This
referred to Chicago’s Frank Marshall, the man who created
the famous ventriloquist dummy used by Edgar Bergen.) The
funny article stated, “Frank was the one who carved Charlie
McCarthy out of a hunk of wood.” Another newsworthy article
mentioned with the bold headline, magician dies at Convention.
While it seems like impressive news, it’s not exactly what
happened. Michael Lauersen, fifty-five, of Kenosha, became
ill at the banquet and was taken to the hospital, where he had
a cerebral hemorrhage and died the next day. The report notes
that those around him were unaware of his illness.
Ben Bergor
Art, Ben, and Bess
The growing membership and the success of the first
convention had the club hosting another statewide magic
gathering the next year. Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, was picked
to host the third convention in 1940. The membership swelled
to over two hundred, and a contest of escape acts was added.
On February 8, 1940, Bess Houdini presented to the Houdini
Club of Wisconsin a beautiful hand-tooled, engraved-leather
traveling trophy. It was designed by Edward Saint, the founder
of National Magic Day. It was a bound photo book that