Her story is well pretty well known I should think. Conceived in 1946, in the back room of a Marshall Islands military viewing station, just days after the detonation of the 158 megaton nuclear device code named Able, Mildred Simmons was born with a massive length of self-regenerating, meat-packed bowel on her face. Since the short-lived “Mildred Fever” of the early 70’s, however, information on Mildred has been scarce to say the least.
I decided to search out whatever info I could on Mildred and find out what had become of her. Surprisingly all I was able to find, however, were three images and a short entry on her in the 1987 edition of McNulty’s Butchery Bible.
Evidently at the close of the 70’s, at the urging of her then husband, Mildred made an attempt to cash in on her already waning celebrity with a line of supermarket and deli friendly meat products bearing her name and likeness. In 1978 She launched Mildred’s Famous. It was not a particularly successful endeavor.
Leaving aside the questionable decision to put a cartoon version of Mildred’s face on the packages- not the most appetizing visage to be sure -It seems the brand failed for other reasons all together.
Initially, sales of Mildred’s Famous products were decent. Most shoppers evidently assumed that they were purchasing common pork sausage that was simply marketed (i.e. those strategically placed quotation marks and aforementioned tag-line) as a novelty product, for a lark as it were. Unfortunately, for everyone, this was evidently not the case.
McNulty’s Butchery Bible explains: “...Mildred’s ‘facial bowel’ was naturally meat-filled, meaning it was not an actual bowel at all. It was simply a long, tubularly shaped, mutational mass. Astonishingly it grew an estimated 167 feet per week and required daily trimming. These trimmings had always been used to feed the dogs and livestock on Mildred’s Ohio farm. With the creation of Mildred’s Famous, however, this excess growth could yield a large volume of both full-sized and breakfast-sized “links” each week. By all reports, due largely to a high fat content and a certain ‘unique tangy flavor,’ Mildred’s ‘sausage’ products were quite delicious.”
Yes, you read that correctly.
Much as I assume you are now disgusted by the thought of Mildred’s “sausage” it seems the meat consuming public of 1978 were not particularly enamored with the thought of digging in to a steaming plate of mutational facial mass either, no matter how deliciously “tangy.” The misconception that these were regular sausages wrapped in novelty marketing was rudely corrected when the photograph below, picturing Mildred and an unnamed assistant in the company kitchen, began circulating.
Unsurprisingly Mildred’s Famous shut down operations in 1979. Whether there were any legal repercussions, or for that matter any investigation into how her “meat products” passed FDA muster, I don’t know. With the closing of her company Mildred evidently sold her family farm and left Ohio. What has happened to her since I have no idea. She’s remained out of the public eye, completely, for the last 30 years. No easy task for a woman with a massive glistening pile of pseudo-bowel on her face.
In any case… yeah.
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