08/01/2026
August 2026 Lion's Gate
In South Carolina, Ella Williams was one of the first free-born babies, in 1865, to parents who had just been emancipated from slavery following ratification of the 13th Amendment. After recovering from malaria in her teens, she experienced an extraordinary growth spurt. Some accounts give her adult height as 6 feet 7 inches, others say 6 feet 10 inches. In 1896, she began touring as a singer with showman Frank C. Bostock, who rebranded her as “Madame Abomah”, crafting a backstory linking her to the Dahomey Amazons – adding further mystique to her exotic presence. For her first tour, he booked her in the British Isles, advising her that she would find more success abroad, avoiding not only American racism, but also competition from another “Singing Giantess” also named Ella -- Ella Ewing, a white lady from Missouri, if you can imagine a stranger circumstance.
For 30 years Madame Abomah performed across Europe, South America, the Caribbean, Australia, and New Zealand, and with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, doing shows in the U.S. during World War I. The Halifax Daily Guardian, 8 September 1914, described her as “a majestic figure, perfectly symmetrical”. In England, her shows were seen by hundreds of Britons every day, and when city theatres had her appear twice daily the weekly total audiences would be at least twelve thousand. In later years she also worked as a nanny. The London Daily Mirror published her photograph holding hands with a small child, from a news reel film of her arrival back in London, on 16 February 1914, selling a million copies of that edition.
Lions Gate also signifies the ‘marriage’ of Leo and Virgo and the birth of the divine child. I imagine that no child could be safer than under the protection of Madame Abomah. Even the lions are impressed.