Infant who survived in 1920s Coney Island sideshow incubator dies at 96
February 24, 2017 By Frank Eltman Associated Press
FILE- In this July 22, 2015 file photo, Lucille Horn stands on the boardwalk outside her home in Long Beach, N.Y. Horn who weighed less than two pounds at birth and wasn't expected to survive, lived nearly a century after her parents put their faith in a sideshow doctor at Coney Island who put babies on display in incubators to fund his research to keep them alive. She died in New York at age 96 on Feb. 11, 2017. AP Photo/Frank Eltman
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MINEOLA, N.Y.— Lucille Conlin Horn weighed barely two pounds when she was born, a perilous size for any infant, especially in 1920. Doctors told her parents to hold off on a funeral for her twin sister who had died at birth, expecting she too would soon be gone.
But her life spanned nearly a century after her parents put their faith in a sideshow doctor at Coney Island who put babies on display in incubators to fund his research to keep them alive.
The Brooklyn-born woman who later moved to Long Island, New York, died Feb. 11 at age 96, according to the Hungerford & Clark Funeral Home. She had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.