The 1940s appear to be a time when Bee Ho was slowing down significantly. He continued to perform and get requests for bookings, though the venues seem to be smaller and his name doesn't appear as large in the advertisements. Ada, who was thirteen years older than Bee Ho, was now in her late sixties. She died in Winona, Missouri where they were living on their small farm.

I recently acquired a scan of the Iron County Register dated Thursday, November 28th, 1940. The headline reads, “Mrs. Ada Gray, Wife of Bee Ho Gray, Famed Performer, is Dead”. I made two interesting discoveries in Ada's obituary. One is that Ada Sommerville’s real name was Ada Hulen because the newspaper states, “Mrs. Ada Gray, nee Hulen, wife of Bee Ho Gray, famed rope artist and circus performer, well known to many of our people, died in Winona, Mo., on Thanksgiving Day at the age of 68 years, 1 month and 1 day, after a very short illness." If my calculations are correct, Ada was born on October, 21st, 1872. The other important discovery is a mention that Bee Ho had performed for at least four US Presidents.

The photo below is a wallet size print. It has been folded across the middle and is in
very poor condition. On the back Bee Ho wrote, "Two of our pet horses. Ada and myself spinning a rope. This picture is not good of us but all I have at present."