Friday, December 15, 2006

Since it's ladies day on the Blog!



Buckles, I found this photo at the Sarasota Circus Flea Market. I'm sure there is one more elephant in the ring that is out of camera range. This must be at Eloise & Morgan's property in Woodland, WA. (Jimmy Cole)

(Mr. Berry's place was on top of a mountain, my first thought was that I owe Ken & Nicole in the Garden and Carson & Barnes in Mesquite an apology. This is the smallest audience yet.
They must be out back somewhere taking publicity pix. Love that ring curb tho.) Buckles Posted by Picasa

Posted by Buckles at 12/15/2006 09:33:00 AM

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great photo and certainly a tribute to Eloise. It enlarges beautifully on my screen. Once again it reminds us of what a great person with animals she was and the marvelous training she did marching to her own drummer.

15 December, 2006 09:52
Anonymous said...

Two great elephant trainers. Both killed a few weeks apart by their elephants. They might not have been the shiniest of stars in the ring, but their animals sure were. I will respect and admire Eloise till I take my last breath. She gave me a life for the circus. She was the most beautiful human being I have met or ever will meet.

15 December, 2006 11:50
Anonymous said...

"The tuskers of Thailand" went the announcement. Last time I saw this bunch of wooly mammoths was at Marineland in Niagara Falls, Canada. Eloise came in and showed at the park before the Hamid show winter route closed and the tigers and elephants could arrive from that show. I did not realize the size those tuskers had gotten until the Hamid herd arrived in the barn next to them

15 December, 2006 20:54
Anonymous said...

They did have a few problems keeping the elephants in the ring once in a while!!!!

15 December, 2006 21:33
Anonymous said...

The first sighting:
The year was 1968, it was a short jump from Teanick New Jersey for Don Fransisco to Portland Or. with one pit stop on the James Bros. Circus. I beleive Mr. Woodcock was there. As we arrived in Portland,for the opening of Circus Maximus, we pulled up by the animal tent and out came D.R. Miller, Freddy Logan, Bobby Gibbs, John Carol, Robert Dale Kline and Albert Austarmyre (The Horse Guy). That morning Steve Patton got dismissed and I became the low man on the elephant crew shovel list. Never the less the following day some folk came to visit I was introduced to this bunch, It was Morgan Barry, Smokey Jones and crew I tagged along to the zoo and got to see a one horn beast by the name of TongueLau, The breading male at the portland zoo. The following day was a trip to Morgans place when the Tuskers of Thailand were all little tykes. They had an elephant tub made that was oblong, about six feet long by three feet wide. All the punks would back up to it and situp at one time. There were two barrells set on end, two of the bulls hopped on top of them did a handstand and got off them tipped them over and walked the barrells across the ring, without the assistance of prop men. Kinda neat. Smokey mentioned he had seen Jewels Jocot do a variation of that trick with lions,so Smokey put it on the punks. I got to meet Jewels a few years later. Time past by and down the road I visited Rudy Jacoby's show, Max Craig troupe with their ganoco liberty act, Tibor Alexanders dog act, My first meeting of Ada Smeya tiger lady, and of course Eloise. I saw the elephant act it had a larger version of the oblong tub, but the barrell trick was absent. The mentioning of this went over about as well as a First of May crack, all in all the act was quite neat. She was using five males and one female asian. A few years later, again I worked with Eloise on the Hubert Castle show. Morgan was with her, she had five male asians, one african male, two female africans, and one asian female. Quite a heard to go down the road for her. Saw her then again at Marineland, she had four asian males at that time. I believe the last one of these elephants I've seen would have been Sahib, a fair sized boy under the direction of Horatial C. Craig aka Bones. Who also had Eloise's bull truck at that time.

16 December, 2006 02:23
Anonymous said...

this piciture was taken at the county fairgrounds in Springfield Ohio,in late May of 1973. We laid over for an entire month after we finished some spring Castle Shrine dates, before we joined Rudy Bros Cirus for his summer dates starting in boston Mass. The elephants picitured here are Tie, Buddah, Teak and Raunchie,Tunga is not picitured. we gave a small show for a local circus fan club.The ring curb was made of house siding boards held togeather with some rope laced through drilled holes. All it did was rain.

16 December, 2006 23:56
GaryHill said...

Capt, didn't the ringcurb in the far backyard at CW look like this one?

18 December, 2006 08:37
Anonymous said...

To Anonymous,
It's great that you could name those boys. After an extra cup of coffee I recall the year I visited Rudy's show had to have been 70' or 71'. I was showing Kenny Wood park in Pa. at that time, I might add Rex and Ava were also visiting. As I almost purchased a young leopard from him. Prior to Hubert Castle's Indianapolis date I was at an elephant farm in Wisconsin. When it came to elephants I was climbing that mighty ladder of knowledge. Along with greats like Whitey, Shorty Shears and Buffalo Bob. As J.C. would put it an artist with a shovel! Never the less, I recall discovering the inconvenience of ivory on a bull elephant close by a cage full of breeding chimps! It was great inspiration to steer clear of critters with or without ivory at that time as i have no recolection of any of Eloise's elephants names. Down the road a bit I was also showing Kenny Wood park again when I recieved an emergency phone call from Herta in regards to Eloise.

20 December, 2006 14:34

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