Friday, November 09, 2007

Bill Woodcock #2


Scan000010405, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

This is a practice session at Terrell Jacobs' place at Peru, Indiana in 1944.
Dolly Jacobs and Bill Woodcock with "Empress", "Modoc" and "Judy".
The pusher is Jess King and Don Kidder in the background leaning on the cage.

Posted by Buckles at 11/09/2007 06:07:00 AM

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

do you have more photo from this time and WQ.

David P

09 November, 2007 08:46
Bob Cline said...

Terrell Jacobs had Japinal in 1943 to 1945. If she isn't in this act was she just a display animal, used for rides, used in the Lion on elephant routine, or anything else?
Bob

09 November, 2007 08:50
Buckles said...

Mr. Jacobs bought "Jap" from World of Mirth in 1942 and sold her a year later to Ben Davenport. During this time she did nothing other than cause trouble.
She loved "Modoc" but despised "Judy" and one day knocked her completely out of her chains.
"Jap" was very big and I recall once when they were loading the elephants into a baggage car at Bunker Hill, the ramp collapsed when she was half way in.
My dad backed her out and then had to use a bull tub to load her which turned out to be a very lengthy ordeal.

09 November, 2007 10:03
David said...

I read a book recently written by Ralph Helfer that is supposedly based on a true story about an elephant named Modoc. She came from Germany with a trainer named Bram. Identities of people and circuses were changed, but it was obvious by enents related that Modoc & Bram were supposedly with Ringling. Is there some truth in the book or is it all fiction?

09 November, 2007 10:12
Buckles said...

Mr. Helfer's book is 90 per cent imaginary.
The Ringling Show had three elephants named "Modoc" over the years and he wound up with the least noteworthy of the three, "One-eyed Modoc".
Her assumed age came from "Little Modoc" who went back to the Baraboo days at the turn of the century (his elephant was imported in 1922)and it's unlikely he ever set eyes on the long time RBBB feature "Big Modoc" unless he bought a ticket.
The Bram business is complete trash.

09 November, 2007 10:43
Anonymous said...

Ralph Helfer(postumously),
Read unidentified #4!!!!!!!! I tried to tip you off!!!!
Wade Burck

09 November, 2007 11:01
Anonymous said...

my simple opinion on the matter of Ralph Helfer and having the misfortune of meeting the man and all those phony ass animal training school that he and another partner of his name larry jeffries are as conderfate as yo can get them . thats just my simple opinion and i take total responsbilty for this statement . CleanRaul ps mention them to me and good way to get me rang up .

09 November, 2007 11:45
Anonymous said...

One day my wife, Cyndi, brought her new sea lion intern over to the elephant barn to meet "Panya" and "Jean". The young lady was very excited to tell me that she was reading "Modoc". "Really", I said. Cyndi elbowed me in the side, hard. I asked her later what that was about. She said, "At least let her finish the book before you crush her and show how you elephant guys are."

09 November, 2007 12:25
Anonymous said...

calm down Raul not good for your high blood pressure to get rang up .

09 November, 2007 17:12
Anonymous said...

Ralph Helfer was just coming up as competition to Jungleland during my time there. They claimed, as did Ivan Tors, their practice of de-clawing, de-fanging, castrating the males, and juicing the movie cats with narcotics as the new "affection school of training". Those above describing the Helfers as phony and counterfeit, did not, in my opinion use language sufficiently strong, but this they were indeed.

Then, the wife, Toni Ringo Helfer, wrote a junk book, "Gentle Jungle", in which she trashed our Compound.

She denigrated Benny Bennett for being covered with gore after hours of cutting meat in our slaughterhouse, telling us Ms. Helfer never cut a side into feeds.

She excoriated Mabel as, among other things, crude, coarse and hateful, which proves she made the ultimate mistake of running up to Mabel demanding to know how to train tigers and saying she wanted to do so. That was the assured way to have Mabel blast you into another time zone.

The Helfers were indeed phony, surgically altering and juicing animals and trying to keep it mum, when we all knew exactly what these people did. Nothing about them can be respected, then or now.

10 November, 2007 01:18
Anonymous said...

Thank you Roger and others for telling it like it is. Here on the other side of the world we've got to read between the lines sometimes and I've read a lion book and an elephant book by Helfer - neither of which rang true. Nice to get the true version.Steve Robinson.

11 November, 2007 04:31
Anonymous said...

Having spent time in Ca. Myself I found All the things said about the Helfers are true and you could find more. But I did not know Larry Jeffries to be hooked up with Helfer. I first knew of Jeffries getting run out of NY, then Ca, then Texas. Jeffries was just another con man of about the same time. We called him Capt. Fish, in the beginning, because of the trail of fish he would use to try to get some trained sea lions he bought to the ring. The last I heard of him he had an aligator park in northern Fl. when he was in an auto accident that left him in a vegitative state

11 November, 2007 21:11

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