Thursday, January 17, 2008

Bowmanville Zoo Elephants #2


Elephants2, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Posted by Buckles at 1/17/2008 05:53:00 AM

9 comments:

Pat Cashin said...

I enjoyed working with Louie tremendously.

I might be wrong, but I believe he told me that he was related to Ringling clowns Marcos Drougett and Zavatta.

Whichever two it was, both died several years apart from the same thing: mosquito bites.

I have my friends on various shows but when it comes time to belly up to the bar and hoist a few I always seem to enjoy hanging out and cutting jackpots with the elephant guys.

~P

17 January, 2008 07:09
Anonymous said...

I think Drougett was Zapata's grandfather. Not sure about Marcos, but I heard from Johnny Peers years ago (he and Zapata worked together on Vargas & Ringling) that Zapata had cancer when he died.

-Greg DeSanto

17 January, 2008 11:53
Casey McCoy Cainan said...

Mr. Cashin,
Few are the animal men (Elephant specifically) that let a vexing detail, such as a 5:00 am call, bring a premature arrest to "happy jackpot hour" Many are also "gifted" in the art of prevarication, which makes their stories more exciting usually.

17 January, 2008 13:26
Buckles said...

I always used to say that if I ever had the time and money to visit Europe, I would prefer to send Bobby Gibbs and have him tell me about it.

17 January, 2008 13:36
Casey McCoy Cainan said...

Mr. Woodcock,
You read my mind on that. I nearly used Senio'r Gibbs as an example. He could really tell a tale. I must say my first actual "visit" to a "donkey sale" in the rio grande valley, was quite a let down, after having heard Bobby's version's of how great it was "below the border".
I am sure he is still telling the Greatest Exaggerations ever, on the big lot in the sky.

17 January, 2008 14:23
Roger Smith said...

There are several accounts of James A. Bailey dying of a tropical bug bite to his nose, but I have not read that it was a mosquito.  Can any of our historians be more specific?

Roger Smith

17 January, 2008 19:40
Anonymous said...

It would be a lot of fun sometime to put together a web page with a Bobby Gibbs audio archive.

17 January, 2008 20:34
Anonymous said...

The death of J.A. Bailey and its surrounding circumstances were recorded some years later by his nephew and frequent managerial assistant, Joseph T. McCaddon, in a hitherto unpublished biography of his uncle. This account is remarkably candid about some small, personal habits of Bailey as you will discover and so I think it is a fair appraisal that we have describing the circumstances of his death on April 11, 1906, three months shy of his 59th year (I have corrected some small errors for ease of reading):

The original Madison Square Garden…was poorly designed for any purpose excepting a convention or the Annual Horse Show, and we dreaded the season there as it was a drafty old barn and severe colds and other ailments usually affected many of our company in the early spring and the imperfections of the plant was the prime cause of the death of Mr. Bailey.

To definitely establish the facts of Mr. Bailey’s death…I was going to Asbury Park to spend the night…at the house of very dear friends of mine, the show was about ready to…open [when] I stopped at the Garden to tell Mr. Bailey my plans and as it was about noon, he took his staff as usual to lunch and excusing himself for not sitting with them at a long table, he and I sat at a small side table and talked of several business matters and that was the last time he was to even recognize me. I left on the afternoon train [for Asbury Park] returning the following day arriving at my home in Mount Vernon about six pm to be informed by the sister who made her home with me “Uncle Bailey” as the children all called him had become very ill about five am and the house was filled with doctors and nurses. As his home was only a short distance away I was quickly there and found four doctors and four nurses, my brother in law in charge, and even in the brief time of ten or twelve hours his…mind was wandering.

For some years Bailey had a bad habit of plucking the hairs that grow in the end of the nostrils as one grows older and occasionally would cause a slight sore to form, and erysipelas had started in his nose and was spreading rapidly around both sides of his head and after that was under control, a second attack appeared on his right elbow and that caused his death within five days.

Two eminent specialists…were at the house daily, and… Experts of various kinds came out from the city to make various tests and they reported him in splendid condition, except for the virulent attack of Erysipelas…within a few hours after the beginning of the attack he never at any time was rational. According to the medical men he had undoubtedly picked up the germ from the air in the Garden [for] every Spring in the preparation of the Arena we were compelled to have hauled from two to three hundred cart loads of clay dirt and…as our season usually began in March when the frozen dirt was hauled in and spread over the arena the warm air would thaw the frost from the dirt and it would require a day and night to dry it out and in the beginning it would be quite soft and muddy as Mr. Bailey was always a great and active detail man, during the day of the soft dirt he would wear a pair of galoshes and would probably cross the arena many times, and the medical men decided some of the frozen earth was infected and he had picked up the germ in that way…

…when he passed quietly to sleep…, I was standing in a connecting doorway and when the doctor motioned to me I walked in and stood at the foot of the bed as he breathed his last and thus passed to his long last rest a great and indomitable spirit.

17 January, 2008 22:55
Anonymous said...

Reading accounts of Bailey's death never had a clue as to the actual cause. Erysipelas doesn't really explain it either, strep, a skin infection? McCaddon says he wasn't lucid, but that the doctors could find no illness other than the strep infection. Sounds like he wasn't running a high fever. Have to wonder if maybe it was a cerebral aneurysm?

18 January, 2008 02:13

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