Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Six Flying Wards (From Mike Naughton)


Six Flying Wards, originally uploaded by MarkJespersen.

From Hagenbeck Wallace Shows 1914. Eddie and Jennie began performing for the great Ringling Brothers' Circus in 1906. With the exception of the 1907 season, which they spent with the Van A mburgh Circus, Eddie and Jennie were with the Ringling show through 1912, performing a swinging ladders act as well as their double trapeze. A double trapeze consists of one trapeze hanging above another. From this the aerialists perform a series of contortions, flips, and drops and catches. The act was performed without a net or safety device of any kind. At the height of their career, the Wards' double trapeze performance consisted of eight or more stunts, and took seven minutes. Two of their stunts, the foot-to-foot catch and the break-away trick, were said to be innovations of the Wards.

On August 19, 1911 the Billboard magazine reported an incident which occurred in Grand Island, Nebraska with the Ringling Brothers' Circus:

Miss Jennie Ward, one of the Flying Wards, high trapeze artists with Ringling Bros.' Show fell from the top of the tent with the afternoon performance last Thursday. Since the team worked without a net of any kind, she fell with a great force to the ground, and is said to be probably fatally injured internally.
Jennie had fallen flat against the ring curb (the wooden circle which makes up the circus ring) forty feet below so hard that her neck actually split a two-by-four in half. But the report of the seriousness of her injury was premature. Jennie did recover from the effects of the fall, which her brother, Eddie later said (May, Earl Chapin, Grab It, American Magazine, July 1928) had left her back bowed like a horseshoe. She treated herself with a grueling and painful form of physical therapy, pulling herself up every day on the tent ropes. "It was punishment of the toughest kind," Eddie said. Within a year Jennie was working in their aerial act again.

In 1912 Eddie married Mayme Fay Harvey, a young woman with the Hines-Kimball troupe of acrobats; and Jennie married Alec Todd, an aerialist with the Herbert Brothers act. These four would make the nucleus of the original Flying Wards flying return act. In a flying return act, one trapeze artist (the flyer) stands on a narrow platform, and swings off on a trapeze bar (the flybar). He is caught by another aerialist (called the catcher) who swings by his hocks from another trapeze (the catchbar). The two complete their swing and the flyer is returned to the pedestal board by way of the flybar.

The Wards left the Ringling show in 1912. They toured Europe with their new act and returned to America, having recruited new people to the act for the 1913 season. In 1913, the Wards built a practice barn at Center Point, Iowa. The Center Point barn was hardly used, for in about 1915 Eddie built another barn on Emerson Street in Bloomington, Illinois. It was here that the Wards established their permanent winter quarters. From 1914 until 1918 the Wards contracted to provide their flying return act for the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. The winter of 1916-1917 they also toured Cuba. Early one morning in June of 1918, the circus train in which the troupe was riding was sitting on a siding at Ivanhoe, Indiana when an empty troop train rammed it from behind at full speed. Eddie, Mayme and Alec survived the wreck, but Jennie and another girl with the act were killed. Eddie had pulled Jennie out of the wreckage, but she was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Family members state that Jennie was pregnant at the time of her death. Other fatalities of the wreck, burned beyond recognition, were buried in a mass grave. Jennie was returned to Bloomington and buried at Park Hill Cemetery.

Eddie and Jennie Ward had begun an unparallelled tradition of aerial training in Bloomington, Illinois. In the early years, Jennie helped to establish a standard of excellence which carried over through future generations of trapeze artists. As time went on Eddie trained dozens of the fine

8 comments:

Mike Naughton said...

I found the article above on the Internet; I'm not the author.

Can anyone verify this information--Billy Ward clowned on Ringing (that part I know is true) and was found dead in the building's shower the morning after a performance.

This was told to me 30+ years ago so the details may be murky.

I think Billy's photo is a few photos below with the three men in the center and Billy on the right.

Buckles said...

Other familiar faces in that 1931 photo are Harold Ward and Wayne Larey in the center with Eilene Voice and Mayme Ward in front.

Mike Naughton said...

Correction-I meant is that Billy Ward in the 1931 photo with the four men and Billy (?) on the right.

Anonymous said...

I'm quite sure that is Mayme Ward on the left. John Herriott, would you agree?
Dick Flint
Baltimore

Anonymous said...

Let us not forget the Ward tie to Baraboo, when is was still in High School and the Baraboo Band played in the Circus Parade, Mayme was the wardrobe person at Circus World in the early years and she was the one responsible for the outfitting of all the participants with her staff during the Schiltz Circus Parade years in Milwaukee. Well as a "punk" I had to be fitted for my band uniform and we did it at Mayme's house on the back side of the Museum. This was my first "run in" with Mayme. As one might say she could chew and spit we the best of them and if you did not watch out and you came in the front door with the wrong attitude or question you could be seen "flying" out the back door. She was a great ole girl and part of the legacy of CWM and all it's special people. Sure glad to have known and experienced this special person. Ralph from Baraboo

Anonymous said...

Steve Gossard wrote an extended article about the Ward flyers. It's in Bandwagon, Nov-Dec 1986 issue. He's also written about other flying acts and his book on the topic is the best thing in print.

Anonymous said...

By the time I first met him, Billy Ward was clowning for RBBB, in 1960 for sure, and maybe as early as 1957. I cannot confirm the circumstances of his passing.

Roger Smith

Anonymous said...

Eileen last named was spelled Voise not Voice...