Monday, November 21, 2005

Circus World Museum 1960/ "Bertha" #1


Rebecca Apponey mentioned visiting with Jenda Smaha at Baraboo.
This is what she saw.

Posted by Buckles at 11/21/2005 06:26:00 AM

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

mornin buckles, Welcome home Barbque at the "Gibtown Club" was great yesterday, Looked like an elephant man convention. Bill Morris, Billy Morris, Terry Frisco, Joe Frisco, Roy wells, Lance Ramos,and Jim Elliott (with 2 t's)wish you and the colonel coulda made it ! Lee

21 November, 2005 07:19
Buckles said...

The two worst ass chewings I ever got in my life were at the Gibtown Club.
Once from a bar maid while attempting to buy a drink for my wife and the other while trying to buy a ticket for the Extravaganza. Nuf Ced.

21 November, 2005 07:58
Anonymous said...

Buckles,
Could you provide a little history on Bertha. Was she owned by Jenda? Where was she before CWM? It appears that she was a great performer and "politician", doing all the pulbic relations work at the Nugget.

21 November, 2005 08:34
Anonymous said...

Buckles I was there in the late fiftys. 57 I think. Its amazing how many circus places I visited and not actually see a show. Too busy gabbing back stage. I think I actually learned more that way. Back then I kept my eyes and ears open and my mouth shut. Making up for that now.

21 November, 2005 10:19
Anonymous said...

I can not remember the name Bertha, was there another elephant at this time also? Tanya maybe?

21 November, 2005 12:23
Buckles said...

Jenda once told me that Bill Griffith (Adams Bros. Circus) hired him early in 1958 and sent him up to the Carolinas to pick up an elephant he had bought from an animal farm (Bertha).
He said it was in the dead of winter and on the return trip and in a blizzard, the the driver lost control, let the truck slip off the road and roll over.
Bertha was camparatively unscathed but she had fallen on the groom, Red Trower, who received a broken arm and internal injuries.
Now here is Jenda standing on the side of the highway with an elephant he had only seen for the first time the day before. They both walked for what seemed to be miles until they finally, half frozen, came to a Truck Stop where they let him keep Bertha in the garage until they got a rental truck the following day.
When Griffith sold the show in 1960, Wilbur Deppe bought her and she was presented at the Museum until he fianlly sold her to the Nuggett in Sparks, Nv.

21 November, 2005 14:23
Anonymous said...

Gene Garner and I had to put the Paul and Dottie Kelly elephants in a service station during a blizzrd in Michigan. Those three elephant stripped that station to the walls. Thank goodness it was an abandoned building. We should have been payed for the demolition.

21 November, 2005 15:27

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