Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Diamond O Ranch #4


Circus Fans Gerry and Kaye Scheiman took this picture 6/31/74 at what looks to be the infield of a Fairgrounds. First elephant in the ring is former Dailey Show elephant "Tommy" wearing the "Diamond O" headpiece and presented by Lee Keener.
By this time the Diano independent act consisted of six elephants "Tommy", "Calcutta", "Mysore", "Dolly", "Minnie" and "Tony" (a young male).
I never could have made sense out of this picture had the Scheiman's not written on the back "Morgan Berry and Eloise Berchtold elephants in the background".

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gerry and Kaye took photos of me in 1975 with the Suesz herd, Mary, Sue, and Marge--the only elephants I ever worked--and with the seven tiger act. They were expert photographers, and I prize their shots of my work as among the best I've had taken.

GaryHill said...

Buckles do you know if Tommy was as large or larger than Tusko or Black Diamond? Thanks, Gary

Anonymous said...

That was one big Elephant! Biggest I ever saw. How big was he?

Anonymous said...

The 2 elephants in the rear of this piciture do belong to Morgan and Eloise. They are Tunga with the tusk and Raunchy. We went out with the Hamid Mortorn show that year.I'm sorry that I can't tell you the location of this piciture. This being because I spent 5 months in the hospital that year. Do to being ran over by the herd in Kansas. Thats all I can remember Morgan did tell me that they ran and it was bad. I joined my grandfather back on the Polack Show in Walla Walla Washinging and finished the year workings props and driving a truck for the show.

Anonymous said...

You sure had a lot of bad luck getting swueashed by elephants. Did you ever think of changing your line of work? Or at least train to run faster. Running shoes might have been a good choice of wardrobe in your case.

Anonymous said...

Didnt Tommy become Ringling Bros. ,"King Tusk" during the 1980's?
I hope you also wont mind me answering a question,but AL .G Barnes "Mighty Tusko" was much larger,he was 10 feet 2 inches tall at the shoulder and weighed over 7 tonnes(measured by CFA,circus fans about a couple of years before Tusko died at the Seattle zoo in the early 1930's.
Black Diamond was the second largest elephant in the U.S.A when Tusko was still around.
R.L