Saturday, November 26, 2005

Wallace Bros. Circus 1952/ Arumi Singh


I have had several inquiries about Arumi Singh.
Ben Davenport sent Louis Reed to India twice to bring back baby elephants for Dailey Bros. Circus. In 1947 he brought back seven and in 1948 nine but surprisingly on each occasion he included a hand full of Hindi elephant men. Smokey told me that they were all pretty good hands.
Singh came with the second group and was unique since he spoke fluent English but his experience with animals was minimal as he had been mostly a Tour Guide in India. So almost eveything knew about working cats, elephants, etc. he learned here.
This picture I scanned from the 1952 Wallace Bros. program, the show was owned by Davenport. Singh has since settled in Chicago and has become a successful businessman.
He used to come to the Sarasota Circus Festival regularly.

1 comments:

Ryan Easley said...

Buckles,
A. Singh is listed with 'Dolly' with the Greater American Free Circus in Dawson Springs, Kentucky, in the 1969 AB census. Can you tell us which Dolly this was? I -think- this Dolly was acquired from the Brookfield zoo in Chicago in 1965.