Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Dailey Bros. Circus 1949 #1


SAVE2925, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Letter from Bill Woodcock (2-13-60) to Homer Walton

"You asked about the age of that Tommy bull. First time I saw him was 1948, 12 years ago and he was quite small. I just went through a box of Dailey pix, looking for a shot of Charlie and Tommy, harnessed as a team with elephant hand John "Sweet Pea" Lehew.
So, taking the long view, lets say 12 years ago, his maximum age would have been six, hence I feel sure he is no more than 18 today and quite probably a year or two younger than that.
You will note the other young male, "Charlie", Ben sent him with Gran Circo Union in 1951. Tom Inabinette tells me he has been dead some time now.
A man named Morgan Berry, or Barry, around Seattle has one or two male elephants. I don't know much about this. I think he imported my bull "Sadie", originally for the Ward-Bell Circus. Would like to know what part of the Far East she comes from. If you write Slim Lewis, mention this."

Posted by Buckles at 6/06/2007 06:32:00 AM

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looking at this photo reminded me of an interesting incident with Rex Williams on the Vargas show. We were building up the big top on a soft lot in Costa Mesa, and the dog boy decided he would cut through the big top stakeline, with the fifth wheel trailer that carried the three ring dog display, to get to the backyard. He promptly got stuck in the middle of our operation, after chewing him out good, I sent him to Rex for a harness bull, knowing full well that he would hear an earful. Not to disappoint, we hear Rex at full volume " blank you dog boy". I then went over and asked Rex if he would hook up and move the trailer, so we could spread the top. He pulled the trailer just past the stakeline, at an angle, thus throwing off the detailed layout of the backyard, and this is where it set for the entire run. Rex and I got a good laugh out of this, but since the dog boy was Mr. Vargas's snitch, we later heard about. Rex used up to six harness elephants to move our seat trailers at times. Erik Jaeger

07 June, 2007 11:33
Anonymous said...

Richard Reynolds asks - -

Is that Tommy on the camera side of the team?

If so, I assume Charlie is the one behind him.

The text is not too clear on this.

07 June, 2007 21:38

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