Wednesday, June 10, 2009

From Jim Cole


scan0004, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

In recognition of Clyde Beatty's 107th (?) Birthday. This photo came from the archives of Illinois State University.

Posted by Buckles at 6/10/2009 07:15:00 AM

12 comments:

Ole Whitey said...

We may never know for sure about the birth year.

I recall Bob Good telling me that he and Mr Beatty had discussed the fact that they were the same age. I wrote his son this morning and he verified that his dad said they were both born in 1903. If the two men had discussed this it suggests that Mr Beatty himself said 1903.

Some years ago I discussed the question with three of Mr Beatty's sisters (now all dead) two of whom said 1903 based on how much older he was than each of them; the third was not born until after he left home so it was just hearsay in her case but she also thought 1903 was correct based on what her mother had told her.

His first wife once told me they were born the same year and her social security record says she was born in 1903.

Of course there are other dates in print which I always attributed to the circus press corps wanting to make Mr Beatty appear younger than he was; after all he was billed as the Ohio Schoolboy for several years.

Anyway, regardless of when he was born it is fitting that we pay tribute to him on his birthday, which I believe all agree was June 10th.

My father was still bragging on his deathbed about seeing Buffalo Bill. But I can say I saw the greatest showman of them all- Clyde Beatty.

10 June, 2009 13:51
Buckles said...

My dad was considered something of an old man right from the start.
Despite this, he pointed out that having been born in 1904, he was younger than both Clyde Beatty and Arky Scott,

10 June, 2009 17:23
Dick Flint said...

I, too, am glad that I can say I saw Beatty perform several times--and even got my picture taken as I collected his autograph at the door to his Airstream! However, at the risk of stirring up a hornet's nest on this blog--and as dear a respected friend as is Ole Whitey--as an historian with the long view, I think your Dad has one up on you in seeing the greatest showman. Buffalo Bill's fame was world-wide and he created a virtually new entertainment form. But no doubt, both were SHOWMEN and each generation is privileged if it sees even one of their stature.
Dick Flint
Baltimore
P.S. By the way, this is a great photo (rivaled only by one on the cover of Bandwagon about the time he died! Jim, thanks for unearthing and sharing it!

10 June, 2009 20:48
Chic Silber said...

For some rabid fan or collector

I have a few Beatty artifacts

that Red gave me after Beatty

was gone (if I can find them)

such as gloves (he had small

hands) & ???

I was fortunate to work on

the show starting in 61 and

had a few opportunities to

get to know him as I was able

to do little projects for him

He was mostly a very private

fellow that could turn on the

charm for the press

He was a very hard working

performer who always gave the

public a terrific showing

even well into his illness

10 June, 2009 23:01
Roger Smith said...

There need not be a remaining question about the birth year of Clyde Beatty. It is nailed down as 1902 by the same information available to anyone via the International Genealogical Index for North America, for Ohio, for that time frame. We have the date. There really is nothing left to question, considering, as previously noted, his passport and Social Security documentations. Besides, when Jane Beatty interred her husband, she had to have had the core paperwork of his life in order to arrive correctly at the birthyear to put on his marker. As we see it coming to fact, it was 1902, like it says where the man rests in eternal peace.

11 June, 2009 01:29
Anonymous said...

As usual, Ole Whitey is right. There's a letter from Beatty to Dr. Mann of the National Zoo in which Beatty asks him for help getting a passport. He gave Mann his birthdate and I remember it was 1903.

11 June, 2009 16:00
Ole Whitey said...

Thanks, Anonymous, for trying to help but the letter you mention has the 1902 birthdate. I wish that letter had not ended up in Baraboo, not because of the year of birth question, but because for reasons of his own Beatty gave some other misinformation in the letter which has found its way into the research of many who have seen the letter and thought it to be the whole truth. I imagine this is the passport application referred to earlier.

Apparently there was never a birth certificate issued for Beatty or at least none has ever turned up to my knowledge, meaning that virtually all of the sources that have been mentioned are based on what someone said years after the birth occurred.

Beatty himself probably gave Social Security the 1902 date, but then he gave others at various times too. The Mormon researchers likewise, unless they discovered a birth certificate that no one else knows about, took the word of someone who had arrived at the 1902 date sometime after the birth took place.

11 June, 2009 18:51
Anonymous said...

Is this photo from the collection that Svere Braathen gave to the University of Illinois? He hated the CWM so much, that the state of Wis. never got anything of his, as far as I know.
He and his wife went to Baraboo every weekend that they could get away and cleaned out the office, (late 20's and early 30's) as that was the only way many of the RBB&B items could have been saved.
My dad was friends with them and got a few of the papers that they saved.
Bob Kitto

11 June, 2009 19:15
Ole Whitey said...

Bob: This is a still from "The Big Cage." Illinois State got material from several collections but I doubt if this originated at the Ringling quarters.

11 June, 2009 19:57
Fred Pfening III said...

Bob Kitto's comments are interesting about Braathen. I remember years ago Braathen expressed concern that because Baraboo was so off the beaten path that no one would come there to do research. Why Normal, Illinois is less off the beaten path escapes me. Braathen indeed got a lot of material out of the old Ringling office on Water Street. It appears the building and its contents were abandoned in 1918 when the Ringling show went into Bridgeport at the end of the season. In the early 1930s Adolph Andro bought the building, and I think it was at that point that Braathen and Baraboo Bill Kasiska (and others to a lesser extent) loaded up on Ringling records. I have the Kasiska material and have gone through the Braathen collection about four times, and my sense is that Kasiska got more material, although Braathen certainly acquired many significant items including the bill of sale of Forepaugh-Sells to the Ringlings from Mrs. Bailey, about a dozen Barnum & Bailey daily income and expense ledgers from 1908 to 1918. and hundreds and hundreds of letters, many between the brothers and many touching on significant events. It's an important collection to be sure. In a weird twist of fate some of the Braathen material ended up at Circus World Museum. Sometime in the 1980s a person from Madison came in to the library and presented the museum with perhaps a hundred letters from the Ringling files, including many of significance. Turns out that this person had bought Hallie Oldstat's house in Madison and found them in the house. Hallie and Mattie had been very kind to both Bex and Fay Braathen in their later years, and he had given this material to Hallie as a thank you. Many readers of this blog will remember Hallie. He was one of the group of fun-loving circus fans called "The Wild Ones." Others in the group were Ben Kronberger, Whitey Savage, Doc Boyle, and Paul Ingrassia. One last comment: In 1922 the pioneer collection Walter Scholl of Chicago wrote Charles Ringling about the possiblity of going to the old office in Baraboo and acquiring some souviners. Ringling wrote back that it was fine for Scholl to do so, but to set aside what he wanted and he (Ringling) would look it over and if he didn't want it, Scholl could have it. Scholl got some primo stuff: the agreement to buy the Carl Hagenbeck show in 1907 that didn't go through, correspondence with Adam Forepaugh about buying rail equipment, and best of all, about 50 half and one sheet posters, all from the Courier Company in Buffalo. Scholl was boom and bust guy, and assembled and had to sell off about three collections. In 1938 he was hard up and sold Burt Wilson, another Chicago collector, his Ringling posters for $5.00 each. They are worth more than that now. In truth, I suspect that, although a lot of Ringling business records have survived, most of the records were destroyed.Sorry to ramble on. I hope this isn't too boring.

12 June, 2009 12:28
Ole Whitey said...

I met Walter Scholl through circumstances unrelated to all this. In his youth Scholl had been a hot-air balloonist playing fairs and he was aware that an old timer in that field had promoted what was later said to be the first air mail flight from Nashville to a nearby town, I believe Gallatin.

Stamps had been printed up showing the "Buffalo" balloon. A sack of appropriately stamped mail was taken aloft and then tossed out at like I say I believe it was Gallatin. Today these stamps are great collectors' items.

Anyway Scholl came to Nashville back in the fifties and talked some of the locals into having a celebration to commemorate some anniversary (100th?) of the event and I recognized his name from credit being given to him for a Barnum portrait in the E C May book.

I introduced myself and we had a short conversation about collecting circus material. Very interesting guy but of course I didn't know what questions to ask him.

12 June, 2009 13:48
4pawfan said...

Alot of the Walter Scholl collection turned up on e-bay about 7 or 8 years ago. The CWM was given the chance I believe to purchase material that they needed before it was sold. It had gone to his sister, and was sold after her passing. He also had a great deal of Buffalo Bill and other Wild West material that did very well on ebay. I purchased some of the circus material and ended up with a couple of boxes. Some of it junk, but also some interesting material. In the bottom of one of the boxes was all this ballon material. I never knew of his hot air balloon days before finding all of this.
Thanks to Fred and Dave again for filling in the blanks.
P.J.

12 June, 2009 19:09

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