Thursday, May 15, 2014

1944 Seils-Sterling #5


"Elephant truck and "Temple"

This name is new to me, might he mean "Shirley Temple"?
If Jack Joyce was on the show Maybe it's "Lucy".

Posted by Buckles at 5/15/2014 03:38:00 AM

3 comments:

Ryan Easley said...

I can help out here. From several news articles in May of that year, Temple was an elephant that resided at Kansas City's Swope Park Zoo. The 30 year old was to be killed in 1942 for a "bad temper" but former assistant zoo director Ralph Matin bought her for $200. Two years later he sold her to a "Joplin-based circus" Seils-Sterling. The following year she was on Lee Bros. per Bob Cline's records. She died in April 1946.

15 May, 2014 06:38
Ryan Easley said...

The Kansas City Zoo had at least one other elephant names Temple, a male acquired in 1957 from Morgan Berry. He was supposedly formerly named Billy and sold to the Ararat Shrine Temple. When donated to the city zoo he was renamed Mr. Temple. He didn't stay for too long. A July 1959 Billboard ad lists the animal for sale, described as "7-8 feet tall, howdah broken, tame, gentle, must be seen to be appreciated, best offer not refused, formerly owned by Morgan Berry of Seattle." Given the description the animal, this would not be the same Billy in the photo Morgan gave to Buckles of his three act ( Billy, Thonglaw and Belle ) at the Seattle zoo in 1959. I have a hard time believing first - a tame and gentle 7-8 foot tall male Asian and second - if true, such an animal would be sold with "best offer not refused." Sounds like the zoo was trying to get a problem off their hands :) I wish I knew what happened to this animal.

The Swope Park Zoo in Kansas City also had two female Asians names "Ararat" for the same temple. The first was listed in the 1952 Billboard census. I have no further information on her. The second arrived in 1953 from Henry Trefflich. She and another female Asian "Sertoma" left the zoo to Larry Johnson of the Johnson elephant family. I don't know what happened to either of them, unfortunately.

Thanks for letting me ramble, Buckles. Hopefully someone can shed more light on any of these 4 elephants.

16 May, 2014 06:47
Unknown said...

Do you know where she was buried?

24 August, 2017 00:25

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