Page 3 July 2010
An Elephant's Buried In Wallingford. What???!!! Continued from Page 1
CELEBRATIONS
The Tin Knight and Dragon battle in the Rockies on our recent trip there. Submitted by Barbara N.
CELEBRATIONS
One of the Mills Bros. elephants, possibly Miss Burma, performing circa 1950 The Morning Record dated July 2nd, 1953, reported this: "'India,' one of the performing elephants of the circus, died Monday night after the evening performance and was buried Tuesday on the former local airport property." I was able to verify her date of death as June 29, 1953, on an elephant site I went to, and it said she died of a heart attack. I have no idea how old she was. In the article from 1980 entitled "Excavator recalls burying a visiting circus elephant," it said, "60 people, mostly children, gathered at the South Cherry Street circus site to watch the marvelous beast be lowered into a hole 15 to 20 feet deep." The article also mentioned, "Despite a plea in 1955 for a headstone marking the remains of the largest animal ever buried in Wallingford, Miss India's grave is unmarked." That's kind of sad. Two sentences in the Morning Record article of 1980 caught my eye because they were not correct. I didn't know this immediately until I dug into things a bit. "The tents were set up for the next day's performance in 1953 when Miss India died during the night. In true circus tradition, the show did go on, but without the youngest member of the Mills Brothers' 40-elephant troupe." Well, the show was always set up in the morning on show day and was torn down at night, and you know now that she died after the evening performance, but 40-elephant troupe? Not possible. Through my travels I was able to determine that the Mills Brothers more than likely had a total of 9 elephants at that time, which included Miss Burma (the Republican Party mascot), Minnie, Bunny, Jenny, Lelabardi, Lena, Dixie, and Miss India. I am missing one name, but it's close to complete. I found out from Jerome Jacobson that one of the slogans used by the Mills Brothers was "40 tons of elephants!" which makes a whole lot more sense than 40 elephants. My friend Kathy only remembers Barnum and Bailey coming to town, but there were other circuses which came through here, including the Hunt Brothers, King Brothers, Hills Brothers, Cole Brothers, and probably many more. A little interesting note before I continue, Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus was one of very few circuses that traveled by train.. The vast majority, including the Mills Brothers, traveled by truck. I found a website called winterquartersltd.com, and Bruce Johnson posted these memories of the Ringling Bros. on his website: "One of Bruce Johnson's earliest recollections was his mother calling him to the front yard on an early July day in 1944. The railroad tracks lay down the hill about a quarter mile away. The view of the passing train was like seeing so many colorfully wrapped Christmas presents being paraded before his eyes. It was the great Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey circus train, en route to Hartford, Connecticut. He pleaded with his mother to take him to Hartford to see the show, scheduled for the next day. But it was wartime. Gas was expensive. And Daddy had to work. On July 7, exceptionally bold, black headlines covered the front page of the morning paper. A month after D Day, everyone was accustomed to bold headlines. But this was different. The circus had burned to the ground, costing 168 lives, mainly women and children... Long recovered from the fire, Ringling played Wallingford, Connecticut, his hometown, for a couple of seasons a few years later. The magic of transforming the nearly abandoned airport near the town dump into a huge, magnificent wonderland in a single day, only to disappear the next day, was incredibly fascinating... Whenever possible, Bruce was there as the magic unfolded on some dusty empty lot." In the Wallingford Post dated June 10, 1954, I read this: "If you set your clock for about 4 a.m. this morning and headed for Wallingford Airport, you would have seen one of the traditional scenes of the United States - the circus coming to town. Arriving in town in gleaming cars from their last stop in Waterbury, the Barnum and Bailey, Ringling Bros. Circus unloaded car after car of animals, and early risers on Cherry Street could see the elephants plodding down to their station at the airport." In my mind, I was assuming they were unloading the cars at the railroad station, which is close to South Cherry Street, but, no. There was a freight station located on North Cherry Street, built in 1910. The building is still there. I took a drive to check it out. You can see a picture of it on page 54 in "Images of America, Wallingford." Let me tell you, it was not a short walk from there to the airport. In the 1980 article there is reference to the burial site of Miss India. "It is buried 100 feet in front of one of the two hangars left over from the Wallingford Airport, Audisio said. The tusks were removed before burial." Just as a side note, female Asian elephants frequently have no tusks at all, but when they do, they are so small you can only see them if they open their mouth, so they probably were not very big. But where did they wind up? In that same book, "Images of America, Wallingford," on page 60 it says, "One of the hangars is still used as a storage building by the Wallingford Electric Division at the corner of John and East Streets." By the way, it was the Lufbery Airport named for Major Raoul Lufbery of World War I renown. So is the remaining hangar the one Miss India was buried in front of? Kathy has promised to take me on a walking trip to the spot, as she says she remembers exactly where it was. She and a friend of hers had made a makeshift cross and placed it on the grave along with flowers when she was perhaps nine years old. This is really a story about Miss India, who found her resting place in a most unlikely location, our fine town, and there are probably a lot of Wallingford residents who have never heard about her. I think it's about time that she gets the recognition and place in history that she deserves, and that a proper headstone be placed at her grave. Yes? Photos courtesy of William (Buckles) Woodcock and Jerome Jacobson. By Barbara Sherburne - barndt49 @yahoo.com In memory of Miss India, I submit this story to Andy Reynolds, by sheer coincidence or synchronicity, on June 29, 2010, exactly 57 years after the death of this marvelous creature. EXTRA! IMPORTANT NEWS ABOUT MISS INDIA IN THIS ISSUE!
Hey A! Please use one of these anytime you are near the stove!