The Circus Fire (38 page)

They checked Hartford and St. Francis—no luck—then went back to Middletown again.

The less badly burned were home now. Their family doctors took care of them, changing bandages and applying clean salve. It grew into a routine, mothers walking their children to the offices, followed by ice cream.

One family heard that salt water was good for burns and arranged for their girls to spend the rest of the summer down at the shore. People noticing their livid scars understood immediately.

The country's sympathies were with the victims, and this included the circus itself. The Ringling front office received bushels of condolences, one from a twelve-year-old Richmond, Virginia, boy with a quarter in it. The boy suggested they use it to start a fund donated by all the boys and girls in America who enjoyed the circus as much as he did. "A chance to see the circus is something every boy should have. It is part of the America which our Army, Navy and Marines are fighting for. I am buying all the war stamps I can but don't think Uncle Sam would mind if all children would give to a fund to help bring back the circus so I am sending you 25 cents to start the fund and I hope you will come this way again some time."

James Haley wrote back, thanking him and assuring him they'd be on the road again in no time. He returned the boy's money, saying that if they ran into financial trouble, he'd be the first person they called.

The PR struggle was desperate, but they were winning. Few could hold a grudge against the circus. It was like hating ice cream.

In Hartford, late on Saturday the 22nd, Roland Butler announced to

the Associated Press that the circus would reopen in the University of Cincinnati football stadium on August 2nd for a two-day stand. Sarasota rescinded this statement within hours. Sunday the front office said the new show would debut August 4th in Akron's Rubber Bowl, playing a three-day run, two performances a day, as usual. Monday the show would begin rehearsals in winter quarters.

The carload of Hooper Fire Chief fireproofing arrived from Baltimore. F. Beverly Kelley had prepared a release for the
Sarasota Herald Tribune.
"The assistant manager spent several days in Washington, D.C., convincing governmental agencies of the need of this compound, hitherto denied die circus because of certain wartime priorities," he added. Fire Chief had the consistency of liquid chalk or thick milk. Applied with a paintbrush, it changed the color of the canvas from khaki to a grayish-white. Hooper advertised it as flameproof, water repellent and mildew resistant.

Monday the circus gave a public demonstration of its efficacy. A crowd of circus executives, newsmen, and photographers watched as "for nearly a minute a blowtorch was applied to a section of the chemically treated sideshow tent. As the first flames touched the canvas it began to glow a bright red. . . . When the flame was removed the glow died out, leaving a blackened charred-edge hole in the fabric."

Hooper's chief chemist performed the test. He'd invented Fire Chief in 1936. While all branches of the services had used it for years on truck and lifeboat covers, it had never been available to civilians. George W. Smith told reporters that efforts to obtain the compound had been made as far back as a year ago. Because of government priorities, he said, the circus was unable to get any until these 1,200 gallons were released.

Meanwhile, in Hartford, the policewoman continued to search for clues in the case of Raymond Erickson. She talked with Drs. Weissenborn and Onderdonk, making a list of all boys in that age range. At the coroner's office, she found four brass buttons that seemed to be from Raymond's shirt—though the shirt was nowhere to be seen. The coroner said the city police had taken the clothing from the victims, but the property officer on Market Street only had two scraps of fabric, one red [Eleanor Cook's play-suit?] and one figured. The policewoman checked the funeral homes with the same persistence Emily Gill had, with the same result.

She tried Municipal again. A priest from St. Joseph's also fit Stanley

Kurneta's description. He remembered a young boy, but not well enough to be certain. He'd have to ask a nurse who was with him.

Over the next three days, three more patients died at Municipal, all of them older women, bringing the total to 165.

In Boston, the police commissioner reinstated a police captain who had been the last city official cleared in the Cocoanut Grove case. Prosecutors had charged him with failing to enforce laws with respect to the presence of fire hazards. The club's owner was serving a twelve-to-fifteen-year sentence for manslaughter. While the courts granted another continuance for the five circus fire defendants' criminal cases, Hickey and Healy nursed their inquiries along.

For patients still recuperating in the hospitals, time moved differently. Mildred Cook was still fading in and out. She remembered holding Edward's hand, and then the doctor separating them, taking him away. Vaguely she recalled a doctor coming into the room to tell her something. She knew it would be about the children. "She didn't make it," he said, or was it, "They didn't make it." Maybe it didn't register correctly. She couldn't move. It was dark in the room and then it was bright. Sometimes the hall was loud.

Donald Gale woke up in an oxygen tent, fascinated by the canvas and sectioned plastic panels. Boy, this is neat, he thought; it looks like the inside of an airplane. Outside, inquisitive faces gathered around him. Like Elliott Smith, he'd contracted pneumonia; his parents were afraid he'd die. In the tent, he'd puffed up, grossly bloated with edema—"moon face," the doctors called it. A nurse's aide came in, took one look at him and ran out. He'd been unconscious for three weeks.

The luckier patients were under the care of a dietician, trying to replenish lost protein the body needed to build new tissue. There was no way to do it with regular food; they'd have to eat twenty steaks a day. Mead, Johnson and Company had developed a product called Amigen which did the job, except that it tasted nasty. It came in either a powder or a solution thick as a milkshake, tomato paste red, the taste unsubtly and unsuccessfully disguised with cherry juice concentrate and sometimes a dash of grenadine. Adults couldn't keep it down, and they were serving it to children. The staff couldn't get away fast enough; the kids threw up on their starched uniforms, their nice white shoes.

At Hartford Hospital, because of the rapidly changing techniques of

treating burns, doctors asked patients if they would become part of a study. The patients signed forms permitting them to use their data and photograph their scars for publication in medical journals. After what they'd been through—despite what they'd been through—they were glad to do it.

The circus kept working on their image, Herbert DuVal opening a local office on Pearl Street to process claims and hear complaints. Patrons with tickets for Thursday night's show could exchange them here for cash or have their refund added directly to the
Times
Fire Victims Fund. DuVal also presented the Hartford Chapter of the Red Cross with a check for $10,000, a "small token" of appreciation for all their work.

It was perfect timing. The next night in Sarasota, Friday the 28th, the show performed a full dress rehearsal under the lights. Acts played to just one side of the arena instead of the traditional in-the-round. Three-quarter poles supported the lighting and aerial rigging. The troupe was rusty and tired but good enough.

Having failed to find any more evidence of Raymond Erickson, the policewoman met with Mrs. Erickson one last time. The navy had recalled Raymond Sr. to Gulfport. The officer told Mrs. Erickson that Dr. Weissen-born believed some other family had claimed Raymond. Mrs. Erickson said she didn't want to disturb any of the other parents and that she would be satisfied if the policewoman checked with all the undertakers to see if they had Raymond's clothes. The officer did as she asked, though she knew any clothing would have been removed before the body reached the embalmer's. The net result of her investigation, she wrote, was that though great care was taken in the identification process, some errors had been made. She left the case open. It remains open to this day.

In Sarasota, the circus spent the day at the runs, loading everything to go out on the road again. Sunday morning at 9:00 A.M., the first section left for Akron via the Atlantic Coast line. The flats used to carry the big top, poles and seats stayed behind, cutting the train from seventy-nine to sixty-eight cars. The show traveled in three sections, the second riding light. Canvas and seat personnel shifted to other departments, easing the labor shortage.

They made two feed stops en route, the first early the morning of the 31st in Atlanta, letting the elephants and horses off to dip at the tubs and tanks.

While the train waited, a reporter collared May Kovar and quizzed her about her heroics.

"If you'd ask me now what I'd do in case of fire," she said, "I'd duck, and quick. But I didn't. I don't know why."

A day later they stopped in Cincinnati, shooting to arrive in Akron August 3rd for a one-day rehearsal at the Rubber Bowl. The show would be the same basic program they last performed the night of July 5th in Hartford, with one notable exception—there would be no clown firehouse.

_A
ugust-December, 1944

The Blue Heaven Circuit, as the newspapers called it, got off to a bad start in Akron. As they arrived at the runs Wednesday morning, George Smith realized the flats with the wagons were facing the wrong way for unloading. That section had to swing north fifteen miles to another yard at Hudson, Ohio, uncouple the flats and reattach them.

Since the fire, John Ringling North had been sniping from the sidelines, saying he'd told the current administration since the beginning of last year that shortages and war regulations made it foolish if not dangerous to take the show on the road. He questioned the intelligence of going back out now—a position that worried receiver Edward Rogin. The only way to pay the claimants was for the circus to tour and make money. If North took control of the show again, he might let it sit in winter quarters until the war was over. It seemed that Aubrey Haley and Mrs. Edith Ringling—the two halves of the Ladies' Agreement—would honor their debt to the survivors, but North played hardball, and it was clear he didn't consider the fire his business.

Robert Ringling accompanied the show to Akron, riding in his private car. From the empty stands he oversaw the set up with Smith, wearing a pink shirt and making small talk with performers. The Rubber Bowl sat tucked into a hillside by the airport, and workers stood gawking at the parade of planes. The famous Soap Box Derby course ran down the hill. They raised the newly fireproofed sideshow tent by the stadium's main entrance. The layout was strange, and it took them till midnight.

The next day they rehearsed the entire program twice without costumes, the women in bathing suits and shorts, the clowns doing their walkaround without makeup. In the afternoon, while May Kovar was running through her routine, a black panther swiped a paw at her and tore her baggy shorts. She rapped him with her wand and backed him onto his stand. Outside, hundreds of spectators pressed against a wrought iron fence to catch a free peek. The late rehearsal took place under the stars. Satisfied, Robert Ringling sent his troupe to bed around midnight.

The circus was so intent on doing well the next day, so isolated by their work, they never heard the news—as Hartford did—that Janet Moore Sapolis's grandmother died. Martha Ann Moore was sixty-five and strong enough to overcome her burns, but developed a strep infection in her leg that proved to be both penicillin- and sulfa-resistant. She was victim num-

ber 166. Janet, who wasn't allowed to visit her in the hospital, saw her at her funeral.

That week the Hartford Police and Fire Departments played a benefit baseball game, donating the $3,000 in proceeds to the
Times'
Fund. The papers said little about the circus, content to let the issue rest.

Friday the show went on. Legend is, Emmett Kelly always painted a tear under his left eye after Hartford, or a dot to signify his grief. He would be doing that now, getting ready in the dressing rooms beneath the stands (plush compared to the dressing tent; no more bucket baths!), except that photos from the era show Weary Willie with neither a tear nor a dot. The legend, irresistible to newsmen, was untrue. Kelly was more pragmatic. "We must forget the fire. We must entertain. In wartime, it's more important than ever. It's going to be great in the open air."

It wasn't. Weather for the matinee was threatening, and like any heavy manufacturing center, Akron was busy. On top of that, the Rubber Bowl was seven miles from downtown, the bus line running by it was strictly for defense workers, and the city was in the midst of a polio epidemic. A pathetic crowd of two thousand showed up, seeming even tinier in the vast arena. The airport was distracting, and the band didn't carry well outside. The evening show drew sixty-five hundred, but a sudden downpour spoiled the opening. Later a full moon rose over the Bowl's rim, but the tone was set for the stand. Saturday rain stopped the show twice. They played in a steady drizzle and ended up cutting two numbers. Spectators huddled under sopping newspapers. In the papers the next day, Robert Ringling jokingly announced the show would follow baseball's policy. If they hadn't completed half of their twenty-two displays before the rains came, you got a rain check—not a reassuring proposition.