Louie Louie DelMorel with Nina, Viola, Libby
Ila, and Isa in the photo above, who Vincent suggests were the two elephants testing the fence in the clip I posted a few days ago, and not Barbara as was suggested.
Alta
Lilly
Margaret
Isa, Lilly, Alta, Viola, and Margaret were babies about mid chest high when I took them to Mexico City in 1975 for Atayde Bros Circus. I have pictures someplace of Margaret and I one the 5 floor of a TV studio where we were doing publicity. Being young and ignorant (as opposed to old and ignorant. There I beat everybody too it. LOL) I loaded her into an elevator that was available. It seemed a better option then walking her up 5 flights of steps. I wasn't aware of how an elephant will sometims react crossing a bridge, or stepping on something that moves like a scale. The only thing kept me from being crushed when it started raising was I was able to jump up on the railing and hold onto the grate on the ceiling. The door opened in to the studio and Margaret and I kicked through shit and piss and made our triumphant first appearance on Mexican television. I had on white pant's and a tan shirt and years later when my sons were looking at the 8X10's they asked why I wore dirty clothes to a tv show. I told them they were clean before we got on the elevator. When we were finished taping that trusting little baby followed me right back into the elevator for a bunch of bananas, and we repeated the process going down, which scared her worse then going up.
A few months prior to this I had picked up 3 other baby elephants Obert(who became their breeding bull) Kelly, and Tracey and presented them on Clyde Bros Circus for a short time. This was in the mid 70's when Carson and Barnes had 47 baby elephants(and 3 adults and a young African named Paula) on their show all between the ages of 3 and 6. In order to tell them apart as there were so many, they stenciled their names on their foreheads with white spray paint. 3 long picket lines of baby elephants. A sight which will never be seen again.
Courtesy of Vincent Manero
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Carson and Barnes Elephants
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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19 comments:
Got a letter from Matt Borque last night
, who saw Louie last week in Lafayette,LA and he reports that Nina is pregnant!
Joey,
Louis Louis just got back from his honeymoon. Are you sure Matt didn't misunderstand who was pregnant? LOL Just kidding. If Nina is pregnant that's good new's for Carson and Barnes. Their births have been few and far between the last few years.
Wade
I may be mistaken but was the breeding bull at Carson and Barnes not named Obert?
Wade
Is this the same Nina that was on John Strong's show?
If so, is she regarded as being old for a first time pregnancy?
I was told there were 2 Ninas .If that is true she is Nina # 2. When David Rawls started the new Kelly Miller in the 80's, he bought the tent ,maybe some trucks and Nina from Big John Strong,oh yes and Zippo the Clown came along too.Well that is the story I was told. At any rate Nina is, I believe "oldish" and isn't it true there has to be some activity with a male to get pregnant ?I guess we can call it breeding.
Rebecca Ostroff
Wade,
You switched Alta and Lilly pictures...
Vincent
Steve,
Yeah, she is the elephant from John's show. She would be in her late thirties to early forties. There was a Nina before her on John's show that was sold to Pat Darby who would be about 10 years older but she died in a fire many years ago. I would be surprised if Nina is pregnant, but I guess anything is possible. I was sitting at a table next to Tim in the diner yesterday but the subject of elephant pregnancies never came up. I will try to get a conformation today or tomorrow.
Wade,
I think the Obert you knew died pretty young. The breeding bulls for C&B in the last 15 years have been "Buke" (sired Jenny and another calf that died immediately after birth at Bucky's) "Hank" (sired the current Obert and a still born I think) and now "Tommy" (who sired Val) Tommy was originally called Mickey when Gopher owned him and he was a Busch baby. Now that they are breeding in house instead of taking elephants to the males the success rate should go up. Loading up an elephant and hauling it to Bucky's or Riddle's meant only trying one elephant every few months, now they have the cycling dates pretty much down, and can just send the females in with Tommy rite on the property.
Casey,
Don't forget one was also brought to Hawthorn for breeding.
Did Obert and some other elephants drown in a gravel pit after a runaway in 1983? That was sent as an anonymous comment, and I wanted to confirm before posting.
Wade
Yeah, the gravel pit is the story. I didn't think any others died then, just Obert, but could be. I didn't count the Hawthorn bull cause there was no birth.
Casey,
It must have been a great fall. Was he not able to swim?
Wade
Wade, The elephant Obert that went over the cliff into the water was the lead in a herd of 5. They were running so fast that they didn,t see the edge in time and went over on top of each other,about a 15 ft drop. 3 females landed on top of him. Oberts neck was bent to the side. It looked he died instantly.The last one was trying to follow but the boys got a chain on her and finally got her tied to a tree. 2 swam across right away and found a small edge to get on and one was floundering trying to get her breath, she kept floating over on her side.Bo ( a handler ) was going to jump in to save her. I thought that might be to dangerous for him so I ask him not to,but instead to throw things at her to aggeravate her into getting her breath. It worked and she swam to the ledge.Whitey coaxed her up the hill to saftey. theres more but I might save that for my book. Joanne
May 13, 1982, Sallisaw, Oklahoma for Obert's gravel pit death. The other four runners were recovered, not all of them fell off the drop-off which was about 25 ft. down. It was a miserable day, it poured down rain, and unknown to D.R. Miller until the rain started, the show was set up on a landfill. All the trucks sunk about 3 ft. in the muck. A real bad day.
JoAnn,
How are you doing? Was Margaret one of the elephants that ran that day?
Wade
Wade, No, Margaret was not in that herd. It rained all day on show day but this happened the next morning.The herd was loaded with an entire circus set up around them and when they tried to pull the truck out they pulled the axel out. So it sat over night, Elly was in the truck with them. They brought an empty truck back from the next lot to load the elephants in. When they unloaded them in the middle of an empty lot with no circus around them they spooked and ran. Elly however,being an old pro ran straight to the waiting truck, popped the bullboards and went in. The sun was out that day.We were broke down and had been pulled to the front of the lot to take care of our repairs that is why we were still there. There is more but I have to save something for that darn book. Joanne
JoAnn,
Do you really think they duffered because they were on an empty lot without the circus? When those 5 little snots screwed on me in 1975 we were at Hugo at the winter quarters. They ran right past the elephant barn, and didn't even give it a second look. Or maybe Isa and Lilly didn't see it, and that's what they ran all over the state of Oklahoma looking for for 2 weeks. LOL
When you write your book, are you going to mention the crush you have had on me for years, and how some goofy sense of loyalty to PeeWee is the only thing that has kept us apart? Or is that just between you and I?
Be safe, and give PeeWee my best. How is he getting on with the "theatrical set" by the way? That has to be as hard as a fish riding a bicycle. LOL
Wade
It's in PeeWees contract that he can't cuss here. Joanne
Did the research on pregnancies. Nina is NOT pregnant. Liby is a possibility.
My brother, "Zippo T. Clown" was with the Kelly Miller Circus. And he was with John Strong. He passed away on May 25, 2009. He was living in Woodward, OK, and working for Summet Laydown Services. He had been away from the circus for awhile. He drove big trucks before he settled down in OK. I will miss him very much and would love to hear about him.
Did you ever write the book? I would be interested to find it.
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