Nuts in the family tree
Part of the reason I'd wanted to go the Ringling Museum last week was to find information about my great grandfather. Like the old cliche, he actually did run off and join the circus.

Well, technically he started in a Wild West show. Mom has very little information because he was something of a verboten topic when she was growing up. You see, my great grandad left my nana in 1903 with a three-year-old (my grandmother) and an infant (Great Uncle Bob). Though he had primarily worked as a tailor, great grandad was a horse enthusiast and loved training animals. He initially ran off to work as a horse trainer in a Vaudeville-era Wild West show.

What happened with his career over the next 20+ years is something of a mystery. We know that after divorcing my nana, he married a trick rider. She apparently kept up a correspondence with Great Uncle Bob's family. In one postcard, dated 1929, this second wife mentions having dinner with the Ringlings at their mansion in Sarasota and being glad they joined Ringling Bros. Circus in 1928.

The only thing Mom and I found at the circus museum was a 1929 series of headshots of all the circus employees. We spend about a half hour poring over the somewhat grainy shots and narrowed it down to one man who looked most like the photos we had of great grandad.

Mom had chatted with an archivist from the museum before I went down and did get a little more information about his life before Ringling Bros. The archivist uncovered a mid-1920's playbill from a smaller family-owned circus that listed great grandad and his second wife. Surprisingly, she was not merely a bareback rider, but also a trainer of "liberty horses" (riderless animals that perform to whip cues). Great grandad had an act called "football horses." I'm hoping to discover more from the links provided by the nice Ringling Museum archivist.

For now, I know for sure that I have horses in the blood! :-)