The James M. Cole Circus, Part Two

By Alice Askins, Education Coordinator at Rose Hill Mansion

The Cole Family

 In November 1943, the Geneva Daily Times reported

 Cole, Circus Owner, Inducted Into Army

Penn Yan, Nov. 9—James M. Cole, Penn Yan's 37-year-old circus owner and proprietor, passed his physical examination for induction into the U. S. armed forces in Rochester yesterday leaving Penn Yan with a group of inductees Monday morning.

Cole closed his circus several weeks early this Fall to come home and place his equipment in storage for the duration. He had previously been placed in Class 1A.

Married, Cole has a 3 1-2 year old son.  

You might wonder what the army saw fit to do with Mr. Cole, and in fact it used his experience well.  

Circus Teaches Army Says Penn Yan Soldier In Radio Interview

 Penn Yan, Jan. 17 [1944]—Pvt. James Cole . . . now with a Transportation Corps in New Orleans, Louisiana, recently was featured on a radio program presented by soldiers  . . . over a New Orleans station January 8^th[.]  Pvt. Cole told of the highlights of his career as owner and manager of the James M. Cole Circus  . . . He compared his training methods employed by men of the circus with those of the Army . . .  “In both outfits," he said, [“]it is a matter of drill, drill and more drill until each man or animal learns to do a certain job in split second precision."  Pvt. Cole also made mention of the problem of transportation—that of moving an army of entertainers as well as fighters.  He related that the Army studied the methods adopted by the circus in transporting their personnel and equipment.  Some of these methods have since been used, he said.   . . .   

Pvt. Cole's wife, Dorothy, and their 3 1-2-year-old son, Sonny, are . . .  looking forward to the return of Pvt. Cole when the family plans again to take up their circus life where they left off when Uncle Sam sent "Greetings" to "Jimmy" to become a part of the world's biggest "show.”   . . .

 A year after Mr. Cole left for Louisiana, his wife Dorothy and son came to live near him in their house trailer.  The Daily Times reported

Sgt. Jimmy is in the work he likes and understands—transportation, and no job in the Army has proved any more difficult than keeping a motorized circus on schedule in all kinds of weather and over all types of terrain.  Jimmy . . . is helping the Army maintain the fine job they have been doing in moving men and supplies to all fronts to bring Victory to the American forces and their allies.

In December 1945, the Times observed that Mr. Cole had been discharged, and that

. . . he no sooner had returned home than his workers began to filter back, some like himself, wearing the discharged veterans service button.  A lieutenant of Marines, still on duty in Guam awaiting his discharge, wrote to Jimmy this week seeking a job as secretary.  . . .  A discharged sailor of the Merchant Marine called on Jimmy this week to arrange for a candy floss and novelties concession.  "All those three years I was on board ship - even when the torpedoes were flying—all I thought of was that concession. I figured it all out and the minute I was out of service I bought that candy floss machine and now I'm happy," the sailor told Cole.

It is not unusual in post-war adjustments, Cole says, to find veterans eager to take up circus life.  They are restless, want to be on the move and the bustle of the traveling show business offers them the period of readjustment needed before stepping back into civilian life.  After the other World War, numbers of servicemen joined up with circuses to fulfill the urge to move with crowds.

Though German paratroopers did not rain down on the US, people must have seen images like this.

In The Decorative Arts of the Forties and Fifties writer Bevis Hillier studied the imagery of the post-war period in England, and found that circuses appeared frequently.  He believed that the circus stood for, and detoxified, the image of the army.  Mr. Hillier also argued that toy balloons stood for parachutes (something small, harmless, and fun that goes up, replacing something threatening that comes down,) and that mermaids, found frequently in post-war English imagery, replaced the threat of submarines.  I talked to a friend who experienced the post-war period in the US, and she thought this sounded a bit far-fetched.  She is probably right, but it is an interesting thought.  England, with its very different experience of the war, would have coped with it mentally in a different way than we did.  Still, if American soldiers after two world wars found themselves drawn to the circus – a situation where people and equipment move in organized groups for a purpose, but the purpose is fun rather than killing – it suggests that Mr. Hillier might have something there.  It seems reasonable that we would present ourselves with comforting images after stress and fear.

We do have this Times article about bubbles and balloons from October 1945, that ring a similar note:

 Bursting In Air

 

Don’t be surprised if the next thing is a bubble party.  Or has it arrived, with youngsters blowing bubbles at pedestrians up and down Main street?  Who starts such fads, anyhow? Let there be more, for people need escape from the effects of other and sadder globular bursts in the air.
Speaking of these inoffensive, multi-colored spheres that provide a chuckle even when one bounces on the minister's nose or the teacher’s glasses, is this nation aware of the fact that the children of today have grown up without having had the fun of playing with toy balloons?  Toy balloon manufacturers went to war.  Their products became vital in meteorology and for other requirements of the armed forces.  . . .

It's refreshing to welcome back the legerdemain of bubble-blowing.  . . .   here’s to bigger and better bubbles.

Bowl made in the US during the post-war period.

Dreams Come True: The James M. Cole Circus

By Alice Askins, Education Coordinator at Rose Hill Mansion

While looking for interesting topics from the 1940s, I ran across the James M. Cole Circus of Penn Yan.  This is a little of its story from the 40s, as reported (mostly) in the Geneva Daily Times.

The writers sounded a little envious of Mr. Cole – they always referred to him as a man who had fulfilled his dream.  As the Times put it in 1947,

James M. Cole . . . has the unusual distinction of choosing his life's work at the earliest age on record.  When a little over three years of age . . . his first circus  . . . . made such an impression on his infant mind that  . . . before he was five years old he had formed a fixed determination to travel with a circus.  However, it was not until he had reached sixteen that . . . he joined a travelling show that had visited his hometown.  From water boy to circus owner is a long way and Mr. Cole has seen his dream come true. 

Mr. Cole started his circus in 1938 as an indoor show that played in schools.  In 1940, it started in Penn Yan and traveled through Canandaigua, Waterloo, Watkins Glen, Ithaca, Whitney Point, and Geneva.  The next year it opened in Dundee and went on to

Bath, Hammondsport, Syracuse, Utica, Cortland, Herkimer, Little Falls and several other cities in the Mohawk and Hudson valleys.  After that it went on to schools in New England.

By the summer of 1941, the Cole circus was doing outdoor shows as well as indoor, and the Penn Yan Democrat said that it “has branched out into a canvas show, with a spring and summer schedule.”  In 1943 the show even did a tour through the southern states.

The school shows were often benefits for Senior class projects or other causes, and the Coles continued their good works with the outdoor shows as well.  In May 1947, for example, all tickets bought before circus day in Penn Yan benefitted Rotary Club youth programs.

The Cole circus featured such artists as Miacuha, the Wonder Girl of South America, a wire walker; Millie May, Queen of the Air; Mademoiselle Margurette, an aerialist; the Great Bartoni troupe of bareback riders; the Aerial Smalls, stars of the double trapeze; and Billy Barton, 14-year-old artist of the Cloud Swing.  By 1946, Cole had signed up the Conley troop of bareback riders; Alvarado, the Latin American wirewalker; Capt. Eugene Christey and his jungle cats; and Tama Frank, famed knife thrower

James Cole Jr. with Frieda

Though the circus included a variety of artists, the Coles were best known for their elephant acts.  First came Jumbo, who, the Times explained, belonged to Captain Rudy Mueller and was “the only elephant to appear in a current success on Broadway.”  The show was Billy Rose’s Jumbo, which was later made into a movie.  Based on newspaper account “she can draw herself a drink from a tap, and in fact . . . can do anything she is told to do.”  Jumbo performed with a trained camel named Sanya, a Great Dane named Aster, and a Shetland pony named Prince.  Unfortunately, the paper did not describe the act, only mentioning that it was one of the finest animal acts ever presented.  Jumbo  occasionally appeared in movies, like Elephant Boy with Sabu, and performed on radio where she trumpeted on cue, “sang,” (again, not described,) and did “several other acts calling for unusual animal perception.”

Eventually, the Coles seem to have wanted their very own elephants.  Their first, Frieda, was a veteran of five other circuses and joined the Cole Circus in April 1946.  Not only was Frieda the star of the Cole circus, she was often in the paper.  In October 1946, for example, she led the children through Penn Yan on Halloween. 

“Frieda" . . . will be prima donna of the giant community Halloween celebration and parade planned for the youngsters of the community . . .  [she] will lead the snake dance which is scheduled to form at the Wagner Hotel at 7 p.m. and proceed down Main street . . . With the big elephant will be cows and other animals, and pets of the children taking part. . . .

This sounds like a delightful experience.  Did anyone out there dance with Frieda, cows, and others on Halloween?

Frieda was also a troublemaker.

—Frieda Does It Again—

Elephants Take Moonlight Walk in Penn Yan Streets

Penn Yan, May 27 [1947]—Freida [sic] has done it again.  Or at least [she] is being blamed for an escapade which saw two elephants on a middle-of-the-night parade through the Main street here . . .

Frieda has a known penchant for releasing herself and other elephants of the Cole herd from their shackles, and last night she must have done it again.  Frieda and Dorothy, the circus pet, a 290-pound baby elephant strolled down the street about 2:30 a. m., through the business section from the fairgrounds to the post office.

Then, nonchalantly, they turned around, walked west to Maiden Lane where they were met by the village police officers on duty, Charles Pitcher and Robert Alexander. . . .

Jimmy Cole and the elephant trainer, John Pugh, showed up about then, having missed the elephants from the lot.  Quietly, they herded the non-reluctant elephants back to the fairgrounds.

Frieda once released the whole herd from their shackles, even to carefully removing their head-stalls.   . . .

 At one point the Coles had five elephants, but the ones the papers mentioned most often besides Frieda were Elizabeth and Dorothy.  I did not find much on Elizabeth, but Dorothy came directly from Ceylon at nine months old.   Baby Dorothy was also very popular.  She was billed as the smallest elephant in the circus world, and the paper reported that she searched through peoples’ pockets in hopes of finding treats.  By the time he was seven, James Cole Jr. was working the elephants in their act, and for some years he was “the youngest elephant trainer in the country.”

Coming up next, the circus and World War II.

James Cole, Jr. with Elizabeth, Frieda, Dorothy