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The greatest show on Earth

Guest Column

Editor’s Note: The following is a column written by a former Webster City resident, Lyle Spencer. Spencer, who now lives in Goldfield, shares his memories of the day the circus came to town.

The announcement of the closing of Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus has prompted me to write a nonfiction story about the one only time I experienced an actual encounter with a real live circus. Although it occurred over 70 years ago, I remember it like it happened yesterday.

My father, my younger brother Dale, and I had just moved to Webster City on Groundhogs Day 1945 as WWII was coming to a close. We had left our farm near Churdan, Iowa after our mother passed away with breast cancer and rented a rather large house located at 846 Water Street, just a block west of the new gym. Just around the corner to the southwest on 916 Elm Street, a new family under the same circumstances had just moved into town. Mrs. Moberly had recently lost her husband to cancer. Her two boys, Dean and Mervyn, were exactly of the same ages as Dale and me, 11 and 13 years. They came to town bringing along their huge yellow farm cat. We had done the same with our cat except our cat had a superior name–Snooks. The name was acquired from the very popular WHO radio show of the early 1940’s called “Baby Snooks.”

On a very humid morning in the early summer of 1945, a train rolled into Webster City carrying a complete circus encampment of live exotic animals, care takers, and equipment. Dad had told Dale and me we should get up early and walk down to meet the arrival of the train. We did not make the train but proceeded to walk about one mile east of town on old Highway 20 where the circus was to erect the big tent and make arrangements for the scheduled evening performance.

Once we arrived, we and four or five other kids were presented the opportunity to gain free admission to the show by helping with the rising of the big top and the inside bleacher area. It turned out to be a bigger job than we could have imagined. Just to be around several large elephants and at least one caged, striped tiger was a whole new experience. On hand also were a number of trained ponies and dogs not to mention three or four clowns.

Sometime during the day, our new friends Dean and Mervyn appeared along with a few of our other new school friends from Washington Central. The day went very quickly and at show time we were escorted to our less than choice seats to see the show. The grand opening featured three rings of entertainment; the center ring displayed a huge elephant with a pretty young girl riding on his shoulder. As I recall, we were given hot dogs and a soft drink for supper. A Hershey, Mars, or a Milky Way candy bar would have been great, but because of the war time shortage of sugar, they were in short supply. Later when they did become available only one per kid was allowed to be sold.

At dusk, the show was beginning to wind down and early preparations to dismantle the big top began to occur. It was interesting to watch the elephants remove, pick up, and pile the large tent poles, some a foot in diameter and over 25 feet long. Soon, our dad arrived and took us home to our new residence on Water Street.

The day after our big time at the circus, the Moberly kids, Dale, and I went back to the now vacated circus area and with old potato sacks gathered all the empty pop bottles in sight. They were then biked downtown to a restaurant located across the street from the old teenage leisure lodge and sold for two cents apiece.

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