The year after I went to work for him, he went to Australia and bought a huge shipment of animals from Australia. It came in to New York in two large groups. One ship couldn’t carry ’em all. There was a tremendous number of birds, roughly 100 cockatoos, parrots and… Read More
I was hired by the owner of the Catskill Game Farm, Roland Lindemann. Roland had started, I think he was in the financial business in New York City. His father and mother came over from Germany, retired. He was a pensioner from being a zoo director in Europe. And he… Read More
Tell me about your boss at the zoo. Who hired you?… Read More
I traded the bear, the trained bear cub. I traded it for a group of deer. And I got the deer. I think I wound up with five deer, something like that. And these, I (chuckles), I started a small collection of zoo animals. And I opened a zoo, a… Read More
I visited a place called the Catskill Game Farm. It was an interesting place. We had a son by then. We went back and I bought a bear cub from the Catskill Game Farm. Took it home and trained the cub to let me handle it, put it on a… Read More
Finally I got rid of that. We spent some time in Sarasota, Florida. This was the home of Connie’s parents. Eventually I went back up to the Catskill Game Farm and asked for a job, and was given a job on the feed wagon. The feed wagon was a pretty… Read More
No, not really, but I certainly was interested in elephants. Now we see it. We went ahead and finished the season. We went back to Vermont, back to Bennington, my hometown. I was convinced by my father that I should join him in his furniture manufacturing business. Some of this… Read More
And did that start your interest in training?… Read More
Yes, these were untrained babies or just partially trained. They would follow the leader and follow the two bigger elephants. They didn’t yet know enough about circus life to perform, but they gave the impression of performing. Read More
On the show, the Biller Brothers Circus had five elephants. Three were younger animals. Two were adults. My wife-to-be rode one of the big elephants doing an entrance of the performers and showing the public there the elephants that they were going to see later in the performance. I was… Read More
So is that when you started to have an interest in elephants?… Read More
And I was sleeping there with two candy butchers, and I preferred the elephant feeling me with your trunk than smell of the candy butchers’ feet, which would have been in my face (chuckles) if I chose different sleeping quarters. Read More
I was interested in the animals on the show as I had been the previous year on the first circus band, which I played drums. I was interested in that show, in the trained horses. That show, before we were married, had a horse act that they brought eight horses… Read More
Now when you were on the show, you were a drummer, but did you start to have interactions with the animals on the show and kinda get that you liked them, or how did that occur?… Read More
We’re approaching our 63rd. We’re approaching our 63rd. Yes, this August. Read More
Boy. (laughs) How many years, dear?… Read More
How many years?… Read More
He slid down a 100 foot wire from a pole, turned to somersault at the end, and landed on a sponge-covered pad. This had dawned on me after being on this show for several weeks, it dawned down me that this guy, my God, I saw him when I was… Read More
I applied by telegram from this ad in “Billboard” Magazine. I got an immediate answer hiring me as the drummer for Biller Brothers Circus. Biller Brothers was a good show. It only lasted down the road for three or four years. I was with it the first year. We played… Read More
And then you went to other shows?… Read More