Ah, boy. He was a fabulous man. Elderly. Very, very knowledgeable about wild animals. He had a lot of property. The Catskill Game Farm was hundreds of acres. He originated a horse section, a barn, six or eight chain link fenced corrals, and roughly eight indoor stalls. The Przewalski’s horses… Read More
Then he bought more and started a whole collection of wild horses. It probably was the largest collection of Przewalski’s horses in the world among the horses. Boy, boy, they were tough customers. (chuckles) You never walked into a pen with those animals alone. They would come after you. The… Read More
The farm itself was approximately 1,000 acres in the Catskill Mountains. 200 of those acres were open to the public, but the other animals, like the Przewalski horses, were kept in their own quarters. A large quantity of deer and antelope were in the park and some legitimate zoo animals. Read More
Now they say that Roland Lindemann, your boss who hired you, was quite an unusual gentleman. Read More
And the number that I remember, the first winter, we had to consolidate animals together to keep ’em warm in the Catskill Mountains. We had a barn roughly a 100-feet long and 50-feet wide. That barn held male, only male, red kangaroos. A red kangaroo stands six-feet tall in a… Read More
Do you have any good Roland Lindemann stories?… Read More
Tell me about your boss at the zoo. Who hired you?… Read More
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
We’re approaching our 63rd. We’re approaching our 63rd. Yes, this August. 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