#Larry #Kellogg #Road #WorthPoint
Photo courtesy: Larry Kellogg
How do you say “goodbye”? It’s never easy. In the circus world, after the show has closed and the season is over, you say, “See you down the road.” And that’s what I’m saying to you today. This is probably my last article for WorthPoint.
On September 21, 2023, my wife and I celebrated our sixtieth wedding anniversary, so you can see I am up there in years. Our honeymoon was spent in Sarasota, Florida, taking in all the circus sights. I’ve loved the circus since childhood and wanted my new spouse to understand all that. Back then, I didn’t know I’d be blessed beyond belief to be able to work in and around circuses most of my adult life.
Early in my career, I befriended the curator of the Circus Museum at The Ringling in Sarasota, Florida. So began sixty years of involvement with the museum as a volunteer, researcher, and consultant, which continues to this day.
In the early 1970s, I began a thirty-five-plus year association with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, much of that time as a regional publicist for the show in central Florida. There was even a year-long stint as communications manager at the show’s Circus World Theme Park near Disney World. When WorthPoint went online, I signed up to be a Worthologist specializing in circus memorabilia.
Circus publicists like to say, “There are 1,001 stories under the big top.” I’ve told many of those stories to newspaper writers and TV and radio personalities to get advance coverage for Ringling. Those stories have also been the subjects for many of the seventy-plus stories I’ve written about circus collectibles for WorthPoint.
One of my favorite WorthPoint stories was about elephants. As part of the story, I related a problem I faced in 1998. That year, the Weekend Entertainment section of the St. Petersburg Times was to be published on Christmas Day. I would be competing against all the usual holiday themes. But I really wanted that cover for the circus.
Back then, you could walk right into the newspaper office and go directly to an editor’s desk. There were no security guards to stop you. So, I decided to plead my case in person. Looking the editor in the eye, I shared my concern about a circus photo not appearing on the Christmas Weekend cover. He grinned, never missing a beat, and said, “If you can get a photo of an elephant wearing a Santa hat, I’ll use it.”
It only took a quick call to the prop department and the scheduling of a photo shoot. We got the cover.
The story first appeared in the WorthPoint Blog on September 7, 2010, then repeated on March 5, 2018, when Ringling phased out elephant acts. And yes, I really do love elephants. They are amazing animals.
Photo courtesy: Larry Kellogg
Photo courtesy: Larry Kellogg
The first article I wrote for WorthPoint was “Is That Old Circus Poster You Found Authentic or a Reproduction?,” posted on November 3, 2008. It was so popular that I did an update seven years later: “Is That Old Circus Poster You Found Authentic or a Reproduction? More Answers.” We received so many replies about the articles that I wrote an additional article about the comments. And the comments continue. In September of this year, a circus fan discovered the original article written fifteen years ago and posted a link on Facebook with this comment: “Great article!”
Thinking about the seventy-plus articles I’ve written for WorthPoint, three really bring back fond memories because they are about a dear friend, Charlotte Shive Maxwell. She spent so much time with our family that our kids called her Aunt Charlotte.
In 1917, when she was attending nursing school, Barnum & Bailey Circus came to town. This was before Barnum & Bailey and Ringling Bros. were combined. When the show left town, Charlotte went with it. She ran away, joined the circus, and remained a performer for twenty-some years.
Photo courtesy: Larry Kellogg
Charlotte was never a star—she was a showgirl. But she learned to fly on the trapeze, hang by her teeth, and ride in the parades. She became close friends with big stars of the day, such as Lillian Leitzel and Alfredo Codona.
My first article about Charlotte was titled “Fascinating Story Behind Antique Sunburst Circus Wagon Wheel.” The wagon wheel mentioned in the article was shown in a St. Petersburg Times article about senior citizens and their collections.
Photo courtesy: Larry Kellogg
Charlotte was a goldmine of circus stories. I wrote another story for WorthPoint about her experiences with the Ubangi tribe, featured in “The Circus Fraternity: My Friend Charlotte and the Ubangis.” The Ubangi ashtray and Ubangi bracelet shown in that article are now in the Circus Museum collection at The Ringling museum in Sarasota, Florida.
As mentioned above, Charlotte was not a star, but when the show featured living statues, she was in charge of the act where the performers were painted to look like statues. The third WorthPoint story about Charlotte was “Memories of a Life in the Circus—Odds and Ends from the Big Top.” The half-gallon jug of gold-colored dust used to paint performers and the bucket owned by Art Concello shown in this article are also in The Ringling Circus Museum collection in Sarasota, Florida.
One other WorthPoint article also stands out and has ties to the articles above about Charlotte Maxwell. In 2006, The Ringling Circus Museum at The Ringling opened a major expansion, the Tibbals Learning Center, which includes Howard Bros. Circus, the largest miniature circus in the world. The article “You Too Can Be a Circus Owner” gives details of Howard Tibbals’s model circus.
I worked with Howard Tibbals for a year during the installation of his model circus. The detail of his miniature is awe-inspiring. During the installation of the show, Howard had a tray with hundreds of tiny buckets ready to place in the dressing tent. Each bucket had a performer’s name on the side, just like in the actual show. Examining the buckets more closely, I noticed one with the name C. Shive. I was stunned and told Howard, “I know C. Shive. Her name is Charlotte Shive, but she wasn’t a star. So why did you make a bucket for her?”
Howard told me he used a 1936 Route Book, which listed every worker and performer in the show that year, and he made a bucket and trunk for every performer. When Howard Tibbals finished installing the dressing tent in his miniature circus, he made sure that Charlotte’s bucket and trunk were prominently displayed for everyone to see. Whenever I take people on a tour of the model, it’s something I always love to point out.
Photo courtesy: Larry Kellogg
I may be retiring from WorthPoint, but I’m very excited that my friend Chris Berry will be taking over writing about circus collectibles. Chris will also write about magic memorabilia.
Chris Berry is the Vice President of the Circus Historical Society and is a serious collector of circus lithographs and other circus collectibles. He has an extensive knowledge of magic memorabilia because his father, Dick Berry, a.k.a. Marko the Magician, was a professional magician. When Dick was young, he and later his wife, Phyllis, were assistants for Harry Blackstone Sr. and his “Show of 1001 Wonders.” I look forward to reading his WorthPoint articles.
So, now what are my plans? I’ve placed the bulk of my circus collection with Freedom Auction Company in Sarasota, Florida, which will auction it off during Circus Week early in 2024. My wife and I will move to Tennessee in December to live near our youngest son and his family. We look forward to new adventures, but “We’ll see you down the road.”
Editor’s Note: Take some time to enjoy all of Larry’s articles that he wrote for WorthPoint. What a treasure trove of circus memories!
For more than 50 years, Larry Kellogg has done research projects and consulting work with the Circus Museum in Sarasota, Florida, part of the state-owned John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. For over 35 years, he worked with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, much of that time as a regional publicist for the show. One year of that time he was Communications Manager for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus World Theme Park in Central Florida. Larry has been interested in and has collected circus memorabilia since he was a young boy.
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