A Circus Fire Survivor's Story
by Bob O'Connell
Seventy years later, July 6, 1944 and those days immediately following still rank, if not first, certainly among the most harrowing of my life. In the Hartford Circus Fire I lost three family members, Eveline, (my mom,) Doris Jean, (my sister), and Aunt Annie, (my great aunt and provider in part for my father's education); only Daniel O'Connell, (my grandfather) and I survived the fire.
PART ONE: THE BACK STORY
(You may skip this section, if you wish, and go straight to the fire itself)
To put the story into context, I feel it necessary to begin with a bit of genealogy, introducing the four characters who were there with me at Barbour and Cleveland Streets in Hartford that fateful day. Pardon me, if these first paragraphs bore you, but it may help explain the scars that remain even now. If you so choose, jump on the train and ride along with me, as we relive together what led up to those critical days.
On my mother's side, the heritage is 100% French Canadian, reaching back to the 1660's when the King of France decided to populate New France with an alternative to missionaries, fur trappers and native Americans. The “King's Daughters,” as they were called, included impoverished and orphan girls, rounded up, provided with attractive dowries and shipped off to New France.
In the mid 1800's the Hebert, Durocher, Daigle and Breault families, seeking opportunities, journeyed separately from towns south of Montreal, some just across the border from Vermont, and crossed into the United States. All settled in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where almost every one worked in the mills. There my maternal grandparents, Josephine Durocher and Celestine Breault, married and suffered the loss of their first-born in infancy. After the births of their second and third children, Celestine, who had become a shoe clerk, died. Following an oft-used French custom, his only brother, George, who had previously lost his wife, married Josephine to provide for the widow and the two orphans, my Uncle Leon and my mom, Eveline.
My mom, Eveline Yvonne Breault, born May 25, 1912, growing up in the French-Canadian enclave of Woonsocket, spoke not a word of English till she entered school and recited the Pledge of Allegiance, not understanding the words. In both school and church the only language was French. Mom's piano talent led her in 1930 to the New England Conservatory of Music, in Boston, where she polished both her artistic and linguistic skills.
On my father's side, it's 100% Irish, the McAvoy, Burns, Dwyer and O'Connell families all left Ireland, settling eventually in Thomaston, CT. Our great grandfather Garrett Burns died two months before my grandmother Delia (“Nana”), the youngest of four, was born. Her sister, our “Aunt Annie” Burns, was only two years old and soon to be crippled by polio. Their mother, Julia McAvoy Burns, now widowed and supporting her family as an Irish washerwoman, soon needed the help of all her children, especially when she developed cancer. At early ages all were forced to leave school. On her death bed, she made the children promise to take care of one another. By then the two young girls were working at the Seth Thomas factory, where they both received company room and board. My great aunt Annie, the older, more experienced, received 50 cents per week because she worked in the watch factory, while my grandmother “Nana” in the clock factory received not a single extra cent. Aunt Annie's pay through many following years would ultimately help buy a house for four, financially assist my dad, but ironically also lead to her demise.
Meanwhile back in Tipperary, Ireland, the O'Connell clan, impoverished, with their farm too small for the growing family, emigrated with three of their children also to Thomaston, Connecticut, where their remaining eight children would be born. They left behind eight year old Daniel, my grandfather (“Pa”) in the company of an uncle to manage the tiny ancestral plot. Four years of desperately longing for family and a better way of life, my twelve year old grandfather wended his way, presumably to Cork. There's an Irish song, “It's a Long Road To Tipperary.” Same is true “From” Tipperary. As the story goes, he secretly stowed away, arriving in New York a year prior to the 1892 opening of Ellis Island.
Finding his family in Thomaston, my grandfather began work as a bar sweep. In his next job as a teamster, he delivered brews behind his favorite horse, Harry. Later, taking a job at Chase Brass Company, he rose eventually to foreman. Daniel O'Connell and Delia Burns married in 1904. Aunt Annie came along as part of the sisters' deathbed promise to their mother. Their first child, Doris, died at age three days.
Three years later, October 26, 1909, their only living child, Enos Joseph O'Connell, (called “Okey,” “E. J.” or later “Doc” by his friends), my father was born. He earned high marks in school, even skipping a grade. He worked from an early age at a haberdashery store, dug graves in the summer and played piano as backup for the silent movies. With extra financial help from his Aunt Annie and Pa's giving up his five-pack a-day cigarette habit for eight years, Dad was able to attend both Holy Cross College and Tufts Medical School.
The Meeting of Two Sides
In the early Thirties, with Mom at the New England Conservatory of Music and Dad at an apartment close by and attending Tufts Med School, Okey often sees this captivating young woman pass by his apartment window. He is smitten. On a Sunday morning at church when he sees her returning from Communion, he has what we kids refer to as an “Evelyn Moment,” the moment where one instantly decides this is the woman he is going to marry. Through a friend who knows Eveline, Dad makes an arrangement to meet her.
On Okey's first visit to meet Mom's parents, George Breault says in French, “That damn Irishman is coming in this door over my dead body.” His wife asks Mom, “Do you love him?” Hearing the answer, Josephine sneaks a key. Heading toward the sun room, she suggests, “George, we need to talk.” After locking her frantic husband behind the glass doors, Josephine lets Dad in. George is livid, still shaking his fists, but soon relents.
Later in the courtship they exchange letters, Dad writing in French, Mom in English. Mom begins correcting the French and returning his missives. He may have occasionally suggested different English expressions to her. I am very pleased those bi-lingual corrections do not end the relationship.
Eveline, a concert pianist, turns down the offer of a joint national tour with a future TV celebrity after Okey has proposed. Instead she teaches piano back in her Woonsocket home. Okey has hung out his shingle and is struggling to find patients in the midst of the Depression. Married in 1936, Eveline and Okey settle down in Unionville, Connecticut. In December, 1937 I am born, followed in August, 1939, by my sister Doris Jean and in October, 1940, by sister Judy. Anticipating a growing medical practice and the probability of a larger family, they move from 60 to 63 Main Street. We vacate our small rented house, doctor's office and piano studio. We enjoy much grander digs directly across the road. Brother Jimmy is to be born there in October, 1941.
A 1941 photo of Mom, Doris Jean, Judy and myself is the only one I have with two of the three Circus Fire victims.
PART TWO: CIRCUS FIRE
First it was Wednesday afternoon, July 5, 1944, the original date for the circus. Other than Sunday, Wednesday was the one half day my father had off. The circus was coming to Hartford. Except for Jimmy, not yet three, our whole family was going to see the circus. My grandparents stayed home to care for Jimmy. Unfortunately there was a seven hour delay in the circus arriving from Providence. Well, at least, we would see it coming to town. In speaking recently with my sister Judy, she remembers distinctly the circus train, the elephants, and how extremely hot it was on Wednesday. I can remember very little, disappointed that we only got to see the side show.
Then it was Thursday, July 6, and yes, the circus was one day late. ”Nana” O'Connell, my grandmother, stayed home caring for Judy and Jimmy. My father, Dr. E. J. O'Connell, had to work all day and evening, so my grandfather, “Pa” O'Connell and our great “Aunt Annie” Burns, came along to help Eveline, our Mom, with me or my sister, Doris Jean. We were seated in a northeast section, either V or W according to a map of the tent, 180 degrees from where the fire started, about six bleacher rows up, right in front of the lion cage, where the first act began. Fascinated by the animals, I was still watching the lions leaving their cage, paying little attention to preparation for the next act.
As I turned my gaze away from the cage, and slightly to my right, the second act was almost ready, the Flying Wallendas, a high wire act with no net below. Some Wallenda family members were already up on the south side with bicycles that would balance on wires strung across the tent near its top. Most of the others were up on the North side, our side. While watching the last of the Wallendas climb the ladder, in that same glance, I saw almost directly behind him on the opposite tent wall what looked like a full moon just as it comes into view above the horizon, and just about the same size. I had no idea what it was. It climbed slowly. Then ... some one nearby said “Fire.”
The five of us arose. To my left Pa, then myself, next Mom between me and Doris Jean, and on the far right, Aunt Annie Burns, crippled by polio in early childhood and able to walk only with special high-buttoned shoes. Pa reached across us to hold Doris Jean, but she began screaming and reaching back for Mommy. Pa relented and passed my sister back to Mom, as all five of us began stepping down the bleachers toward the lion cage. The crowd became jumbled, some rushing up the bleachers, away from the fire; others racing down toward the ground and the exits. Suddenly my weak hands were ripped by the crowd from my mother's, but she remained calm. The last words that I heard from Mom, “We'll meet you outside.” They never did. I never caught sight of where the crowd pushed the three others away from us. My grandfather led me down the remaining few bleacher rows. Sometimes, I hear in my head those same last four words. I'll never forget them.
The crowd around us slowed, almost to a standstill. On the other side where the fire had started people seemed to be moving much faster. What we didn't know was that our exit was blocked. We kept looking for the others. Pa and I moved toward the cage, which would later split the crowd in two directions. Some would head left of it toward the exit now blocked by the animal chutes running between the lion cage and the previously opened exit. Most of dead would later be found here - trapped against and beside those chutes. Others would go to the right of the cage, merging with the faster moving crowd.
The cage was now just in front of us. Which way to go? I couldn't see my mom, sister or great aunt! Where were they? Which way would they go? Did they get separated too? Time had stopped. Frozen with fear, I knew I would die. Wait! Pa and I were razor thin; maybe we could slip between bars of the cage and out the other side I reasoned. I glanced up at the flames overhead coming closer and closer, and at that point I blanked out.
I have never been able to reconstruct those next seconds or minutes. My next memory, how much later I have no idea: I was up high and Pa was shouting “Jump, Bobby! Jump Down!!!” Terrified, I froze for a few moments. Whether I did jump or was pushed, I don't remember. Pa was soon again beside me. We moved as quickly as possible outside, burning parts of the napalm covered tent coming downward near and behind us.
In all this jumble somewhere another memory or dream that has never left me was of a yellow stile directly ahead that for some reason required my climbing. One hand touched the top step just before I descended the far side. It was incredibly hot.
We were now outside, safe, but where were the other three? We began walking counter-clockwise around the now totally destroyed tent, searching, searching, searching again, becoming more fearful each time. Lacking a sense of smell, I have no recollections of the scent of burned bodies mentioned by so many survivors. After many circles we found Aunt Annie Burns, propped up and sitting facing us. “Don't cry, Bobby; I'll be OK,” she said calmly, but later I would learn how bravely and painfully. Annie Burns died in the hospital of third degree burns over much of her body the next morning. Finding no trace of Mom or Doris Jean, we finally left the scene, hoping that they had also searched, but never found us, or that perhaps they too were injured and may have been taken to a hospital.
Pa and I continued walking for miles toward home. Finally, when we reached West Hartford, we caught a bus to Unionville. Dad was gone. As a general practitioner, he had been called into the hospital to assist with victims. He telephoned home and learning that none of us had yet returned from the circus, someone at the hospital suggested he drive to the Armory, where apparently he was given priority and moved to the front of the line. The Armory had quickly become the morgue, where bodies were placed in three different sections, one for adult males, one for adult females, and a third for children.
Going first to the adult female section where he identified Mom by one unburned shoe. I never questioned what that meant. I didn't want to know any more. He checked the children's section, where he identified Doris Jean by a band-aid he had put on an injured finger that morning. It was still there in her now tightly clenched fist. A kind gentleman was standing nearby, when dad identified my sister. The man approached, “I was the one who found this child. If it can be of any comfort to you, there was an adult lying on top with arms around her,” (Mom, trying to protect her daughter from burning). All Dad would tell me was that they had both probably died of smoke inhalation before suffering much of the burning pain. I don't know how true that was, but guess it may have been his way of trying to comfort me, ease my mind, save me from some survivor guilt.
How did I receive the news? It must have been about 7:00p.m. and I had been put in the spare bedroom to rest. Dad came up the stairs, with a friend, Father Sullivan, at his side. Calmly he spoke, “Be a big boy, Bobby. ... Your mother and Doris Jean are dead.” In those days, “Be a big boy” meant don't cry. I didn't cry, and I didn't cry for about thirty years. I pushed it inside, way down deep inside. I repressed the natural healing process of crying. Blocking out memories was a survival mode I used. People who know me well, say I see through rose-colored glasses. I block out the bad stuff, seeing only the good side. Regretfully I blocked out most of my memories of Mom and Doris Jean. It hurt too much to remember them. I can't recall hearing Mom play a single piece of music. I blocked it out.
I didn't cry. For at least a month, nothing but full body sobs, shaking all over, while I pressed my fists against my stomach, panting furiously. It felt like I took a dagger, plunged it into my belly and twisted it up slowly upward. Occasionally I still get those body sobs, thinking about what happened that fateful day. Neither my dad nor I knew the down side of suppressing nature's way of healing. Back in the day, that was the way we men handled it.
PART THREE: EFFECTS OF THE FIRE
If a tragedy can have some good outcomes amidst all the hurts, here I will close by mentioning some:
Within a year Dad met some one else. Marie Barker was a woman his own age from Terryville. My new Mom and Dad married November 19, 1946. I remember the celebration. Ironically they delayed their honeymoon till February in Sarasota, Florida, the winter home of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus, but also the spring training grounds of the Boston Red Sox. Dad met a college friend of his in the Sox training room and came home with a baseball for me signed “Good Luck, Bobby” by the 1946 Red Sox team. I became a lifelong fan, fondling the ball or attending Fenway, cheering, suffering heartache after heartache until the 21st century. But that's another story.
Sister Janet was born November 13, 1946. Sister Joyce followed within a year, October 14, 1947, and youngest brother Danny, named for “Pa,” made his appearance March 31, 1950. That big happy family can be seen in a family photo from the late 'Fifties. Mom treated the six of us all equally and lovingly. With the exception of Dan's passing, we five siblings remain that happy family.
Monetarily I received settlements totaling $1,050 for hand and arm burns. Mom had a $12,000 life insurance policy, which Dad split between her three surviving children, $4,000 each. Between the two benefits I spent four years in college, with $325 leftover to begin grad school. That's probably one reason for survivor guilt.
My family and I have learned more of the history and committed to preserving the memory. Along the way I have met others. Since returning to Connecticut in 1987, I have attended every fifth year Circus Fire Memorial Service. In 1989 I had the privilege of meeting Lieutenant Rick Davey. Rick spent years as an arson investigator to prove that, given the weather and grounds conditions of the day, the fire could NOT have been set by a fallen cigarette, as the owners had claimed. Almost undeniably it was set by an abused, bullied and oversize 14 year old school dropout with an IQ of 78, Robert Dale Segee, who had set a number of fires in his hometown of Portland, Maine.
Rick Davey's book, “A Matter of Degree,” ghosted by Don Massey, and another, Stewart O'Nan's “The Circus Fire,” are required reading for any one with an interest in or questions about the fire. On the day Segee joined the circus crew as a roustabout, June 30, there was a tent wall fire in Portland, again on July 4 a tent wall fire in Providence, both quickly extinguished. Counting Hartford, that was three within the single week. Robert Dale Segee fled the scene that day, surfacing in Ohio, where he was later convicted in a string of arsons and sentenced to a mental institution. He confessed to setting the Hartford fire, and then recanted his testimony. Ohio refused his extradition to Connecticut.
Through Rick Davey my brother, sister and I became involved in the Circus Fire Memorial at Cleveland and Barbour Streets, where our family's story is told in a series of bricks shortly after you enter. Unfortunately the top middle brick for Eveline is elsewhere near the circle of victim names, and hopefully someday can be safely placed within the O'Connell arrangement without destroying those adjacent. Scattered about the Memorial are many other bricks donated by family and friends, such as this one dedicated to Mom from my younger brother Jim, only two in 1944: “You played Liszt, Others heard, I never did.” Donated bricks are at maximum 16 characters in each of 3 rows, still room for more.
In 2005 Ellington High School's famed drama department presented an original play two years in the making: “Silenced on Barbour Street: An Exploration of the Hartford Circus Fire.” In development of the play many survivors and I were interviewed by the drama student writers, their director and other teachers about the fire and also its lasting imprints. The play centered on Robert Dale Segee listening to 25 actors playing victims, seated on circus bleacher seats telling their stories, as drawn from those interviews. Circus fire survivors were invited free to a special final dress rehearsal, where it profoundly touched many hearts. I hope a script remains, open to those interested in the impact of the fire on the city and survivors.
During the legislative session in 2012, as an honor to my family's three arson victims, I, along with many other “Connecticut Murder Victims' Families Speaking Out Against the Death Penalty” lobbied successfully to repeal the death penalty. While no murder can be compared to any other murder, I feel, as all murder victims' families do, that my losses were tragic. Never would I have wished the death of the perpetrator. “An eye for an eye and the whole world is blind,” as Gandhi and others have repeatedly said. The losses hurt today and will tomorrow. The scales of “justice” could never have balanced my sense of loss. Nor would they have brought me solace, comfort or closure by asking for his death. I can't even conceive of calling for the premeditated killing of the person who took those lives. Would I ask the state to do it? Not in my name – ever!
May we all rest in peace.
A special thank you to my cousin, Sybil Breault, for the Breault genealogy
A special thank you to my brother, Jim O'Connell, for the O'Connell genealogy
PART ONE: THE BACK STORY
(You may skip this section, if you wish, and go straight to the fire itself)
To put the story into context, I feel it necessary to begin with a bit of genealogy, introducing the four characters who were there with me at Barbour and Cleveland Streets in Hartford that fateful day. Pardon me, if these first paragraphs bore you, but it may help explain the scars that remain even now. If you so choose, jump on the train and ride along with me, as we relive together what led up to those critical days.
On my mother's side, the heritage is 100% French Canadian, reaching back to the 1660's when the King of France decided to populate New France with an alternative to missionaries, fur trappers and native Americans. The “King's Daughters,” as they were called, included impoverished and orphan girls, rounded up, provided with attractive dowries and shipped off to New France.
In the mid 1800's the Hebert, Durocher, Daigle and Breault families, seeking opportunities, journeyed separately from towns south of Montreal, some just across the border from Vermont, and crossed into the United States. All settled in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where almost every one worked in the mills. There my maternal grandparents, Josephine Durocher and Celestine Breault, married and suffered the loss of their first-born in infancy. After the births of their second and third children, Celestine, who had become a shoe clerk, died. Following an oft-used French custom, his only brother, George, who had previously lost his wife, married Josephine to provide for the widow and the two orphans, my Uncle Leon and my mom, Eveline.
My mom, Eveline Yvonne Breault, born May 25, 1912, growing up in the French-Canadian enclave of Woonsocket, spoke not a word of English till she entered school and recited the Pledge of Allegiance, not understanding the words. In both school and church the only language was French. Mom's piano talent led her in 1930 to the New England Conservatory of Music, in Boston, where she polished both her artistic and linguistic skills.
On my father's side, it's 100% Irish, the McAvoy, Burns, Dwyer and O'Connell families all left Ireland, settling eventually in Thomaston, CT. Our great grandfather Garrett Burns died two months before my grandmother Delia (“Nana”), the youngest of four, was born. Her sister, our “Aunt Annie” Burns, was only two years old and soon to be crippled by polio. Their mother, Julia McAvoy Burns, now widowed and supporting her family as an Irish washerwoman, soon needed the help of all her children, especially when she developed cancer. At early ages all were forced to leave school. On her death bed, she made the children promise to take care of one another. By then the two young girls were working at the Seth Thomas factory, where they both received company room and board. My great aunt Annie, the older, more experienced, received 50 cents per week because she worked in the watch factory, while my grandmother “Nana” in the clock factory received not a single extra cent. Aunt Annie's pay through many following years would ultimately help buy a house for four, financially assist my dad, but ironically also lead to her demise.
Meanwhile back in Tipperary, Ireland, the O'Connell clan, impoverished, with their farm too small for the growing family, emigrated with three of their children also to Thomaston, Connecticut, where their remaining eight children would be born. They left behind eight year old Daniel, my grandfather (“Pa”) in the company of an uncle to manage the tiny ancestral plot. Four years of desperately longing for family and a better way of life, my twelve year old grandfather wended his way, presumably to Cork. There's an Irish song, “It's a Long Road To Tipperary.” Same is true “From” Tipperary. As the story goes, he secretly stowed away, arriving in New York a year prior to the 1892 opening of Ellis Island.
Finding his family in Thomaston, my grandfather began work as a bar sweep. In his next job as a teamster, he delivered brews behind his favorite horse, Harry. Later, taking a job at Chase Brass Company, he rose eventually to foreman. Daniel O'Connell and Delia Burns married in 1904. Aunt Annie came along as part of the sisters' deathbed promise to their mother. Their first child, Doris, died at age three days.
Three years later, October 26, 1909, their only living child, Enos Joseph O'Connell, (called “Okey,” “E. J.” or later “Doc” by his friends), my father was born. He earned high marks in school, even skipping a grade. He worked from an early age at a haberdashery store, dug graves in the summer and played piano as backup for the silent movies. With extra financial help from his Aunt Annie and Pa's giving up his five-pack a-day cigarette habit for eight years, Dad was able to attend both Holy Cross College and Tufts Medical School.
The Meeting of Two Sides
In the early Thirties, with Mom at the New England Conservatory of Music and Dad at an apartment close by and attending Tufts Med School, Okey often sees this captivating young woman pass by his apartment window. He is smitten. On a Sunday morning at church when he sees her returning from Communion, he has what we kids refer to as an “Evelyn Moment,” the moment where one instantly decides this is the woman he is going to marry. Through a friend who knows Eveline, Dad makes an arrangement to meet her.
On Okey's first visit to meet Mom's parents, George Breault says in French, “That damn Irishman is coming in this door over my dead body.” His wife asks Mom, “Do you love him?” Hearing the answer, Josephine sneaks a key. Heading toward the sun room, she suggests, “George, we need to talk.” After locking her frantic husband behind the glass doors, Josephine lets Dad in. George is livid, still shaking his fists, but soon relents.
Later in the courtship they exchange letters, Dad writing in French, Mom in English. Mom begins correcting the French and returning his missives. He may have occasionally suggested different English expressions to her. I am very pleased those bi-lingual corrections do not end the relationship.
Eveline, a concert pianist, turns down the offer of a joint national tour with a future TV celebrity after Okey has proposed. Instead she teaches piano back in her Woonsocket home. Okey has hung out his shingle and is struggling to find patients in the midst of the Depression. Married in 1936, Eveline and Okey settle down in Unionville, Connecticut. In December, 1937 I am born, followed in August, 1939, by my sister Doris Jean and in October, 1940, by sister Judy. Anticipating a growing medical practice and the probability of a larger family, they move from 60 to 63 Main Street. We vacate our small rented house, doctor's office and piano studio. We enjoy much grander digs directly across the road. Brother Jimmy is to be born there in October, 1941.
A 1941 photo of Mom, Doris Jean, Judy and myself is the only one I have with two of the three Circus Fire victims.
PART TWO: CIRCUS FIRE
First it was Wednesday afternoon, July 5, 1944, the original date for the circus. Other than Sunday, Wednesday was the one half day my father had off. The circus was coming to Hartford. Except for Jimmy, not yet three, our whole family was going to see the circus. My grandparents stayed home to care for Jimmy. Unfortunately there was a seven hour delay in the circus arriving from Providence. Well, at least, we would see it coming to town. In speaking recently with my sister Judy, she remembers distinctly the circus train, the elephants, and how extremely hot it was on Wednesday. I can remember very little, disappointed that we only got to see the side show.
Then it was Thursday, July 6, and yes, the circus was one day late. ”Nana” O'Connell, my grandmother, stayed home caring for Judy and Jimmy. My father, Dr. E. J. O'Connell, had to work all day and evening, so my grandfather, “Pa” O'Connell and our great “Aunt Annie” Burns, came along to help Eveline, our Mom, with me or my sister, Doris Jean. We were seated in a northeast section, either V or W according to a map of the tent, 180 degrees from where the fire started, about six bleacher rows up, right in front of the lion cage, where the first act began. Fascinated by the animals, I was still watching the lions leaving their cage, paying little attention to preparation for the next act.
As I turned my gaze away from the cage, and slightly to my right, the second act was almost ready, the Flying Wallendas, a high wire act with no net below. Some Wallenda family members were already up on the south side with bicycles that would balance on wires strung across the tent near its top. Most of the others were up on the North side, our side. While watching the last of the Wallendas climb the ladder, in that same glance, I saw almost directly behind him on the opposite tent wall what looked like a full moon just as it comes into view above the horizon, and just about the same size. I had no idea what it was. It climbed slowly. Then ... some one nearby said “Fire.”
The five of us arose. To my left Pa, then myself, next Mom between me and Doris Jean, and on the far right, Aunt Annie Burns, crippled by polio in early childhood and able to walk only with special high-buttoned shoes. Pa reached across us to hold Doris Jean, but she began screaming and reaching back for Mommy. Pa relented and passed my sister back to Mom, as all five of us began stepping down the bleachers toward the lion cage. The crowd became jumbled, some rushing up the bleachers, away from the fire; others racing down toward the ground and the exits. Suddenly my weak hands were ripped by the crowd from my mother's, but she remained calm. The last words that I heard from Mom, “We'll meet you outside.” They never did. I never caught sight of where the crowd pushed the three others away from us. My grandfather led me down the remaining few bleacher rows. Sometimes, I hear in my head those same last four words. I'll never forget them.
The crowd around us slowed, almost to a standstill. On the other side where the fire had started people seemed to be moving much faster. What we didn't know was that our exit was blocked. We kept looking for the others. Pa and I moved toward the cage, which would later split the crowd in two directions. Some would head left of it toward the exit now blocked by the animal chutes running between the lion cage and the previously opened exit. Most of dead would later be found here - trapped against and beside those chutes. Others would go to the right of the cage, merging with the faster moving crowd.
The cage was now just in front of us. Which way to go? I couldn't see my mom, sister or great aunt! Where were they? Which way would they go? Did they get separated too? Time had stopped. Frozen with fear, I knew I would die. Wait! Pa and I were razor thin; maybe we could slip between bars of the cage and out the other side I reasoned. I glanced up at the flames overhead coming closer and closer, and at that point I blanked out.
I have never been able to reconstruct those next seconds or minutes. My next memory, how much later I have no idea: I was up high and Pa was shouting “Jump, Bobby! Jump Down!!!” Terrified, I froze for a few moments. Whether I did jump or was pushed, I don't remember. Pa was soon again beside me. We moved as quickly as possible outside, burning parts of the napalm covered tent coming downward near and behind us.
In all this jumble somewhere another memory or dream that has never left me was of a yellow stile directly ahead that for some reason required my climbing. One hand touched the top step just before I descended the far side. It was incredibly hot.
We were now outside, safe, but where were the other three? We began walking counter-clockwise around the now totally destroyed tent, searching, searching, searching again, becoming more fearful each time. Lacking a sense of smell, I have no recollections of the scent of burned bodies mentioned by so many survivors. After many circles we found Aunt Annie Burns, propped up and sitting facing us. “Don't cry, Bobby; I'll be OK,” she said calmly, but later I would learn how bravely and painfully. Annie Burns died in the hospital of third degree burns over much of her body the next morning. Finding no trace of Mom or Doris Jean, we finally left the scene, hoping that they had also searched, but never found us, or that perhaps they too were injured and may have been taken to a hospital.
Pa and I continued walking for miles toward home. Finally, when we reached West Hartford, we caught a bus to Unionville. Dad was gone. As a general practitioner, he had been called into the hospital to assist with victims. He telephoned home and learning that none of us had yet returned from the circus, someone at the hospital suggested he drive to the Armory, where apparently he was given priority and moved to the front of the line. The Armory had quickly become the morgue, where bodies were placed in three different sections, one for adult males, one for adult females, and a third for children.
Going first to the adult female section where he identified Mom by one unburned shoe. I never questioned what that meant. I didn't want to know any more. He checked the children's section, where he identified Doris Jean by a band-aid he had put on an injured finger that morning. It was still there in her now tightly clenched fist. A kind gentleman was standing nearby, when dad identified my sister. The man approached, “I was the one who found this child. If it can be of any comfort to you, there was an adult lying on top with arms around her,” (Mom, trying to protect her daughter from burning). All Dad would tell me was that they had both probably died of smoke inhalation before suffering much of the burning pain. I don't know how true that was, but guess it may have been his way of trying to comfort me, ease my mind, save me from some survivor guilt.
How did I receive the news? It must have been about 7:00p.m. and I had been put in the spare bedroom to rest. Dad came up the stairs, with a friend, Father Sullivan, at his side. Calmly he spoke, “Be a big boy, Bobby. ... Your mother and Doris Jean are dead.” In those days, “Be a big boy” meant don't cry. I didn't cry, and I didn't cry for about thirty years. I pushed it inside, way down deep inside. I repressed the natural healing process of crying. Blocking out memories was a survival mode I used. People who know me well, say I see through rose-colored glasses. I block out the bad stuff, seeing only the good side. Regretfully I blocked out most of my memories of Mom and Doris Jean. It hurt too much to remember them. I can't recall hearing Mom play a single piece of music. I blocked it out.
I didn't cry. For at least a month, nothing but full body sobs, shaking all over, while I pressed my fists against my stomach, panting furiously. It felt like I took a dagger, plunged it into my belly and twisted it up slowly upward. Occasionally I still get those body sobs, thinking about what happened that fateful day. Neither my dad nor I knew the down side of suppressing nature's way of healing. Back in the day, that was the way we men handled it.
PART THREE: EFFECTS OF THE FIRE
If a tragedy can have some good outcomes amidst all the hurts, here I will close by mentioning some:
Within a year Dad met some one else. Marie Barker was a woman his own age from Terryville. My new Mom and Dad married November 19, 1946. I remember the celebration. Ironically they delayed their honeymoon till February in Sarasota, Florida, the winter home of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus, but also the spring training grounds of the Boston Red Sox. Dad met a college friend of his in the Sox training room and came home with a baseball for me signed “Good Luck, Bobby” by the 1946 Red Sox team. I became a lifelong fan, fondling the ball or attending Fenway, cheering, suffering heartache after heartache until the 21st century. But that's another story.
Sister Janet was born November 13, 1946. Sister Joyce followed within a year, October 14, 1947, and youngest brother Danny, named for “Pa,” made his appearance March 31, 1950. That big happy family can be seen in a family photo from the late 'Fifties. Mom treated the six of us all equally and lovingly. With the exception of Dan's passing, we five siblings remain that happy family.
Monetarily I received settlements totaling $1,050 for hand and arm burns. Mom had a $12,000 life insurance policy, which Dad split between her three surviving children, $4,000 each. Between the two benefits I spent four years in college, with $325 leftover to begin grad school. That's probably one reason for survivor guilt.
My family and I have learned more of the history and committed to preserving the memory. Along the way I have met others. Since returning to Connecticut in 1987, I have attended every fifth year Circus Fire Memorial Service. In 1989 I had the privilege of meeting Lieutenant Rick Davey. Rick spent years as an arson investigator to prove that, given the weather and grounds conditions of the day, the fire could NOT have been set by a fallen cigarette, as the owners had claimed. Almost undeniably it was set by an abused, bullied and oversize 14 year old school dropout with an IQ of 78, Robert Dale Segee, who had set a number of fires in his hometown of Portland, Maine.
Rick Davey's book, “A Matter of Degree,” ghosted by Don Massey, and another, Stewart O'Nan's “The Circus Fire,” are required reading for any one with an interest in or questions about the fire. On the day Segee joined the circus crew as a roustabout, June 30, there was a tent wall fire in Portland, again on July 4 a tent wall fire in Providence, both quickly extinguished. Counting Hartford, that was three within the single week. Robert Dale Segee fled the scene that day, surfacing in Ohio, where he was later convicted in a string of arsons and sentenced to a mental institution. He confessed to setting the Hartford fire, and then recanted his testimony. Ohio refused his extradition to Connecticut.
Through Rick Davey my brother, sister and I became involved in the Circus Fire Memorial at Cleveland and Barbour Streets, where our family's story is told in a series of bricks shortly after you enter. Unfortunately the top middle brick for Eveline is elsewhere near the circle of victim names, and hopefully someday can be safely placed within the O'Connell arrangement without destroying those adjacent. Scattered about the Memorial are many other bricks donated by family and friends, such as this one dedicated to Mom from my younger brother Jim, only two in 1944: “You played Liszt, Others heard, I never did.” Donated bricks are at maximum 16 characters in each of 3 rows, still room for more.
In 2005 Ellington High School's famed drama department presented an original play two years in the making: “Silenced on Barbour Street: An Exploration of the Hartford Circus Fire.” In development of the play many survivors and I were interviewed by the drama student writers, their director and other teachers about the fire and also its lasting imprints. The play centered on Robert Dale Segee listening to 25 actors playing victims, seated on circus bleacher seats telling their stories, as drawn from those interviews. Circus fire survivors were invited free to a special final dress rehearsal, where it profoundly touched many hearts. I hope a script remains, open to those interested in the impact of the fire on the city and survivors.
During the legislative session in 2012, as an honor to my family's three arson victims, I, along with many other “Connecticut Murder Victims' Families Speaking Out Against the Death Penalty” lobbied successfully to repeal the death penalty. While no murder can be compared to any other murder, I feel, as all murder victims' families do, that my losses were tragic. Never would I have wished the death of the perpetrator. “An eye for an eye and the whole world is blind,” as Gandhi and others have repeatedly said. The losses hurt today and will tomorrow. The scales of “justice” could never have balanced my sense of loss. Nor would they have brought me solace, comfort or closure by asking for his death. I can't even conceive of calling for the premeditated killing of the person who took those lives. Would I ask the state to do it? Not in my name – ever!
May we all rest in peace.
A special thank you to my cousin, Sybil Breault, for the Breault genealogy
A special thank you to my brother, Jim O'Connell, for the O'Connell genealogy