Patricia Borns

pborns@newsleader.com

STAUNTON The day dawned blue and perfect for the opening of Cole Bros. Circus on Tuesday. Ringmaster Chris Connors donned his sequined red coat and black top hat, commanding his audience's attention — not under the big top in Fishersville, but beside a stone in Thornrose Cemetery where one of the circus family's own died over a century ago.

The circus that calls itself the nation's second oldest and longest continuous big top show took the occasion of its 130th anniversary to remember young Eva Clark. How the 25-year-old aerialist came to rest in turn-of-the-century Staunton is a story, or many stories, unto itself.

"She was visiting in our town. She was killed in our town, We're taking care of her,"said Thornrose Superintendent Suzanne Berry, who worked with circus personnel to arrange for Clark's graveside memorial Tuesday morning. The director of Henry Funeral Home, Noah Turnage, personally scrubbed the marker clean for the occasion.

Since the mid-1800s, Staunton and other rural outposts were on the route that Cole Bros. Circus performers traveled and still travel today. It was here that the Circus of the Stars came in the waning summer days of 1906. Clarke had just finished a performance the night of Sep. 6.

A News Leader article reported she was shot by accident as "an argument had erupted after the evening performance between her husband, 'Lum' Clark, and a 'friend,' James Richards. What the argument was about she didn't say, but when Richards lunged at her husband, Lum pulled a .38 revolver and squeezed off a shot."

Related story: Circus trapeze artist dies in shootout in Staunton

Lucinda Cooke, a member of Augusta County Historical Society who attended the memorial, elaborated: "After the first performance, she returned to her dressing room and found Richards. His attentions to her had become obvious. Her husband walked in."

The News Leader article maintains Staunton Police found the circus had packed up and left town, while "twenty-five-year-old Eva Clark had been admitted to King's Daughters' Hospital with a gunshot wound to the abdomen that, as it was later learned, had pierced her intestines in 16 places and perforated her bladder."

Cole Bros. performer Clown Chips, who attended Clark's memorial, said the circus left the young star behind because "It was jump night. The circus was supposed to move to the next town. "It's a circus tradition that the show must go on."

Historian Cooke said otherwise: "The circus was prevented from leaving town by police. They were going to take her with them and leave, but she was taken instead to old King's Daughter's."

Cole Bros. Marketing Director Bill Carter acknowledged the conflicting accounts of the circus's departure from Staunton. "The truth is the show was kept in town by the sheriff. It didn't just cut and run."

During her three-week hospital stay in Staunton, Clark received streams of visitors bearing cards and flowers. "Town people really took to her," Cooke said. But "her husband disappeared from the circus and was never seen again."

It's a tale that harkens to Federico Fellini's La Strada, a movie that stamped circus life in 20th Century imaginations. In a scene of art almost imitating life, the jealous circus strong man played by Anthony Quinn shoots the gentle clown who wooed away his young sidekick.

After Clark was shot, her brother-in-law came to her bedside in Staunton and tended her until she died, covering her hospital expenses. The marble marker was placed at Thornrose years later by friends from Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, at one time the country's second-largest after Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey.

From then to today, generations of Thornrose visitors have stopped at Clark's marker. Many leave flowers. Every Christmas, an anonymous visitor leaves a wreath.

"We come here often and visit her grave," said Joy Simmons, who had wandered over with her husband from the graveside of her brother-in-law to take part in the memorial for Clark.

A hush fell over the group as ringmaster Connors requested a moment of silence. Marvin the Clown, all of four feet tall, who joined Cole Bros. six months ago from the circus in Mexico, knelt in the grass and closed his eyes.

"Some of us are born into the circus, some of us find it through our own personal journey, but it's the spirit of circus that binds us all," Connors intoned. In his case, both were true.

"My parents were circus fans," recounted the ringmaster. "As a baby, I was bottle-fed in clown alley, the place where performers change for shows." Through two college degrees and a corporate job, the impressions of circus life never left him. "When people speak of running away to join the circus, that's what I did."

Also attending was Elena Sanders, a young aerialist who used to be en elephant-riding showgirl, and is temping with Coles Bros. for the summer.

Clown Chips, in real life Julius Carallo, said he left a marriage of 25 years for the circus, propelled by the death of his son who was killed by a neo-Nazi hate group. From printing business owner to swim instructor – he once circumnavigated Manhattan – the circus is Carallo's third career.

After the ceremony, the performers reflected on circus life. "We live for each other. Everyone has a job. Everyone's equal." Carallo said.

"Cole Bros. is the old school, the old way," Connors said.

In fact, the shows that were once America's premiere entertainment live on today mostly by force of the artists' passions, led by Cole Bros. controversial CEO John Pugh. Rising from performer to circus owner, Pugh has kept the business going through animal rights protests and economic recessions.

Could the show go on without Pugh?

"That's a good question," said marketing director Carter. "He's been traveling with Cole since 1968. He has knowledge and experience you can't replace."

The ceremony ended with the ringmaster blessing Clark's memory, and City councilwoman Andrea Oakes helping him pronounce Staunton as he acknowledged citizens for keeping Clark's memory alive.

Marvin the Clown laid a bright wreath of plastic flowers almost as big as he was next to the performer's grave.

Then, as quickly as they had come, the knot of performers disbanded into the afternoon to prepare for the night's performance in Fishersville.