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On a June morning in 1918, a circus train stopped on the tracks in Ivanhoe, Ind. The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus was scheduled for a show in nearby Hammond later that day, but for the time being, an overheated wheel bearing box impeded their progress. Despite warning lights and a frantic flagman, another train slammed into the back of the idling troupe. Fire erupted throughout the wooden cars, sending 86 people to their deaths and injuring 127 more. Most of the dead were newcomers to the circus, without proper names to identify their graves.
Out of this gruesome accident came a strange sight on Sunday: a clutch of clowns frolicking and joking in Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park. Woodlawn became the final resting place for 56 of the deceased. Just a few months prior to incident, the Showman’s League of America bought a section of the West Side graveyard, explaining the leap from Peru, Ind., where Hagenbeck-Wallace was based. As part of International Clown Week, clowns channeled their inner Hamlets to bid their Yoricks adieu. A myriad of clowns in all sorts of colors sang, danced, painted faces and twisted aerated plastic into animalistic shapes among the austere headstones. Time was taken to memorialize the crash and their fallen, mostly unknown brethren, but then it was back with the fun-making. Come on — they’re clowns.
We’ve been fascinated by Woodlawn’s “Showman’s Rest” for a long time. It ranks up there with the Iroquois fire for horror value, mostly because of the vast amount of anonymous dead, and the fact that they were circus performers paid to bring people joy. A few random things we noticed: Keeping with the theme, ICW’s website font is Comic Sans, which we revile otherwise, but feel is appropriate there. What really surprises us is that International Clown Week started off as just National Clown Week, and the first week in August was proclaimed as such by the one and only Richard M. Nixon. Because surely, when we think charismatic funnymen, Nixon is tops on our list.
... Oh, and um, Lollapalooza. That's a funny word, right?
Image courtesy of jaymce.
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That photo reminds me that I have a sweet-looking Bozo the clown cycle jersey.
it's not as sweet as you think.
making a lollapalooza wink of a joke in an otherwise somber post shows what a disconnect chicagoist writers have from their readers. you so funny!
if i were one of the dead circus people i would be pretty upset that clowns were dancing on my grave.
nicely written piece.
thanks, guest 4. you know, i don't know that they'd be so upset. once a clown always a clown, hence the nature of the ceremony sunday. not all of them were clowns, though...
I agree with you, Shannon. I think a clown is always a clown, even in death. I think they'd love it, and that this is the perfect memorial for otherwise anonymous people.
And this really has to be the best written and most interesting entry on the site in months. You guys should do more like this. Thanks.
It just so happends that your very own Spook had a brush with Hammond, and a Death Train! I wonder was there some sort of ghostly connection!
A few years ago I was passing the summer with a cool G.W. grad student who was summer house sitting at a lake home in Michigan City, Indiana.
One Thursday night we caught the last I.C. train leaving Chicago for Michigan City.
Rightfully so, she was pissed at me because we missed the earlier train because I didn’t know the liquor store on Michigan and Balbo had closed. With out liquor we luckily caught the last train out for the night.
Around Hammond, our train ran over a man who timed his earthly demise by stepping into our path.
The train braked and came to rest about a half mile right in front of a liquor store in Hammond! A bunch of "Hammondites?" traveling in and out of the liquor store joined with the few of us left on the train, also now well fortified with liquor. Together we gathered around the gory remain of the dead man, his upper torso and head was lodged in the wheel break, and the locals told stories of the man they knew as a strange local loner. Three hours later the train finally pulled off. We reached our destination past midnight in a reflective state of drunkenness as my friend and I hiked in the pitch black night up into the dunes carrying a half case of beer to get us through the night.
I will always remember as a down home proper Hammond Indiana style Funeral
surreal. that'd make a good short story.. all the more so due to the truth behind it.
It’s funny, until your post the only thing I ever mentioned to folks about that trip was watching an amazing movie called “Slam” on video and reading Bradbury's “Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Nice Hamlet reference, how apropos. Your post, combined with the dog days of summer, offer like the Grave Digger, reflections off Yorkicks skull
Thanks for the memory,Salute!
Spook