There were 300 men, women and children from the Farmington Valley at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Big Top Circus on the afternoon of July 6, 1944.
Nine of the 300 — witnesses to one of the worst circus fires in the history of the industry — would perish that day. Five more would survive with terrible burns on their bodies. Many more would get out alive.
Jean and Henry Bahre were two of those survivors.
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About Town asked Henry Bahre, now 82 years old and owner of Henry J. Bahre Real Estate in Canton, for his recollections.
AT: Do you still have memories of that day?
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HB: My memories are still pretty vivid; actually perfect. I went to the Circus that day with a relative, Mr. George Tezinge. His wife was my mother's sister. He had come up from New York to visit and asked if my sister Jean and I would like to go to the Circus.
AT: The Herald reported that you were at the Circus with several other young people from Canton
HB: No, the rest of the people who were there from Canton weren't sitting with our party. It was just Mr. Tezinge, me and my sister Jean who sat together.
AT: When did you realize there was a fire in the tent?
HB: All of a sudden, we saw that the east side of the tent was on fire. We were sitting on the west side of the tent, on the 10th row in the bleachers.
I can still see it today. The fire was going up the tent and widening out as it went up. Then, it hit the paraffin and went flying up the side of the tent.
AT: How did you do next?
HB: My uncle started leading us out the north side of the tent, away from the fire, into one of the entryways where the tigers were led in through these wire cages, that were like a type of tunnel.
We had to go up some steps, but the cages and people were blocking the way.
The entryways were totally jammed with people falling all over each other. People were going crazy.
My uncle then said, "follow me" and we went away from the mangled cages. My uncle took us back a ways, then we ducked under the seats and crawled outside just as the fire was coming down that side of the tent. You could feel the heat. We scrambled down the embankment and got out.
I remember people coming out with their hair on fire. The tent just kept on dropping down and landing on people who were then torched up.
AT: There wasn’t a lot of time to get out of the tent.
HR: The fire went very fast. It swept up the tent very fast, in barely minutes. Not even five minutes.
