The Circus Fire (24 page)

The work proceeded slowly, for many reasons. Children rarely carry identification. The fire had burned the flimsy summer dresses from the girls, and the women had lost their pocketbooks. In the rush to flee, people stepped on each other's feet, knocking their shoes off. The transient population of Hartford with its war plants also contributed to the uncertainty, and likewise the impermanent, even casual status of the lowest rung of circus workers. "I did hear that one of our ticket sellers was killed," a hand said, "but I think he showed up."

And there was the intensity of the fire itself, and the tent's unique structure. Unlike the Cocoanut Grove, in which most of the victims suffocated or were poisoned by the by-products of the burning interior of the nightclub, most of the victims in the circus fire suffered little if any smoke inhalation. There was no roof to force it back down on them. They burned to death; a few were trampled but Dr. Weissenborn noted not one single case of asphyxiation. The death certificates read either fourth-degree burns, trauma to head and torso, or a combination of the two. The doctor was sure that a good third of the bodies would never be identified.

Still, nurses folded the blankets back, state troopers shone their flashlights on the charred faces of the dead. Dentists bent over them with tongue depressors, prying jaws open, marking charts. And still, searchers reached the ends of the rows and asked, "Are you sure this is all of them?"

One man identified his wife and son and then his mother-in-law and niece.

A prominent Unionville doctor identified his wife and daughter. His friend Governor Baldwin had run out to take care of business and missed him by minutes.

The boyfriend who'd taken Donald Gale identified Hulda Grant. (Her ex-husband came the next day to double-check.)

One father identified a daughter by a tiny gold locket. A second daughter would die that night at Municipal Hospital, where her mother and brother were in critical condition. A third girl somehow escaped unharmed. "It was to be a party for them," an aunt said. "Regina's birthday was the first and Joan's the third. They had their first permanents and went to their first circus. Regina died in the hospital, but Joan never got out of the tent alive. She never would push anyone for fear of being rude."

Worried about his wife's health, the father hadn't told her yet—or the surviving girl, in case she might say something.

Downstairs, the line moved through, each searcher cataloguing the last clothing the missing person wore. The clerks wanted unique features. "Was there a wide space between his front teeth?" they asked over their typewriters. "Did he have any identifying scars? Were those gold or porcelain fillings?"

Jennie Heiser's husband stood guard outside by the line. He was part of the troop who'd ridden their motorcycles up. Another friend from Storrs waited in line, a professor of music; he was looking for his wife and children. Carl Heiser commiserated with him briefly, then went back to his post. Now the names of the man's family blared from the sound car—they'd been found. Carl Heiser went over to the professor, expecting him to be overjoyed. The man stood there blankly. He was in such a daze he hadn't heard the names.

At the west entrance two trucks from Mercer & Dunbar pulled up and unloaded their cargo—eight unidentified bodies from Municipal Hospital, bringing the total number of dead to be cleared through the armory to 135. The hero Bill Curlee was among them, though no one knew. He received a green tag, then two guardsmen set him on a cot, draped a scratchy blanket over him and trundled him to the men's section.

One of the new arrivals was a young girl barely touched by the flames, just the left side of her neck and that cheek blackened. She wore the scraps of a white, flowered dress and brown shoes. On her tag, Dr. Weissenborn estimated her age as five. "I placed her in the front row of the children's section," William Menser said, "feeling that she was going to be the first one to go out."

She was impossible to miss, and so easy to show. With her face in such good shape, there was actually a chance someone might recognize her. But again and again, people shook their heads, almost sorry the answer was no.

"I saw that little girl many times," Jennie Heiser said. "She was a beautiful little girl. The others were mutilated, but she was so easily identifiable."

In their rounds, Thomas Barber and Ed Lowe noted her. "It was that face that caught my attention," Barber remembered. "She was a pretty little thing. She looked almost like she was asleep." She was nearly the same age as Harry.

Searchers wandered solemnly through the cots, handkerchiefs and ammonia-soaked gauze clutched to their noses. State troopers in pith helmets and uniformed nurses bracketed them, ready to step in. The sound car droned out the names of people wanted in different parts of the armory; otherwise the huge room was so unnaturally quiet that the occasional sob traveled across it like a shock wave, chilling the skin, freezing the heart like a close call.

All it took was a blackened bit of jewelry, a missing incisor, an appendectomy scar. One little girl had cut her palm that morning, and her father had fixed it with a Band-Aid. Her clenched fist still cupped the bandage. Otherwise she was almost unrecognizable, her clothing burned away except for her black patent leather shoes. Another girl had been wearing a sunsuit. There was just enough material left between her legs to make out the color—proof to her family that this was indeed her.

Sometimes the escorts didn't need to uncover the face, just a hand with a ring, a wrist with a bracelet, a foot with a sneaker. Occasionally they'd show the whole body; this method proved especially worthwhile in the case of husbands looking for wives and wives looking for husbands.

Though no one fainted and there wasn't a trace of panic, it was not all calm. A grief-stricken woman screamed as she identified the body of her son. She beat her forehead and wailed as her nurse led her away. A soldier pulled the blanket back over the boy's face. Some turned and walked away swiftly, in tears; some stood with a hand clapped over their mouths; some clutched their heads.

After identifying his wife Anna, Salvatore DiMartino had to be supported by his escorts. They gripped his hands and biceps, leading him away between them to the checkout desk like a prisoner. The DiMartinos had eight children. They lived on Barbour Street. Anna didn't even like the circus; she preferred going to the Princess Theater where she collected free dishes for her kitchen, one a show. She'd only gone with a cousin because

Mr. DiMartino, a cabinetmaker, received free tickets from the owner of a furniture store he'd done some work for. Compounding Mr. DiMartino's grief was the hard fact that he knew he didn't have money for a proper funeral.

Dr. Weissenborn made out her death certificate right in front of him: "Burns by fire, 4th degree (Conflagration)." She'd been born in Beila Blanca, Argentina, and had only come to Hartford in 1923.

A close reading of the death certificates showed the heavy first- and second-generation European immigrant population of the city at that time. The nationalities listed included Lithuanian, Russian, Romanian, Polish, Swedish, Greek, Hungarian, Austrian, and of course Italian, over and over again.

Some of the dead were from outlying towns, a few from far-flung spots like Brooklyn and Pittsburgh. A line on the form that read "In this community" attempted to ascertain just how long people had been residents of the city. For two Rockville natives, the answer was: "1 day."

Like many of the Italian dead, Anna DiMartino was released to the Laraia-Sagarino Funeral Home on Washington Street. A white-coated mortuary attendant zipped her into a bag on a wheeled cart and took her out of the east archway to a waiting hearse. The crowd of onlookers tracked it as it turned onto Capitol.

Salvatore DiMartino left for Barbour Street to tell his children. The oldest was eighteen; the youngest, only one, would never understand.

Only one identification was made with paper. By the northeast chute, rescuers had found a handbag under the body now tagged #4540. The woman was horribly burned, missing her hands and even a piece of her chest. Her body had protected the bag; inside was a ration book with her name on it. Authorities contacted the Glastonbury Chief of Police, who had an officer call the home.

The woman's husband answered. Gently, the policeman broke the news to him.

"Oh no," the man said, "she's right here with me."

The policeman had seen grief and denial before. He patiently asked the man to just come down and take a look at the body.

"She's right here," the man insisted.

And she was. They'd been in the middle of the grandstand with their son when the fire broke out. Twice the crowd knocked the woman down, but she managed to escape. Her son was safe and she didn't care that she'd lost her purse.

Still, the police needed the husband to come down—to officially take her name off the body. He went to the armory and looked at 4540 for just a second. Of course it wasn't her. His wife did get her bag back though. The next day she was listed in the
Courant
among the dead.

More trustworthy were wedding bands and dental charts. The melting point of gold is 1,945 degrees Fahrenheit, and dental gold's is even higher, being an alloy. Silver fillings survive even complete cremation of the body. Rings and watches held inscriptions. As evening settled, Dr. Butler began receiving charts. He moved through the rows with a clipboard, squatting down to peer deep into the mouths of the dead, noting posts and crowns and bridges.

Downstairs, Emily Gill gave the clerks her information. No, she didn't know what the Cook children were wearing. When she and Ted Parsons had first arrived at her sister's apartment at 4 Marshall Street, they couldn't find any of the Cooks. She left Ted there to man the phone in case anyone called and headed out to the Brown School. A list there said Mildred was a patient at Municipal Hospital. Emily registered all three children as missing, got in her car and drove. She found Mildred and also Edward at

Municipal, both of them in critical condition, drifting in and out of consciousness. Edward's face had been burned; he was wrapped like a mummy. Mildred didn't know what had happened to Donald or Eleanor.

The escorts took Emily up the stairs and through the doors and onto the drill floor. The nurse handed her a gauze mask to hold over her nose. She gladly accepted it.

They took her to the children's corner, to the girls. The well-preserved girl who'd just come in—#1565—seemed to fit Eleanor's description. The escort checked the tag, then folded the nap of the blanket back.

Her hair was the right color, light brown, but seemed a little curly, un-brushed, too wild for Eleanor's. The crowd had stepped on her, and her forehead had swelled up like a pumpkin. And her teeth were wrong, the only two permanent teeth the lower ones in front. Eleanor had at least eight permanent upper teeth—or so Emily Gill thought. Eleanor didn't live with her. Maybe Marion should take a look at the girl.

No, Emily told them, it's not her.

One girl's father identified her mother by the soles of her feet, where he sandpapered her calluses. The girl's brother was never totally identified. Her father just picked a size and shape.

Some IDs were simpler. A Canton man recognized his mother immediately. He expressed his belief that she died from a heart attack, as she was burned only slightly. It was a blow, he said; he'd just lost his father the previous July 7th.

The one thing that struck the workers at the armory as odd was how few people were identified early that first evening. Hundreds of searchers came looking, but only a score or so bodies left through the checkout.

After the Cocoanut Grove, one state trooper had escorted a local couple to Boston's South Morgue to view their daughter. Now he saw the same hesitation in the searchers at the armory; their reluctance to approach the rows of cots was plain in how slowly they walked the floor. And naturally, relatives had qualms with identifying their loved ones when the bodies offered no longer resembled anyone. People were hoping they
wouldn't
find the person they were looking for. Some of the searchers acted like they didn't understand a word their escorts said. They were numb.

Others were still in denial, unable to accept that this tragedy had actually happened, and happened to them. Mrs. Grace Fifield had gone to the

circus with her sixteen-year-old son. The boy thought his mother was in front of him when they came out of the exit, then couldn't find her. Her husband visited the hospitals and finally the armory. Failing to locate her, he decided she must have been stricken with amnesia and wandered off. The family was from Newport, Vermont; Mr. Fifield allowed as she might have taken a train to Montreal.

Like all other major stages of the circus fire, the armory spawned lots of tales. One volunteer was helping a family search for their boy. They stopped in front of a cot. The family couldn't bring themselves to pull the blanket away from the victim's face, so the escort did it for them. The dead boy was the escort's son; the man had no idea he'd even been to the circus.