Wait…What?
Don’t blame the Orange Lions Charity Carnival on the death of the famous flagpole sitter Shipwreck Kelly. He survived the two heart attacks he suffered while sitting on a pole in Orange in October 1952.
It was the other flagpole sitter Shipwreck Kelly who died in October 1952 in New York City.
Yes, America had two Shipwreck Kellys who sat atop poles for entertainment. Research on the two show they could also be called “bull sitters.” They were full of improbable tales.
Flagpole sitting was a national fad during the 1920s as stunt people would go atop a tall pole with a seat and sit for days, or even weeks. It was entertainment and promotion. Sitters traveled around the country for jobs. It is likely one of the Shipwreck Kelly sitters got jobs off the publicity from the other.
“Shipwreck Is Dead, Shipwreck Is Alive,” read a Page One headline in the Orange Leader on October 12, 1952. Tohe story said “Shipwreck Kelly died in New York Saturday afternoon.” And “Shipwreck Kelly was alive and kicking in Orange as of midnight Saturday night.” He was recovering at the home of Mrs. Lillian Toups at 803 Main Avenue.
The house was yards away from Orange City Hall at 803 Green Avenue where the Lions Carnival was held. Shipwreck Kelly and his flagpole-sitting talents were featured at the carnival that year.
The Orange Lions Charity Carnival in 1952 opened on Wednesday, October 1. The carnival traditionally ran four days, Wednesday through Saturday, one week, and then the same days of the week the next week.
Reporter Ralph Ramos with The Leader, a daily at the time, in the September 30 edition promoted the carnival with a feature story on the stuntsman the Lions had brought to the carnival, “Shipwreck Kelly.” Ramos took a photograph of Kelly with Lion Cecil Nance.
Kelly told Ramos he was 73 years old and the plans were for him to go on top of a 30-foot pole on the first day of the carnival and sit there for 11 days.
The story said he had begun pole sitting in the 1920s and had set a record of 110 hours in 1928, and then went 58 days in Denver in 1932. He said he got the nickname because during World War I, he served in the merchant marines and survived four times after his ships were hit by torpedoes.
He also claimed to have sat on top of a pole in Galveston as a hurricane was coming. He said the 240-pound police chief ordered him down, but the chief couldn’t make the climb up to force him.
Shipwreck Kelley also said in the 1930s he turned to marathon dancing and once went 2,700 hours.
On the first evening of the Lions Carnival, Ramos reported, Shipwreck was placed atop his “precarious perch” by “city firemen” using the “big hook and ladder truck.”
The pole had an 18-inch square seat clamped on top. The Lions Club arranged for “an old-fashioned hand-cranked telephone” to be placed on the pole so the stuntman could talk with people.
On October 2, Lions President Bert Hauver and Treasurer Travis Jarvis announced 615 paying customers had come to the carnival on the first night.
At the same time, Orange was experiencing the post-war baby boom. The City Hospital reported a record 26 babies. The number did not include the births at Frances Ann Lutcher Hospital on the other side of town.
Shipwreck, though, did not make it through the first week of the carnival. At midnight that Friday, he had a mild heart attack. Nearby firemen at Central Station came and got him down and to City Hospital. Hauver and the Lions board of directors said Shipwreck was through.
The old stuntman wouldn’t quit. He insisted on going back up on the pole. He was placed back up on the next Wednesday. But within 24 hours, he had a second heart attack. That’s when he called it quits, not just for the carnival, but for good.
After nearly 30 years, the stuntsman was retiring. Ramos and the Orange Leader sent out the word through the Associated Press wire service. Newspapers around the country reported it.
Then came more Associated Press news. On November 11, Shipwreck Kelly died in New York City. The New York Times said Alvin Aloysius “Shipwreck” Kelly died of a heart attack while walking along 51st Street in that city. He was living in a tiny apartment nearby. Inside his dwelling was a scrapbook of clippings and pamphlets about his pole-sitting feats.
New York police gave his age as 67, but the Times said the scrapbook had information showing he was born May 13, 1893, which made him 59. He claimed he had been rescued from 32 shipwrecks, including the Titanic. The Times duly reported that his name was not on lists of rescued Titanic.
The Shipwreck Kelly in Orange was still alive and recovering from his heart attacks.
So history has a mystery. Who was the Shipwreck Kelly in Orange? Who was the first Shipwreck Kelly? Did one travel the country getting jobs by claiming to be the other one?
Online history and news stories sometimes mix up the two. The one thing for sure is that a famous stuntman named Shipwreck Kelly did not die in Orange at the Lions Carnival.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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