When World War II ended, veterans returned home to find jobs or go to college, marry, and start families. Bubba Voss, though, joined the circus.
He took the skills and talent he had learned in Orange as a youngster in the Lutch Stark Boys Band to the Army Air Corps Band. After the war, he became a trumpet player in various circuses that traveled the world.
During a 22-year career in circuses, he played for famed animal trainer Clyde Beatty, clown Emmitt Kelly, and the Wallendas.
“Music is an important factor in circus acts, and each performer and group supplies his own music. Timing must be perfect, with musicians and performers synchronized. Circus performers must be more alert for cues than dance bands,” Voss was quoted in a 1980 Beaumont Enterprise story written by Arlene Turkel. Turkel later earned a doctorate degree and has been a longtime English professor at LSCO.
One of Voss’s memories was watching Marilyn Monroe ride a pink painted elephant as he played during a Ringling Brothers Circus parade in Madison Square Garden. The sight inspired him to start collecting elephant figurines.
He said circus bands usually had 10 men playing, but the large Ringling Brothers had 28 men in the band.
Circus bands were responsible for setting the mood for the crowd and performers. “A band’s job included keeping a calm atmospher if a wild animal got loose or an aerial performer fell,” Turkel wrote.
Being from Orange, Voss heard a lot of stories from circus veterans who never forgot the town’s history in the circus world. Floto, a bull elephant in the Sells-Floto Circus escaped during a show in Orange in November 1921. Hundreds of residents hunted him down and shot at him. The next day, Floto was killed with a high-caliber rifle loaned by Edgar Brown Jr.
Voss retired from the circus circuit in 1970 at the age of 51. He returned to his hometown and worked at Levingston Shipbuilding for several years. He also married another Orange native, Enola Trawhon, who was a widow.
A 1971 blurb in The Billboard circus newsletter reported Voss was a married man and living in Orange.
Elephants werent the only items he amassed. During his tours with circuses, he collected memorabilia including posters. After he retired from touring and returned to Orange in 1970, he shared his collection with the community. The Heritage House Museum and Orange Public Library had special displays.
He had an expansive collection of colorful circus posters dating back to 1910. One was from a Wild West Show featuring Annie Oakley.
School and scout groups were invited to tour his home to see the circus items and his vast collection of Orange history.
His house, built by his maternal grandparents, was on a special U.S. Bicentennial local home tour in 1976. He and his wife named the house “Rhapsody,” a musical term. The sprawling two-story house at 502 Cypress Avenue at Fourth Street has been renovated.
One room was dedicated to local history. He told Sheila Beeson in a 1978 Opportunity Valley News store “I’m not a collector. I just don’t throw things away.”
Voss was born Rudolph Voss Jr. in 1919 in Orange. His mother was also a native, being born to immigrants from Wales. His maternal grandparents were Morgan Gwalahmai Davies and Gwlady Davies. Morgan for many years was city secretary-treasurer and tax collector.
Voss told Beeson that his grandfather had known Geronimo and talked with the Native American on board a train traveling through Orange.
His father, Rudolph Sr., moved to Orange in 1913 and for decades operated a saddle shop in downtown before moving it to a building in back of the house on Cypress.
Bubba joined the Lutch Stark Boys Band when he was old enough. H.J. Lutcher Stark founded the boys band and paid for the instruments, instruction, and uniforms.
In a Las Sabinas story, he recalled playing at the dedication of the Sabine River Bridge in Deweyville in March 1938.
After graduating from Orange High School, he played nights in dance bands while holding jobs like working at Ortmeyer Funeral Home and for the Navy shipyard at Consolidated Steel.
During World War II, Voss joined the military and his talent on the trumpet landed him a chair in the U.S. Army Air Corps Band.
When he was discharged, he came home to work at Consolidated Steel again and played in dance bands. His life changed when he was invited to play a gig with a traveling circus in Port Arthur. The colorful show drew him to spend 22 years on the road with a colorful part of history.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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