Eva Kelly Lewis

At the age of 8, my grandmother fashioned a trapeze using a broom handle and ropes and taught herself different tricks in their barn. She and her sister Mitzie practiced each day after their chores on the farm were completed. Mitzie broke her arm one summer trying difficult tricks with my grandmother. I apologize for the poor quality of the photo, but it's the only one in existence. Eva, at the age of 10, is contorting with legs wrapped behind her head holding a trapeze bar with one hand. She did this act on vaudeville stages and later with her family’s Moore Hippodrome Circus that traveled with carnivals until World War One curtailed most activities and travel due to the war.

In 1923 she met Emmett Kelly, who also joined John Robinson Circus that year. They soon had eyes for each other. It was frowned upon to get involved with others on the show for the distractions it created. Even worse if they married they were likely to be fired, yet when playing in Niagara Falls, NY they crossed into Canada with the intent of getting married. They could not as they were not of that country. In late July while playing in St. Petersburg, FL, they got a ride into town and bought a marriage license that morning at the courthouse. After the afternoon matinee, they snuck off to the home of a preacher and was married in his parlor. They expected to get fired, but didn't. I suspect because her father worked with the show, as did her siblings, and her mother was working in wardrobe, those factors saved them. Mitzie then partnered on trapeze with another while Eva and Emmett paired together to become the Aerial Kelly’s, billed as a “lightning fast” double trapeze act.

In 1924 she became pregnant with their first son Emmett Kelly Jr. and continued in their trapeze act until her seventh month of pregnancy. She finished the year ticket-taking before the show, then selling candied apples during and after the show. They toured with John Robinson for the next several years sometimes appearing with Sells Floto and Hagenbeck Wallace. Their son stayed with his sister in Lafayette, Indiana during the months they were out on the road. In 1931 due to the depression, their job with Sells Floto ended. As it turned out that would be the last year they performed together. The Aerial Kelly’s were grounded.

In March of 1934, their second son was born. A couple months later when the circus rolled out of town they left both kids with relatives. Emmett was working in clown alley and she worked Aerial Ladders, and Spanish Web that season. She definitely wasn't happy not working with her husband nor that she wasn't performing in a principal act. The great depression was nearing the mid-point and jobs were hard to come by. Most of the Peru circuses scaled back while some didn’t even tour in 1934. The Aerial Kelly’s again fell victim to better competition. My grandmother did not travel with any circus that year. Because she couldn't find employment, she stayed home in Peru, Indiana caring for their two sons while my grandfather performed in white clown makeup, rode horses in the parade and was “general useful.” He at least had a job.

In 1935, better competition sidelined The Aerial Kelly’s once again, and as it turned out for the last time. As a cartoonist, my grandfather had met fellow Missourian Walt Disney and had become good friends over the years. Walt having seen my grandfather's cartoons and caricatures invited Emmett to join him in California, but his destiny lay elsewhere. He had an opportunity to perform with Cole Brother's Circus who accepted the sad faced hobo he created earlier on an easel. My grandmother urged him to move to California and work with Disney. My grandfather chose the opportunity to perform in clown alley and with his new character, to fulfil his dream. It was the right time to bring the character he created on an easel to life. My grandmother said if he went on the road without her again she would divorce him. They were divorced later that year, each taking financial responsibility of their two sons. She took the younger of the two, Pat Kelly, who lived with my grandmother nearly her entire life.

In 1936, Eva traveled the fair circuit with her 30 foot rigging which she erected and tied out herself. She did that for a couple years playing Shrine Circus dates and various fairs around the country. It was during those travels that she became closer with Cop Clown Joe Lewis who had recently lost his wife to cancer. Joe, his wife, Eva and Emmett often played cards together as they traversed the country with different circuses over the years. Joe remarked that since they were playing the same show dates, they were friends, both alone they should travel together. They found solace in each other and were married in 1939.

Together, Eva and Joe appeared in Shrine Circuses and fairs across the country. Eva performed Spanish Web, Cloud Swing, and Single Trapeze. Joe generally tended rope and entertained the audience with his humorous antics. Eva’s trapeze career ended 2-6-1953, at the age of fifty, while performing at the Shrine Circus in Detroit when she fell forty feet, breaking both her ankles on. An inexperienced rigger didn’t tie her rigging correctly resulting in a career ending tragedy. One would think at age fifty she wouldn’t have been performing in the first place but when you have sawdust in your blood, you can’t get the performer out of the sawdust. That wasn't her first fall. At the beginning of her trapeze career, working with my grandfather in 1923, his grip slipped and she fell 27 feet breaking her wrist. Such are the dangers of aerial work in the circus.

In 1961 Joe died four month before his 73rd birthday. Two years previous he had performed his last show, the levitation gag, in Peru during the initial phases of Peru's Circus City Festival. Determined to continue performing, even at the age of 58, Eva continued the act with her younger son Pat who performed Joe’s routine. Like his older brother, Pat also performed a tramp clown character, but without infringing on the name or his father’s routines and persona. 1961 was the last time she would have the strength to muscle her way up on the trapeze. Thereafter, she acquired sponsors and walked in parades around the state of Indiana wearing sandwich boards promoting one business or another.

In 1989 my grandmother was walking to the store when an irresponsible hot rodder pealed out of a gas station striking her, tossing her forward some forty feet running over both legs at the age of 86. She would gain the use of her legs but for the most part was confined to a wheel chair. This photo was her last parade at age 87. Wheelchair bound, and too stubborn and lacking motivation to move, she didn’t get much circulation in her legs and passed away the following year due to complications of gangrene in her legs.

My grandmother was a loving soul that loved her life, loved the circus and loved her circus memories and friends. Here she is photographed with Micky King, a lifelong friend and fellow circus retiree. They lived a short walking distance of each other. This photo was taken two months before being run down. It is the last memory I have of her. Thanks for the memories Grandma.

Other Circus Relatives
Click the buttons below to meet the others.

EMMETT KELLY

EVA KELLY LEWIS

JOE LEWIS

PAT KELLY

EMMETT KELLY JR

GRACE, JEANNIE, MITZI