Emmett Kelly Museum – Sedan, Kansas

            The man standing next to the big, wooden clown is Rodger Floyd, Chairman of the Board and curator of the Emmett Kelly Museum in Sedan, Kansas.  The big, wooden clown is a portrait of Emmett Kelly, the world-famous clown. Emmett Kelly was born in Sedan in 1898.  He died in 1979 having never retired.  The information in this oral history was taken from an interview with Rodger Floyd in his little office overlooking Floyd’s Market, the grocery store that he also oversees.

   

[Emmett Kelly was born in Sedan and lived there until he was about eight years old.]  His father was a section foreman on the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and [he and his family] moved to around Houston, Missouri and bought a little farm.  In his book, he talks about things he did on the farm, growing up in Sedan with kids, and running around doing things.   He talks about how he had to preserve ice and the things he had to do [on the farm.]

            [Kelly became involved with the circus as a young adult working as an artist.  The way he became a clown] was really accidental.  When he lived in Missouri, he always wanted to be an artist.  He took a course in commercial arts, a correspondence art course.  He did what he called a chalk-talk.  He’d draw a picture of a character and make up stories to go along with [it]. 

Then he moved from Houston to Kansas City, and he was working there as an artist, as a cartoonist [when] the circus came to town.  At the time, he thought he was going to get to paint [for the circus], and that’d be fun.  So, he joined the circus for that; and, at the circus, they taught him how to walk a tightrope, catch on a trapeze, and they made him [work as a white-faced clown] so [that] he’d be more useful when he wasn’t painting stuff.  The circus used to have big posters and things they put out front. He’d paint things. 

[Through] doing that [and after] a couple circuses, he got the idea that one of the most fun characters to draw pictures of and make up stories about was a little tramp.  He just decided to try to get his tramp to come to life.  [The idea of the character] just came to him, just when he was younger, drawing pictures, those little cartoon pictures, making up stories.  He then worked on making stories about his little hobo more than any of his other characters.  He was the first one [to do this].   Up until this time, they [clowns] all worked as white-faced clowns; and they would come out in troops and do stuff.  He, for some reason, tried to make his little cartoon character come to life.

[Kelly didn’t have a name for the character he portrayed, but he was eventually given the title ‘Wearie Willy.’]  A reporter in New York who wrote a story [about Kelly] just dubbed him ‘Wearie Willy,’ and it just kind of stuck with him from then on.

[Kelly was a very unique and creative performer for the time.  He worked solo while other clowns were still performing in troops.]   He always did it alone.  He was the first clown of the time to work with other than the white face, and the first one to work solo because, at this time, they all came out in troops and did stuff. He was very innovative for a clown.  He did something that’d never been done before.  He was the first clown to work solo.  They let him come out and work during an act, between acts, whenever he wanted to. He’d just come out and kind of wander around and do things.

[Performing for a number of different circuses, Kelly gradually made a name for himself.]  He just did a bunch of ‘em: Carson and Barnes [Circus], Barnes and Bailey [Circus].  There was a succession of circuses.  The Ringling Brothers is when he was most famous; and that’s what people remember, but that was the last circus he worked in.

[Beside his circus career, Kelly is also famous for the movies and other acts in which he appeared.  Other than circus performances], he was in several movies, and he did a Las Vegas act toward the end of his career.  The Greatest Show on Earth, he was in that [movie].  There were a few big movies that he was in.  [In the movies his characters were also clowns.]   In one of the movies, I think it was The Greatest Show on Earth, the character he [played] was a clown; but he was also a murderer.  [Kelly] refused to do that in his Wearie Willy outfit.  His character wouldn’t hurt anybody.  So, they put him in different make-up and [made him] a different clown.

[His character was the first to do many acts that would eventually be the Emmett Kelly trademark.]  One of his signature acts was when he would sweep the spotlight away.  [There would be] a spotlight, and he would come up with a broom and start sweeping it, and it would finally go away.  That was his signature act, and it started completely by accident.  During the circus, [the man working] the spotlight walked away and left the spotlight pointed down on the ground; and [Kelly] saw that when he was out working the crowd.  He just got a broom and started sweeping at it, and the guy that ran the spotlight saw what was going on and went over, started making the spotlight smaller until it went away.  So, the first time it happened, it was just completely spontaneous. Then, it got to be kind of one of his signature things that he did.  He wanted to portray [his character] as somebody who, no matter how bad the situation was, wasn’t going to give up and was going to keep on trying.  He had a thing where he’d try to smash a peanut, and he’d have a sledgehammer.  He’d hit [the peanut] to peel it, and the sledgehammer, of course, would [smash it to] smithereens.  Then he’d look kind of sad and try again.  Whatever he did, he wanted to portray that there was always hope, and you should never give up.

[Kelly’s character was always silent.  He only spoke on one occasion.]  He has a lot of memories [in his biography], and one of the most tragic times was the only time he ever spoke in costume [when] they had a circus fire.  It was some place back east.  That was the only time he’d ever spoken with his face on.  His character was just always mute.   He never spoke in character.

[Although the character he portrayed was melancholy, Kelly himself was really very happy.]  In the tapes and things that I’ve listened to, he seemed pretty laid-back about things and easygoing.

[Kelly was married] lots of times!  I think he had like three or four wives.  The one that is his widow now is Eva Kelly.  She’s been really cooperative with us [at the museum] when we have wanted something or wanted information.  About all his kids are clowns of some sort.  They all [worked for different companies].  In fact, he and his oldest son, Emmett Kelly, Jr. had a really serious falling out because Emmett Kelly, Jr. thought that his dad should [have been] retired and came in and took his costume and all his stuff he used to do.  [However, Emmett Kelly] didn’t consider himself retired yet, and  they had a really bad falling out.  The kids all are [still alive], and they all are still doing some kind of clowning thing.

[The museum started when] Emmett Kelly came back [to Sedan] in 1967 and did a lyceum, a chalk-talk show.  It was started by local enthusiasts. “The museum is funded by half a [million dollars] from the city and then donations mostly.

            [The museum has a variety of items on display besides the Emmett Kelly collection.]  We have a lot of local memorabilia, and we have a big collection of whisky bottles.  We have an old-time print shop.  We have a collection of old radios, antique radios from around 1925 to present, and they all work.  We have circus posters.  We really have very few Emmett Kelly things in the museum.  We have a lot of pictures of him, a pair of shoes and a shirt and a tie. 

[There are also items from other clowns on display including items from D.W. Washburn’s character, Sparky.]  Sparky was the clown who was born and raised around Chanute.  He died the same year Emmett Kelly did.  He was fairly well known in the circus circles, but they didn’t work together ever.  Sparky was killed in a circus truck accident on the way from one show to another in California.  We have a lot of his stuff.  By what stuff he have, it should be the Sparky Museum!  The museum also has memorabilia from the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and historical quilts.

            [The museum is open to the public] the first of May and stays open through October, and then any other time by appointment.  We try never to turn anybody away if they want to go see it.  They just have to get a hold of somebody, and we’ll let them go in and show them.  It’s free. We encourage donations.  That’s where we get most of our money.  I think this year (2001), we had about 5,000 people, which is quite a bit.  For us it is!

This oral history was conducted by Kristin Kirkpatrick.

*[  ] are not Mr. Floyd’s words.