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The fire also killed Elizabeth Hamilton Putnam, a former UConn home economics instructor whose husband was a well-known agriculture professor; their 9-year-old daughter, Mary Spencer Putnam; and Edith Brown Cortiss, a widowed School of Education instructor who\u2019d joined the others on impulse because she\u2019d never been to the circus. She wasn\u2019t known to be missing until her jacket was found in the dean\u2019s car after the fire.<\/p>\n
Other groups of Storrs families had also gone to the circus that day and survived, including two neighbor children who wed 17 years later, and a woman whose husband was fighting in France and who escaped with her three children \u2013 and who died 55 years later on the fire\u2019s anniversary.<\/p>\n
Also fleeing the fire with his family: Wilfred B. Young, UConn\u2019s assistant dean of agriculture, who later was named dean to fill the spot left open by Woodward\u2019s death, and who built on Woodward\u2019s work to help vault the now-named College of Agriculture, Health, & Natural Resources (CAHNR) to national prominence.<\/p>\n
But while the state and the University were irrevocably changed by that summer day, UConn was able to bring some light into the darkness of the situation by providing a free education for a young hero who had slit a hole in the tent\u2019s fabric with his pocket knife to help hundreds of people escape the smoke and flames.<\/p>\n
Years later, several local doctors, nurses and other professionals brought their experiences treating fire victims that day into their work at UConn, including some who were key to establishing important medical and social work programs at the University.<\/p>\n
The 75th anniversary of the fire is an opportunity for UConn to remember those in its community who were lost in the tragedy \u2013 and to recall how it was able to use its academic, medical, and community service strengths to contribute to the healing.<\/p>\n
‘I\u2019m Going to Take my Boy and the Youngsters to the Circus’<\/strong><\/p>\n When the circus rolled into Hartford in July 1944, only a month had passed since allied forces in World War II had landed at Normandy, France, to attack German forces in a pivotal battle that would come to be known as \u201cD-Day.\u201d<\/p>\n Word was still filtering in about the Connecticut deaths and injuries in that military action, including several UConn alumni and students who had either enlisted upon graduation or left school to serve when the hostilities broke out. By war\u2019s end, UConn would lose<\/a> at least 110 members of its community, three-quarters of whom had either just graduated or had been students at the University when they went into military service.<\/p>\n Trying to keep their wartime worries at bay \u2013 and seeking a distraction from the heat and humidity that blanketed the state that July \u2013 a trip to the circus must have seemed appealing, especially for parents seeking new diversions for their children.<\/p>\n \u201cI had gone to the dean\u2019s office that morning and said, \u2018Dean, I\u2019d like this afternoon off because I\u2019m going to take my boy and the youngsters to the circus,\u2019\u201d Young, who was assistant dean of the College of Agriculture, recalled years later about his conversation with Woodward.<\/p>\n \u201cHe looked up and me and he grinned and said, \u2018Well, I\u2019ll see you there \u2013 my grandson\u2019s here.\u2019 We went to the circus and as we parked our car, down the line about four or five cars I saw his car. I said, \u2018Well, he\u2019s here.\u2019 He was a great kidder, and I didn\u2019t know whether he was kidding me or not.\u201d<\/p>\n Woodward<\/a> and his wife Lucille<\/a>\u00a0brought their grandson, Peter Hines<\/a>, along with Elizabeth Putnam<\/a> and her daughter Mary<\/a>, and they were joined at the last minute by Edith Cortiss<\/a>, a friend and fellow UConn instructor who rented part of their house on Horsebarn Hill Extension and who\u2019d been widowed when her husband was killed 17 years earlier in a farming accident.<\/p>\n As it turns out, several groups of families and friends had traveled that day from Storrs to Hartford, many of them the spouses and children of UConn faculty and staff members. But while those circus patrons survived \u2013 albeit many with nightmares for years to come \u2013 Woodward and his party were not to be so fortunate.<\/p>\n News reports from the time say a fire broke out under the big top, sending billowing black smoke through the air as the flames licked the gasoline and paraffin mix that had been used to waterproof the tent fabric.<\/p>\n As spectators scrambled to escape, Young was about halfway up the bleachers with his son and others. \u201cI said, \u2018Sit still, let them crawl over us.\u2019 When the people got out of the way, I dropped the youngsters down to the ground through the bleachers and we went out the back side. By that time, the entire tent was on fire \u2026 The whole tent was down and burning, burning the bleachers.\u201d<\/p>\n They returned to Young\u2019s car, not knowing what else to do \u2013 and that\u2019s when he saw the dean\u2019s car sitting where they\u2019d last seen each other, unoccupied and unclaimed.<\/p>\n When they were later allowed to leave, Young went straight to the State Armory in search of information about Woodward and his group. From there, he headed to a hospital where he found Woodward bandaged from head to foot, so grief-stricken that he could only say, \u201cPoor Lucille! Poor Lucille!\u201d<\/p>\n Lucille Woodward had died in the fire and her husband, who later told the nurse that he\u2019d witnessed her death, said repeatedly that he wanted to die himself. His grandson had also died; so had Elizabeth Putnam, her daughter Mary, and Edith Cortiss.<\/p>\n Young helped authorities identify Elizabeth Putnam\u2019s body by prying open her fist and finding her initials in her wedding ring; he recognized little Mary and identified her, too.<\/p>\n Back in Chicago, Albert Waugh was collecting as much information as he could glean by phone: \u201c[A friend] told me that Gene Woodward was on the danger list at the hospital, his wife dead, and their grandson dead. What a horrible shock.\u201d<\/p>\n Woodward survived the night, but was traumatized by witnessing his wife\u2019s death and kept telling others, \u201cI certainly used damned poor judgment,\u201d according to Waugh.<\/p>\n A person who knew the Woodwards and had been sitting near them later explained that Woodward apparently hadn\u2019t realized the severity of the fire and, after telling those in his group to remain calm, he went back to their seats for his forgotten hat.<\/p>\n He died of his injuries the next morning, believing he was to blame for the deaths in his group, although later reconstructions of the fire suggest that even many people who thought they were close to safety ended up trapped. Even without the decision to get his hat, Woodward and his group were in such a perilous location they might have been blocked anyway by the metal chutes in place to move circus animals in and out of the tents.<\/p>\n For his part, W.B. Young reluctantly agreed to serve as Woodward\u2019s replacement, a role he held for a year as the University searched for a new dean. Although he initially didn\u2019t want the job, he eventually accepted the role and ended up serving for 22 years, guiding the college through arguably one of its most pivotal periods.<\/p>\n Woodward was honored by creation of a scholarship that granted financial aid to agriculture students well into the 1950s. The local 4-H Club also planted an oak sapling in his memory in April 1945 on a slope near the President\u2019s Residence on Oak Hill.<\/p>\n ‘I Never Thought of Myself as a Hero’<\/strong><\/p>\n There was little to provide comfort to Connecticut in the days and weeks following the fire, as families mourned their loved ones and sought answers about what had caused the tragedy.<\/p>\n UConn President Albert Jorgensen, who\u2019d returned with his wife from their shoreline vacation for the Woodwards\u2019 memorial service, was facing criticism for missing the services for Mrs. Putnam and her daughter the day earlier.<\/p>\n Mourning his friends, guiding the campus community through its grief \u2013 all while working on the delicate task of replacing the dean and running the University during wartime \u2013 Jorgensen might rightfully have been apprehensive when Connecticut Gov. Raymond E. Baldwin reached out to him a few days after the fire.<\/p>\n But this turned out to be a spot of brightness in that otherwise dark summer: News was spreading about a 13-year-old boy named Donald Anderson<\/a> of Columbia, Connecticut, who\u2019d used his pocket knife at the circus to cut a slit in the tent canvas that allowed untold numbers of people to escape.<\/p>\n Fifty years later, in an interview with the New York Times<\/a> marking the fire\u2019s anniversary, Anderson explained, \u201cI remembered I had my pocket knife, and I took it out and made a slit in the canvas and crawled out. A lot of other people followed me \u2026 I never thought of myself as a hero. What I did was a matter of self-preservation.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cboy hero,\u201d as he was being called, was front-page news across the country \u2013 and the governor, with Jorgensen\u2019s enthusiastic agreement, believed he should be rewarded with a full scholarship to UConn in recognition of his quick thinking and actions estimated to have saved hundreds of lives.<\/p>\n It was a sentiment shared by many. In the July 12, 1944 edition of the Hartford Courant<\/em>, a person identifying himself or herself as \u201cA Reader\u201d from Middletown urged the state to reward Anderson.<\/p>\n \u201cI have no knowledge in regard to any plans that he and his parents may have made for his education,\u201d the reader wrote. \u201cWhatever they may be, it seems suitable to me that the public of the community now assume the privilege of providing him with a fund amply sufficient to pay the cost of any course of education he may choose \u2013 suitable also that any such fund, if raised, be regarded as fully earned by the boy\u2019s own actions.\u201d<\/p>\n The Fire\u2019s Legacy at UConn and Beyond<\/strong><\/p>\n In the 1955 edition of UConn\u2019s yearbook, The Nutmeg, graduating senior Don Anderson is still easily recognizable as the onetime \u201cboy hero.\u201d<\/p>\n He still has the serious look and thick dark hair, although he\u2019s now in a bow tie rather than the straight ties he wore as a 13-year-old being photographed for the newspapers and later receiving the Connecticut Distinguished Civilian War Service Medal from Gov. Baldwin.<\/p>\n Anderson, who earned his UConn degree in sociology, went on to a long career in insurance and enjoyed collecting coins and fishing in his retirement, before his death in 2012 at age 81. He\u2019d also continued to help others as a member of the Shriners, which focuses on philanthropic efforts, especially children\u2019s medical care.<\/p>\n When he graduated from Windham High School in 1948, the quote under his photo was fitting of a boy hero who\u2019d taken his UConn education and grown into a life worthy of admiration: \u201cI dare do all that may become a man.\u201d<\/p>\n The circus fire also provided difficult but invaluable medical experience for many physicians and nurses at Hartford-area hospitals, including several who treated circus fire patients at McCook Hospital early in their careers. When the state assigned UConn to take over McCook\u2019s operations in 1967, as the Farmington campus was being built, several of the longtime physicians there played key roles in developing UConn\u2019s medical services and the new health center.<\/p>\n Dr. Milton Carl Fleisch, for instance, was physician in charge at McCook during the circus fire and organized, cared for, and treated many of the victims, according to his obituary. He later was a clinical associate in pediatrics for UConn Health, becoming deeply involved in creation of the new facility in Farmington.<\/p>\n The experience also shaped many other people who brought skills they\u2019d learned to UConn and UConn Health in medical, nursing, and other fields.<\/p>\n Josephine \u201cJo\u201d Vignone Turner, for instance, was a relatively new social worker at McCook Hospital on the day of the circus fire, and she earned several commendations for her tireless work and dedication to the victims she served. She stayed at McCook until it closed in 1975, bringing her experience to UConn and becoming the first director of social work at the newly founded John Dempsey Hospital. She died in 2009.<\/p>\n This weekend, people from throughout the region are expected to visit the Hartford Circus Fire Memorial site at 350 Barbour St., for a ceremony to mark the anniversary and honor the victims. The event starts at 2:30 p.m., Saturday, July 6, nearly the exact time that the fire broke out 75 years ago.<\/p>\n The memorial includes several plaques describing how events unfolded, with a central plaque situated where the big top\u2019s center ring was located that day. The names of each victim, including those from UConn, are listed on the memorial.<\/p>\n Edwin G. Woodward\u2019s body was believed to have been cremated after the joint memorial service held for him and his wife Lucille, whose body was never found. She remains among six people officially listed as missing.<\/p>\n Edith Cortiss was buried in her family\u2019s plot in Thompson. Putnam and her daughter are buried together in the New Storrs Cemetery on UConn\u2019s campus \u2013 not far from the home that they left on that hot, sticky July day 75 years ago for an afternoon at the circus with their friends.<\/p>\n Watch video of part of the roll call of names of those who died in the Hartford Circus Fire at the memorial event on July 6, 2019, from Elizabeth and Mary Putnam to Edwin and Lucille Woodward:<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Members](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/woodward-photo_orig-e1562157745188.jpg\")
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