A fascinating life
Vander Clyde as Barbette. (Photo via CircusesAndSideshows.com) Vander Clyde was the daring young queen on the flying trapeze BARTEE HAILE | Special Contributor SPECIAL TO THE MEXIA NEWS EDITOR’S NOTE: This column is reprinted from The Mexia News, courtesy of the author.
The unique and fascinating life of Vander Clyde ended where it started, his birthplace of Round Rock, when the celebrated star of the trapeze and high wire died by his own hand on Aug.
5, 1973. “The first time my mother took me to the circus in Austin, I knew I would be a performer,” Clyde once said of the big-top experience that gave him his calling. “From then on, I’d work in the fields during the cotton-picking season to earn money in order to go to the circus as often as possible.” Hour after hour, the youngster practiced “walking” an imaginary high-wire — his mother’s clothesline in the backyard.
Confident he was ready for the real thing, he answered an ad placed by the surviving half of an acrobatic duet called the “Alfaretta Sisters.” Vander Clyde went from Round Rock around the world and back again.(Photo courtesy CircusesAndSideshows.com) For a 14-year-old boy, Clyde was exceptionally well-developed and coordinated.
