Customer Reviews

A Matter of Degree: The Hartford Circus Fire & The Mystery of Little Miss 1565

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This book is poorly written, yet the subject is fascinating. The love Rick Davey has for himself often brings the narrative to an abrupt halt. But the worst part is that Mr. Davey is so intent on finding a solution to the mystery of Little Miss 1565 and proving himself to be a wonderful investigator that he twists the facts to make them fit his theory. I didn't discover this until I read another book on the Hartford Fire. Mr. Davey pronounces the identity of the the mysterious little girl. What he doesn't mention is that dental records disprove his identification. This really is revisionist history of the worst kind because a family was caused to suffer to assauge Mr. Davey's ego. If you are interested in this story, I recommend reading The Circus Fire by Stewart O'Nan. It is better investigated, written and much more comprehensive. It also has the merits of being much more factual than this book.

I hope no one was paid to EDIT this book (I can't believe anyone did.) Facts mentioned in passing in the first half, are "astonishing" when discovered by investigator Davey in the second half. And author Massey is WAY too attached to the word "ironically" (and he bats around .500 when it comes to applying it correctly.) But I'm glad I read it, as I've been interested in the story since seeing a reproduction of a newspaper front page showing Emmett Kelly helping to fight the fire.
I wonder if another book will someday deal with another "lost victim" who's mentioned briefly... the one supposedly carried into a hospital by his uncle... (I think I'll go get "The Circus Fire" for now.)

for non writers who manipulate everything to suit their conceptions. the FACTS completely debunk this book. Thankfully, these men will fade; the true mysteries remain unanswered waiting, perhaps, for someone without personal gain to cull through, define and present. What a nasty book.

I finished reading "Circus Fire" By Stewart O'Nan and I decided to read "A Matter of Degree" as a comparison. "A Matter of Degree" was terrible, it was obviously written by someone who had made up his mind who started the fire long before he ever researched it. Rick Davey clearly got his 15 minutes of fame from the publicity surrounding the previously never identified "Little Miss 1565". If you want a more acurate account of the fire and the aftermath read "Circus Fire". Stewart O'Nan had nothing to prove by investigating the fire and the circumstances surrounding the identity of "Little Miss 1565" Because of this "Circus Fire" is clearly a better story and it is certainly more neutral simply because the author was an outsider who was able to look at the facts and tell it like it was.
The worst part of the whole story was the supposed identitiy of "Little Miss 1565" as Eleanor Emily Cook. It is highly unlikely that Miss 1565 was Eleanor, but Rick Davey set out to prove that she was who he wanted her to be. He did so by ignoring basic rules of identification. Her height was off, her teeth didn't match up with Eleanor's and her hair was not the color or texture of Eleanor's.
Very poorly written, all around a dreadful book filled with multiple inaccuracies.

Don't waste your time on this book. Get "Circus Fire" instead if you want a more fact-based (and well-written) account of the mis-identification associated with the mass casualties of the Hartfrod CT circus fire.

This reader agrees with the reviewer who called "A Matter of Degree" "revisionist history of the worst kind." Hartford, Connecticut arson investigator Rick Davey was obsessed with a mystery surrounding a circus fire that took place in Hartford on July 6, 1944. A little girl (known as Little Miss 1565) was trampled by panicking circus-goers and died that same day in the hospital. Her body was never claimed and, although she was one of six unidentified corpses, she was a special case. Many of casualties of the fire were burned so badly that dental records had to be used for identification. Little Miss 1565 looked barely touched save for a burn mark on her left cheek. Still, no one recognized her, so she was buried with the other unknowns.

The mystery continued to intrigue people through the years especially with the circulation of a funeral parlor photograph of Miss 1565. Finally, Davey set out to identify the girl. After years of investigation, he decides it is Eleanor Cook and Miss 1565 is re-buried under that name. The problem is that the facts do not fit the conclusion. According to "The Circus Fire" by Stewart O'Nan, Eleanor Cook and Little Miss 1565 do not match up based on the evidence. Cook was taller, older, had more permanent teeth, and was wearing a different outfit. Her relatives, including her mother, saw Little Miss 1565 in the morgue and determined it was not Eleanor. Another unidentified girl (1503) actually fit Eleanor's physical traits better, but was badly burned.

It is unfortunate to level a poor rating on this book because most people who know this story want to put a name on Little Miss 1565, but what good is putting a wrong name on her? Her brother Donald believes Little Miss 1565 is his sister but he was a child when he knew her. Eleanor's mother Mildred Cook resisted the identification but finally relented which makes this reader wonder if she just went along with it to have closure. Although dead is dead, it is no doubt more comforting to believe a body that looks like its sleeping is one's loved one rather than a body burned beyond recognition. There is a photo of Mildred Cook sitting by her daughter's grave which is doubly sad when one considers she may have still believed in her heart that the little girl in the grave was not really Eleanor. She actually received some criticism after the identification by people questioning how a mother would not claim her own daughter for so long.

"A Matter of Degree" is a case where the facts aren't allowed to get in the way of a heart-warming story. The title of the book also seems inappropriate. It is mentioned in the prologue that the phrase was used as the difference between commitment and obsession. Still, the word "degree" when it comes to this subject, can only make one think of the heat of the flames. 167 people died in the fire and they were not granted the mercy of dying from smoke inhalation, but were burned to death.

The inclusion of Davey's personal history was unnecessary & stopped the momentum of the book. I liked O'Nan's book about the circus fire better...he told a more complete story of the fire and the victims. However, A Matter of Degree provided an excellent account of the fire, the investigation in 1944, and Davey's investigation decades later. Davey's arguments about Segee's guilt were convincing.

The original investigation was flawed, and the City of Hartford's/State of Connecticut's efforts to impede Davey's efforts (calls to FBI) to protect the city from liability are shocking. Hopefully victims & survivors are taking advantage of this book to hold the city accountable.

Davey appears to believe that his proving arson relieves the circus from any responsibility and that the 5 employees should not have served prison terms. Yes, arson caused the fire, and yes, the city of Hartford should also have been held responsible. However, the circus was also to blame (waterproofing the tent with highly flammable parrifin & gas), reducing their insurance, not having hoses that fit hydrants, etc. Serving less than a year in prison is no where close to what the victims & survivors suffered. Davey doesn't address the circus's testimonial that they had attempted to find other ways of waterproofing their tents. O'Nan provides in this book proof that other ways of waterproofing (non-flammable) were in existence at the time, used by other circuses, and war efforts did not prevent material availability.

This book is both intriguing and infuriating at the same time.

Intriguing because of the light shed on the cause of the Hartford circus fire of 1944, and the resolution of at least one mystery that came out of that disaster, and irritating beyond belief because of the unnecessary melodrama used to describe the actions of one of its authors and the repetition of some of the material. That one of the co-authors is the key player in the most recent developments about the fire shouldn't have allowed the authors to occasionally lean on purple writing. Cheers for the investigator blend with boos the lapses in the writing.

The fire was tragic on its own, the actions of the investigator commendable on their own, without the overwriting that describes investigator Rick Davey's long quest to solve a mystery that he'd grown up hearing about and later felt compelled to solve.

That the pieces were all there, waiting to be assembled, is no knock on his desire to find them all, put them together and reach a conclusion that finally was accepted by those remaining.

That many knew, or should have known, key details that could have led to an arrest, the identification of the mystery victim, a more equitable punishment of those responsible for the disaster and so on, should be a lesson to us all today. As the country tries to assess events related to Sept.11, questions of building security and design, fair distribution of compensation, U.S. intelligence and much more, I'd like to hope we've learned the lessons of the dangers of secrecy and failure of many to take responsibility for their actions. We shall see.

This account may leave you wishing for yet one more book on this topic before the fire's survivors fade away. Most of the key official players are long gone from the scene but there's still more to be said about the fire that claimed 168 lives.

In contrast with one other book on the same topic, this book is written more clearly and from an investigator's viewpoint. Thus it has less detail about the hellish experiences of the victims and more focus on attempting to explain the fire's origins, possible perpetrator and the identity of one mysterious victim.

As briefly as possible, and eliminating the utterly unnecessary melodrama about the life of the fire investigator who co-authored this book, here are the main details about the disaster:

Several thousand people attended the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Hartford, Conn., on July 6, 1944, a fire broke out on the Big Top's canvas, patrons trying to flee were trapped and either burned or crushed to death. Most of the victims were quickly identified, with a handful of exceptions, one of them a little girl who came to be known as Little Miss 1565. Nearly as speedily, several circus employees were sentenced to relatively short jail terms for having failed to meet certain safety regulations.

Anyone who lived in Hartford in the 1950s through the 1970s will remember the investigators who, each year, placed flowers on the mystery girl's grave, and the annual recounting of the disaster. They'd also remember the emotional resistance when, in the 1970s, a circus proposed returning to Hartford for a Big Top show. The feelings of Hartford residents ran deep, very deep, even 30 years later. What didn't run as deep, apparently, was a desire to find out just what had caused the fire, or the resolve to identify the mystery girl. Sometimes people just don't want to know. That no one had written a book about this tragedy until just the last few years is stunning to an outsider.

While on a private quest to answer the long-standing question about the identity of 1565, Davey began digging through State Library records and, to his credit, uncovered a trail that led directly to a hired hand working for the circus. The suspect had a long history of arson, and had confessed, a few years after the disaster, to setting the Hartford fire. The tale of why Connecticut authorities failed to take the man's confession seriously-or rather, to move against him-is justifiably a big part of this book. Someone appears to have let someone else get away with murder but unfortunately, despite Davey's best efforts, the reason is unresolved beyond the belief that it was nothing but a coverup, meant to explain the initial erroneuous findings. Also valuably reported by Davey is the extent of statewide personal and political contacts that sent the circus men to jail while keeping city politicians out of harm's way or even having to answer questions about how the disaster occurred. And, no surprise, Davey was left hanging out in the wind once his findings came to light.
His recounting of the family of the mysterious girl and how each coped with the tragedy of dual losses that day are heartbreaking.

Unfortunately, many of the officials who might have been forced to answer for their failure to act, and apparent decision to quickly close the case, are long dead. Equally incomprehensible is the failure of contemporary authorities to act on Davey's findings, because they are definitely convincing, even to one who initially doubted the mystery had been solved 50 years after the fire.

Particularly valuable is Davey's obvious hard work at uncovering the records of earlier investigations that could have led to an arrest. In fact, one of the surprises of this book is that some of this information was known years ago. But a)he's the only one who appears to have done this legwork b)he's done a good job telling us how he did it, which invites the question as to why no one else ever has.

So, read this book, but skip the prologue, which borders on the ludicrous because of the writing, as important as it might be to Davey, and Chapter 16, which is an account of Davey's childhood, and totally unnecessary to the telling of this story. Though he is the key player in the reopening of this case, he doesn't belong in the story this way. Where were the editors?

Here we look at one of the great mysteries of the circus fire: who was little miss 1565, the little girl asleep in death, never identified. It is not primarily about the fire itself, though that is covered fully in the first few chapters. It's a great read nonetheless. Investigator Davey learns the girl is actually Eleanor Cook, who died along with her younger brother. We could call this Eleanor's story.

The authors make a persuasive case for their position, taking time to address problems with the theory. I feel they do a pretty good job. And it makes sense, considering the size and age of the victim. Little miss 1565 also bears a resemblence to Eleanor. One can understand the obsession here. The girl's image haunts the reader from page to page, just as it did Massey and Davie.

I'm much less convinced of Davie's conviction that arsonist Robert Segee set the fire. True, he was an arsonist and was employed by the circus that day, so his 1950 confession must be taken seriously. But there is no proof and the arguments advanced fall flat. After all, if the circus had had twelve fires in the previous months, and saw fire as a constant hazard to be monitored, it means no fire starter was necessary. The tent was even soaked in a gasoline solution! Several animals were killed in a 1942 fire in Cleveland. Was Segee there? The authors also contend it must have been set due to its ferocity compared with earlier tent fires. But whatever the source, any fire that takes hold would have generated the same fantastic fury. Finally, Segee changed his story several times and suffered from psychotic delusions. It is no wonder Connecticut never prosecuted him.

A mystery in the mystery: the mysterious, terrible fire of Barnum Circus and the sad mystery of a small girl never recognized by avybody. Maybe did she come from another world, another dimension ? . And she just wanted to amuse herself with lions, horses, clowns...
Reveal us your story, Little Miss Nobody !