THE BALLOON MAN

Ringling's second marriage a "Three Ring Circus"

PHOTO / DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL RESOURCES

A young and beautiful Mable Ringling, the love of John's life. When she passed in 1929, he said he would never be happy again

From Sarasota Herald Tribune

By JEFF LAHURD-Correspondent

Sunday, February 9, 2014 

SARASOTA - On Dec. 19, 1930, in the office of Jersey City Mayor Frank “Boss” Hague, John Ringling and Emily Haag Buck said their “I do's” and tied the nuptial knot.

John, who was 64, had lost his first wife, and love of his life, Mable, the year before. He was also suffering from cash flow problems brought on by the Great Depression.

The much younger Emily (she was in her early 40s), a lovely lady with a wavy bob, bright eyes and a ready smile who lived at the tony Barclay Hotel in New York, met “Mr. John” in Amsterdam on the Fourth of July. 

When she returned to New York they courted, and in November of that year the unlikely couple decided they would marry. It proved not to be a match made in heaven.

The comely Emily, who enjoyed throwing cocktail parties at home and the night life among the swells in clubs from New York to Miami and Palm Beach, was undoubtedly impressed with the trappings of the circus kings wealth: a showplace bay front mansion, Park Avenue apartment, Rolls Royces, private rail car, yacht, world renown circus, an enviable art collection housed in his own art museum and the friendship of rich and powerful men.

For his part, Ringling was probably taken by the Emily's sophisticated looks, intelligence, sparkling personality — and she also had plenty of cash on hand; an enviable commodity as the Depression wore on.

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http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20140209/ARTICLE/140209660/2055/NEWS?Title=Ringling-s-second-marriage-a-Three-Ring-Circus-