Ivy’s Letter
A cable, less than an inch in diameter, hung across Eldorado Canyon for 75 years. Frank Fowler, my great-grandfather, supervised the construction, and Ivy Baldwin, the famous aerialist, crossed it time and again above the crowds amassed below.
Frank’s adopted elder son, the Author Gene Fowler, wrote of Ivy in his book, A Solo in Tom-Toms. In the book, Ivy says, “… two things scare me, and I don’t know which scares me the most. One of ‘em is I simply can’t go down under the earth, like the time they tricked me into a mine elevator at Lead, South Dakota, then dropped me in the ore bucket two thousand feet down the shaft; the other is when I got to write a letter. Writing a letter makes me shake all over. Nothing ever fazes me except when they put me in an ore bucket or I got to write a letter.”
So I was quite surprised while I was at the Gene Fowler archives at the University of Colorado in Boulder, to run across this letter from Ivy to Gene dated July 30 (1948). The letter relates to Ivy’s last walk across the canyon, not on the old high wire, but on a lower wire my grandfather, Frank’s second son, Jack, strung across the canyon for the occasion. You can witness this historical moment in this YouTube clip.
Ivy Baldwin’s letter to Gene Fowler, July 30 (1948)
Credit: Department of Special Collections and Preservation, University of Colorado Boulder Libraries
The letter reads, “Dear Gene, you thought I was all through, you did not know me as well as you thought you did. I have been working on Jack for several years and finally bluffed him in(to) letting me celebrate my birthday. I told him I would walk the high one if he did not let me put up a wire lower. Nuff said — Ivy Baldwin. Love to Agnes” My grandmother, Mabel Fowler, wrote the postscript, “He wrote this without glasses. Oh boy, what a boy! Mabel”
Ivy’s secrets: self-confidence and balance, this according to Gene Fowler’s story. The same could be said for anyone crossing that empty space from childhood to adulthood, something I know took me too long and many trials and errors to learn.
Balance. Self-Confidence. Love. A Generation Apart.
Ivy Baldwin sporting his medals of valor.
