Orval Orman Kisselburg (1922 - 2008)

Hello, My name is Sharon Peake, I have lived in Salt Lake all my life. This story is not my story, but the story of my father who is truly an inspiration to anyone who meets him. You may remember him, he was quite famous in the Salt Lake area in the 50's & 60's, Orval the Daredevil Clown (Orval Kisselburg)? He was an intermission attraction at the stock car races when they were at the Fairgrounds. He blew himself up with dynamite, crashed cars, told jokes, and made people laugh. I am sending this story because he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrigs disease in the early 80's. ALS is normally a 4 year terminal disease, but he continues to amaze us. He is divorced and lives alone in low income housing in the Rose Park area at this time. He has had a leg amputated about a year ago, but still hangs on. Anyway, here is part of his story in his own words:

From 1952 through 1982 I was a professional stuntman. I’ve toured the entire United States and all of the Canadian Provinces, had offers to go to Japan, Australia, England, and Puerto Rico; but I had too many people closer to home waiting for open dates. When someone asked why I was in such a dangerous business, my stock answer was, “You might say, I’m too lazy to work and I’m too nervous to steal.” I was asked to tell how I cope with adversity. Webster’s New World Dictionary lists adversity as “poverty turned against, misfortune, wretched state, trouble and calamity.” In the past three years I have experienced all of the above. Let me start at the beginning. I was born in Vernon, Texas on February 22, 1922, the second son of Jesse M. and Lula B. Kisselburg. My father was a blacksmith and I’m sure he had some Gypsy blood in his veins because he kept moving the family from town to town in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and New Mexico. We moved to New Mexico in late 1929. I attended public schools in Roswell, and enlisted in the service just after the outbreak of World War II. I served in the Military Police in the States, France and Germany. While growing up, all I ever wanted was to be a daredevil. On weekends I would go out to the bridge that crossed the Pecos River and climb on the steel structure, walk and jump from one section of the overhead beams to other sections. Then I’d go below the bridge and swing from the steel rods that stabilized the structure. Word got around town that there was a nut out on the Pecos River bridge. There was so little to do then, that anything that happened drew half the town (especially if it was free). I was drawing so many spectators, it was hard to get the traffic over the bridge. The Highway Patrol asked me to find some other place to do my thing.

I was a lifeguard at the age of seventeen and held the job for three summers. I did other work during winter months, from soda jerk to taxi driving to laundry delivery. At the age of nineteen, I started diving off the hundred foot high cliffs at the Bottomless Lakes State Park to the east of Roswell. Those stunts also drew large crowds. I married a Salt Lake girl, Shirley, in 1946, we had 3 children, but were divorced in 1968. My oldest son, Mike, died in 1968. I then married another Salt Lake girl, Karen. I was a stuntman from 1952 and retired in 1982. My stunt work took me to nearly every state in the union and all the Canadian provinces. I performed at speedways, state and county fairs, movies, on national television with Evel Knievel, and jumped my way into the Guiness Book of World Records. I’ve had so many injuries that I’ve lost count. My back has been broken, ribs, arms, both legs, shoulders, hands, both feet, and my face has been mashed in a couple of accidents. My cheek bone was broken once where the doctors had to go in through the left temple to reset the cheek bone. During a performance at Rochester one of my crew hit me with a car going at a very high speed and shattered both bones below the knee. From that mishap, I spent thirty-seven days at the Mayo Clinic. I could go on for hours telling about my stunt work, but I don’t have enough paper to put it all on. When I first came to Salt Lake in 1946, I got into the restaurant business. Then I went to work at the Chicago Bridge and Iron Company. There I was a welder. I worked there for ten years and was dabbling in the daredevil business on holidays, weekend, and vacations. The superintendent told me it had to be my job or stunt work. Naturally, being the daredevil I was, I chose my stunt work. In 1958, my stunt work became full time from May to October, averaging three shows a week. My wife Karen worked for the phone company and traveled with me during vacations and long weekends.

In 1978 I noticed a lameness in my right leg. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t swing free. Then there came stumbling and a fall now and then. Breathing became a problem. In 1982 things became so bad I had to hang up my helmet and call it quits before I hurt someone. I was in the hospital for two months undergoing every test known to my doctors. Every test turned out negative. Then Dr. John Barbudo called to have Karen, my wife, bring me to his office. He said to us, “We’ve found your problem.” He told us I had A.L.S., commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. That was November 2, 1983. We were both devastated. It was like being put off a train at midnight in the middle of nowhere. We both cried together and alone for weeks. We had so many things we wanted to do when we retired, and in just a matter of minutes our whole life changed. But, I want you to know that many good things have happened in the thirteen years that followed. I’d have to say more good than bad. This disease has kept progressing slowly. There is no treatment for the disease – they can only treat the side effects.

On November 21, 1993, I fell in the kitchen and broke my right hip. When the paramedics put me on the stretcher, they let me fall off the stretcher back to the floor causing more damage to the already broken hip. A few days later the pain was so severe, an x-ray revealed a screw in the hip was too long and more surgery was needed to replace it with a shorter one. On March 17, 1994 (four months later), I suffered a heart attack. On the 19th, I had open heart surgery. Dr. Millar did a four-bypass operation. We were informed of the risks involved in doing this operation because of the Lou Gehrig’s Disease. But without the operation, the outlook wasn’t too bright. So I told the doctor that my life had always been a challenge, and this was another challenge. I was confident that I could beat it. Because of complications, the chest had to be opened four times in a month. To make things worse, after the second surgery, my nose on the left side broke loose and bled for over two hours before the team of doctors could get it under control. Had I not been in a hospital, I would have died. I had to have twenty-one pints of blood to replace what I lost. I asked a nurse where the blood came from and what part of the country it came from. I think it came from down South, because I still have a strong craving for cornbread, black-eyed peas and watermelon. From the open heart surgery, I spent three months at L.D.S. Hospital.

As all good things must come to an end, the woman in my life, is no longer the woman in my life. We went through a bitter and ugly divorce. She left me penniless for awhile. When I objected to her infidelity, she closed all the savings accounts and gave thousands of dollars to her friend, leaving me with only my Social Security. But to show what faith and praying can do, as they say, “I came out on top.” I believe in prayer. Even if I have difficulty speaking, God can hear silent prayer, and I do a lot of it! I truly believe that I can beat this Lou Gehrigs’ thing. A person has to think positive and have faith and that’s what I have been doing. I remember a story I read along time ago. There was a man who walked across the land with God. As they were retracing their footsteps, the man asked God, “Why is it that on the even, flat fields, there are two sets of footprints and when we come to the mountains there is only one set of footprints?” God’s answer was, “The mountains represent the bad and hard times in your life and that was when I carried you.” I, too, have had some bad and some hard times during the past fifteen years, and I know that there is a set of footprints showing that He has carried me through a lot of mountains. As for this Lou Gehrig’s Disease, I don’t think I’m dying from it I’m learning to live with it.

Orval passed away 03/29/2008 in his sleep of an apparent heart attack. He believed he did beat Lou Gehrig’s as he lived to be 86 years old. Rest in peace Daddy, we love and miss you every day.