"Uncle" Captain Dynamite

I've known for a while now that my father had a half brother, but I never really knew anything about him. Last year when I obtained a copy of my grandparent's marriage certificate it had Baken on it as the surname of my grandma's first husband. So I knew his surname but that was about it.

My half-brother recently emailed me and told me a bit more about our uncle. My father's half brother was Alfred R. Baken. He was an escape artist with the Transworld Auto Daredevils. For his act he would attach eight sticks of dynamite to a handbuilt coffin that he would lock himself in. After the explosion he would be standing there untouched in his white breeches, motorcycle boots, red shirt and helmet.

He had been successfully doing his act for three years when something went wrong; he was killed in front of 2000 spectators in Waterloo, Iowa. He was only 24 years old when he died in 1956. I wish that I had a picture of him (especially in his Captain Dynamite outfit) but there wasn't one in the few articles that I found online.

They are still doing this exploding coffin trick during stunt shows, so I was able to put two images here of what the explosion would have looked like.