Alf T. talents were broad, ranging from playing several instruments, juggling, superintendent of the sideshow, and director of the press department. Alf T. had a love for words and he began writing the annual route books beginning in 1895 and in 1905 he wrote Life Story of the Ringling Brothers. Alf T. wrote copy for the newspapers, the couriers and the herald. He died when he was fifty-six, living long enough to see the opening of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Madison Square Garden in 1919 after they combined.