Thursday, September 9, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Meet Britain's smallest mum (whose 14-month-old son towers over her)
From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
Britain's smallest mum told today how her baby son already towers above her - aged just 14 months.
Proud Amanda Moore, 25, became the shortest woman ever to give birth in the UK when son Aidan was delivered by Caesarean section last year.
She suffers from a rare bone disease which has left her measuring just 3ft 1in. But because the condition has left her unable to stand, Aidan already towers above her at 2ft 6in.
Amanda says Aidan could end up being as tall as his father Steven Fyfe, 20 - who is a lanky 6ft 1in.
'It's been a struggle because he's been running rings around me since he was crawling. But now he's walking he's more than a handful for someone my size. Most boys are bigger than their mums, but not after a year. He'll always be my little boy.'
Amanda, of Hinckley, Leicestershire., suffers from brittle bone disorder.
She was born with 14 broken bones and resigned herself to never having children because experts feared that her tiny frame could not cope with a pregnancy. But she accidentally fell pregnant and defied doctors' advice to have an abortion.
Amanda said: 'Doctors advised me to have a termination and we did think about it. I didn't want to die and there was a real and likely possibility that the baby growing inside me would kill me.
'But at the same time I felt a strong love developing for our unborn child I just couldn't dismiss. We both wanted this baby so much.'
Aidan was born on February 27 last year weighing 5lb 5oz and had not inherited his mother's bone condition.
At 14 months, he already tips the scales at 22lb - nearly half the four stone his mother weighs.
She said: 'Soon Aidan will be bigger than me and we are working out how I can move him around the house in my chair while Steven is at work.
'Aidan is starting to say a few words and is really mobile - but he'll never be too big for a telling off from his mum.'
Steven, who works for a taxi firm, said they haven't ruled out having another child even after the stressful pregnancy and the danger of passing on Amanda's condition.
He said: 'It's been a struggle but Aidan is doing so well. He's a big boy and will soon be much bigger than his mother. When Amanda became pregnant doctors told us she or the baby could die, or even both of them.
'But they are both fighting fit and we are a very lucky family. We are not ruling out having another child - Aidan would make a great big brother.'
Posted by gjblass at 2:10 PM 0 comments
Labels: Guinness World Records, Medical Oddities, Pregnancy, pregnancy-and-childbirth, Small People, Strange Pregnancy, United Kingdom
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Meinhardt Raabe, the Wizard of Oz's Munchkin coroner, dies aged 94
From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
Original: Munchkin Meinhardt Raabe, pictured here last year, has died aged 94
Meinhardt Raabe, who played the Munchkin coroner in "The Wizard of Oz" and proclaimed in the movie that the Wicked Witch of the East was "really most sincerely dead," has died aged 94.
His carer, Cindy Bosnyak, said Raabe died on Friday morning at a hospital in Orange Park, Florida. He was one of the few surviving Munchkins from the 1939 film.
Bosnyak said Raabe complained of a sore throat at his retirement community before collapsing and going into cardiac arrest. He was taken to Orange Park Medical Center, where he later died, she said.
'He had a headful of hair at 94 and he ... remembered everything everyday,' she said. 'To me he was a walking history book, very alert.'
Raabe was one of the 124 Munchkins in the film classic and one of only nine who had speaking parts. He was 22 years old and a show business veteran, earning money for college as a "midget" performer, as they were called then, when the movie was shot in 1938.
Raabe portrayed the diminutive Munchkin official who solemnly pronounces the witch dead after Dorothy's farmhouse lands on her: 'As coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her, And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead.'
His costume included a huge hat with a rolled brim, and dyed yak hair was used for his handlebar mustache and long beard.
In a 1988 interview, he said he had no idea the movie would become a classic, because at the time of its release, it was overshadowed by "Gone With the Wind."
'It was only after CBS got the film in 1956 and used it for their promotions that it became as well known,' he said.
'There is nothing in the picture that dates it,' he said. 'There are no old vintage cars or old vintage streetcars. ... It's a fantasy picture that will be fantasy for generations to come.'
'And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead': Meinhardt Raabe, Munchkin coroner, in the film The Wizard of Oz
'Raabe was about 3½ feet (1.07 meters) tall when the movie was made. He eventually grew to about 4½ feet (1.37 meters). He toured the country for 30 years in the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile, promoting hot dogs as "Little Oscar, the World's Smallest Chef."
He also enjoyed going to Oz nostalgia events and getting fan mail.
'It's an ego trip,' he said. 'This is our reward, the nostalgia.'
In 2005, his book "Memories of a Munchkin: An Illustrated Walk Down the Yellow Brick Road," co-written by Daniel Kinske, was published. In later years, he lived in a retirement community in Penney Farms, Florida.
In 2007, Raabe was one of seven surviving Munchkins on hand when the Munchkins were honored in Los Angeles with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Raabe said he couldn't remember what he was paid for his role in the movie, but that it was very low.
'By today's standards, people would say you were crazy to work for that,' he said.
Raabe, born in Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1915, was a member of the Midget City cast at the Chicago World's Fair in 1934. He also performed at other fairs, including the San Diego Exposition in 1935.
'By working at these world's fairs as a midget, I was able to work my way through the university,' Raabe said. He earned a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Wisconsin and, years later, a master's degree in business administration from Drexel University.
Meinhardt Raabe, far right, joins other Munchkins from 'The Wizard of Oz' pose as they receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007. Munchkins, from left: Clarence Swensen, a Munchkin soldier, Jerry Maren, part of the Lollipop Guild; Mickey Carroll, the Town Crier; Karl Slover, the Main Trumpeter; Ruth Duccini, a Munchkin villager; Margaret Pelligrini, the "sleepyhead" Munchkin and Meinhardt Raabe, the coroner.
Raabe married Marie Hartline, who worked for a vaudeville show called Rose's Royal Midget Troupe, in 1946. She died in a car crash in 1997.
Raabe said some little people resented the word "midget," but that was the description widely used when he was in show business.
'My wife and I were both in show business, were both midgets. My wife worked from 1929 to 1932 as a member of Rose's Royal Midgets, the largest midget troupe in vaudeville,' he said.
Raabe became a regular visitor to the annual OzFest in Chittenango, New York, the birthplace of "Oz" author L. Frank Baum, after reading about it in a magazine in the late 1980s.
'Meinhardt wrote us a letter and said, 'You know I'm a Munchkin. I was in this movie. Would you ever be interested in having me come.' Of course, after we stopped screaming ...,' organiser Barbara Evans said in 1998.
'Things didn't start to get really big until Meinhardt first came and we started getting the Munchkins to come,' said Evans.
Posted by gjblass at 1:54 PM 1 comments
Labels: Midgets, Small People, Things That Are Awesome, Wizard of Oz
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Chinese dwarves set up their own village
A community of dwarves has set up its own village to escape discrimination from normal sized people.

Everyone in the mountain commune in Kunming, southern China, must be under 4ft 3ins tall - and they run their own police force and fire brigade from their 120 residents.
Now the group has turned itself into a tourist attraction by building mushroom houses and living and dressing like fairy tale characters.
'As small people we are used to being pushed around and exploited by big people. But here there aren't any big people and everything we do is for us,' said spokesman Fu Tien.
Posted by gjblass at 3:55 PM 0 comments
Labels: Drawf, Dwarfs, Fairy-tale homes, Fairytale Castles, Midgets, Mushroom Houses, Small People
