On Aug 13, 10:16=A0am, James Fenimore <slipuva...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> She died a virgin, I guess. =A0*****? =A0Could any partner have
satisfied
> her ***ual needs?
>
> -------------------------
> "World's tallest woman dies in Indiana at age 53"
>
> By DEANNA MARTIN, Associated Press Writer
> August 13, 2008, 56 minutes ago
>
> A woman who grew to be 7 feet, 7 inches tall and was recognized as the
> world's tallest female died early Wednesday, a friend said. She was
> 53.
>
> Sandy Allen, who used her height to inspire schoolchildren to accept
> those who are different, died at a nursing home in her hometown of
> Shelbyville, family friend Rita Rose said.
>
> The cause of death was not yet known. Allen had been hospitalized in
> recent months as she suffered from a recurring blood infection, along
> with diabetes, breathing troubles and kidney failure, Rose said.
>
> In London, Guinness World Records spokesman Damian Field confirmed
> Wednesday that Allen was still listed as the tallest woman. Some Web
> sites cite a 7-foot-9 woman from China.
>
> Coincidentally, Allen lived in the same nursing home, Heritage House
> Convalescent Center, as 115-year-old Edna Parker, whom Guinness has
> recognized as the world's oldest person since August 2007.
>
> Allen said a tumor caused her pituitary gland to produce too much
> growth hormone. She underwent an operation in 1977 to stop further
> growth.
>
> But she was proud of her height, Rose said. "She embraced it," she
> said. "She used it as a tool to educate people."
>
> Allen appeared on television shows and spoke to church and school
> groups to bring youngsters her message that it was all right to be
> different.
>
> Allen weighed 6-1/2 pounds when she was born in June 1955. By the age
> of 10 she had grown to be 6-foot-3, and by age 16 she was 7-1.
>
> She wrote to Guinness World Records in 1974, saying she would like to
> get to know someone her own height.
>
> "It is needless to say my social life is practically nil and perhaps
> the publicity from your book may brighten my life," she wrote.
>
> The recognition as the world's tallest woman helped Allen accept her
> height and become less shy, Rose said.
>
> "It kind of brought her out of her shell," Rose said. "She got to the
> point where she could joke about it."
>
> In the 1980s, she appeared for several years at the Guinness Museum of
> World Records in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
>
> "I'll never forget the old Japanese man who couldn't speak English, so
> he decided to feel for himself if I was real," she recalled with a
> chuckle when she moved back to Indiana in 1987.
>
> "At Guinness there were days when I felt like I was doing a freak
> show," she said. "When that feeling came too often, I knew I had to
> come back home."
>
> Difficulty with mobility had forced Allen to curtail her public
> speaking in recent years, Rose said. She had suffered from diabetes
> and other ailments and used a wheelchair to get around.
>
> Rose is working to set up a scholar****p fund in Allen's name, with
> proceeds going to Shelbyville High School.
>
> "She loved talking to kids because they would ask more honest
> questions," Rose said. "Adults would kind of stand back and stare and
> not know how to approach her."
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080813/ap_on_re_us/obit_tallest_woman
I'm sure Wilt Chamberlain would have taken a shot at her . . .
|
