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Edited on Mon Aug-16-04 05:53 PM by shylock1579
The preceding photos and many more just like them can be found (for a fee, please note) on HeatherHaven.com, the Website of a woman who calls herself Heather and measures in at 6 feet 5-1/2 inches tall in her bare feet and over 7 feet tall in heels. She is not from Holland, apparently; nor, if those statistics are correct, is she the tallest woman in the world (that distinction belongs to 7-foot 7-1/4-inch Sandy Allen of Indiana, according to The Guinness Book of World Records).
Still, Heather is no pipsqueak, obviously, even if the photos of her are slightly misleading (she consistently poses in high heels next to people of shorter-than-average height, thereby enhancing her stature — not that there's anything wrong with that). Albeit with considerably more glamor and self-determination, she is essentially marketing herself as a modern-day sideshow attraction à la Anna Swan of P.T. Barnum fame in the 19th century.
Born in New Annan, Nova Scotia at a weight of 18 pounds, Swan grew to a height of 7 feet 11 inches by the age of 15 and became one of the more popular "curiosities" at Barnum's American Museum in Manhattan, where she was billed as The Tallest Woman in the World (never a stickler for details, Barnum advertised her height at "over 8 feet tall"). Though she barely escaped with her life when the musuem burned to the ground in 1865, Swan continued to tour with Barnum for years afterward and even convinced her 7-foot 9-inch husband to join the show. She died of heart failure in 1888.
For a benchmark, the average height for an adult American female is 5 feet 3.7 inches.
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