ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 18, 1996 TAG: 9607180033
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALAN SPEARMAN
THE loudspeaker barked for attention, calling one and all to come see "Tiny Tasha, Island Princess. The World's Smallest Woman."
Tasha, the recorded barker repeated over and over, is just 28 inches tall. Her "hands are only two inches wide. She wears size 2 shoes. ... She speaks, breathes and feeds just like everybody else," the barker said. "This is truly a family show. ... She's here, she's real and she's alive."
What he didn't tell patrons at the Salem Fair, which closed up shop Sunday, is that Tasha is 42 years old and a 20-year veteran of carnival sideshows. Unable to read or write and a native of one of the poorest nations on Earth, Haiti, she is convinced she has no other options for employment.
Tasha was the fair's sole representative of what was once a thriving practice known in carnival lingo as the "freak show"; a display of a true human anomaly not depending on illusion or trickery.
Today, Tasha's act is known more generically as a "sideshow" - which is managed and operated separately from the main fair exhibitor.
Actually, she is one of three people promoted as the "world's smallest woman" by her employer, Four C Productions.
Every day as the fair opens - in Salem or the next town down the line - she moves a few feet from her living quarters to the exhibit area in the tractor-trailer rig that is her universe on wheels.
A condition related to the dwarfism that stopped her growth at age 2 also left her unable to walk. So her assistant and ex-husband, Renet P. Antoine, carries her into the 3-foot cubicle from which she greets the day's crowds. Antoine then moves outside to take up tickets.
Throughout what are sometimes 12-hour days, Tasha smiles at each visitor, then says in the thick, raspy Creole accent of her native Haiti, "Hi, how are you? Postcards, 50 cents."
Many spectators hand over $1 bills for the cards, for which Tasha - who might have been billed the "World's Smallest Businesswoman" - rarely provides change. The postcards with her picture provide a supplement to her salary, which Tasha said is just enough to buy food and other necessities. She hopes to buy a motorized wheelchair one day, she said, so she won't have to rely on others to push her around the midway.
Because there is no barrier between Tasha and her audience, she sees and hears every reaction - from fear to laughter.
Most are like Jeff Shephard who "expected to see a mechanically operated doll or something. [But] she was cute." Some just stand stiffly, then race out of the booth as if they don't know how to react. Others are more direct: "Damn, you are really short."
Though Tiny Tasha attracted a constant stream of gawkers (50 cents for children, $1 for adults) the side show business is slowly dying, said Four C co-owner Laura Landherr.
While the public's fascination with such attractions may be diminishing, Tiny Tasha seems to have no qualms about making a living this way, despite the occasionally rude or offensive reaction of the public.
"When people laugh at me, they laugh at God, because God made me like this. God made everybody different."
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Most of the people who see Tasha don't quite know whatby CNBto say, so usually they just stare (above). 2. But Tasha wasn't at a
loss when it came to talking with little children (right).
3. Tasha sticks to her business and asks onlookers to buy her
postcards. Even when they're 6 feet, 5 inches (above), spectators
don't intimidate her.
4. 42-year-old Tasha, who bills herself as the "World's Smallest
Woman," lives and works in a tractor-trailer rig.
5. At the Salem Fair, Renet P. Antoine, Tasha's ex-husband and
current assistant, explains to a group of hesitant girls that the
28-inch-tall woman is indeed real.
6. Tasha sells post cards with her photo - for an electric
wheelchair, she says. color. ALAN SPEARMAN