Hi List, Have just been writing this up for AUS-HIST-WOMEN, a rootsweb mailing list that is just beginning and looks like it will be great. So I thought I would send it to the Gippy list as well, given that they are Gippslanders. If you are interested in joining the list, you can subscribe to it by sending an e-mail to either AUS-HIST-WOMEN-D-request@rootsweb.com (for the digest) or AUS-HIST-WOMEN-L-request@rootsweb.com (for the list) that contains nothing in the subject line and only the word "subscribe" in the body of the message. The SNELL family of Gippsland Giants Clara Snell was born in Foster, South Gippsland, in 1872, and her sister Anna was born in 1879 at Bunyip in West Gippsland. These women, the children of "normal-sized" parents, who were first cousins, grew to an enormous size, and toured the world with their brother, Tom, born 1877, as the Australian Giant Family. Clara was billed as the World's Largest Woman, and her occupation on her passport was "Giantess". By the age of 15 years Clara was 29 stone and 5 pounds. Apparently at her peak she weighted 39 stone. There were a number of other children in the family who were also apparently of "normal" size. The three first began touring as children (Anna is nine in one photograph) at the instigation of their father, and they appeared in at least England, America, South Africa, India and France. Photographs of them, which were sold as souvenirs, show them in tartan costumes (in the time of Queen Victoria's "Scottish period"). Tom, who was large, but not unusually so, resented the touring, and as soon as he turned 21 left the act, only touring for one last time so the family could leave a hotel in which they had become established in West Gippsland. But the thing that interests me is that the sisters chose to continue touring in their own right as adults, and apparently enjoyed being "exhibited". They were musical and moved easily and lightly around the stage, were noted as brilliant conversationalists, and saw this life as giving them a measure of independence. Clara died in 1914, Anna in 1930 and Tom in 1949. All are buried in the Bunyip Cemetery in West Gippsland. Tom's son Jim remembers as a child, his elderly "retired giant" father telling of how, as a child in Buffalo Bill's Show, where they performed, that Chief Sitting Bull was the "best of the lot". There were no pockets in the little giant's costume, and he kept losing the tips people gave him to sneak them back stage to meet Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull made sure they were given back to him! Jim wrote a more detailed account of their lives in Gippsland Heritage Journal No.22 (Sept 1997) If anyone comes across any newspaper accounts of the Gippsland/Australian Giant Family appearing in their area, I would dearly love to know about it so that we can fill in details of their tours. Cheers Linda Barraclough Briagolong List Owner: AUS-VIC-GIPPSLAND email: kapana@netspace.net.au http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~surreal/AVG/