Matriarch of tight-rope-walking Wallenda family dies at 87

Jenny Wallenda was the head of the famous family of gasp-inducing tight-rope performers.

|
Alvan Quinn
In this Jan. 24, 1964 file photo, Jenny Wallenda, a member of the famous Wallenda high wire act, applies makeup in a dressing room prior to appearing at opening of the Shrine Circus in Detroit. Wallenda, the matriarch of the famous family of high-flying circus performers, died late Saturday, April 4, 2015, at her home in Sarasota, Fla., according to family members. She was 87.

Jenny Wallenda, 87, the matriarch of the famous family of high-flying circus performers, died late Saturday at her home in Sarasota, Florida, according to family members.

Wallenda's nephew, Rick Wallenda, said his aunt died following a lengthy illness.

"She had a great life in entertainment, a very rewarding and rich life," he said.

Wallenda was the oldest daughter of high wire walker Karl Wallenda and grandmother of daredevil performer Nik Wallenda.

Jenny Wallenda's husband, Richard Faughnan, died in 1962 when a human pyramid collapsed. Karl Wallenda fell to his death in 1978.

Jenny Wallenda survived the invasion of Berlin by Soviet forces at the end of World War II and returned to the United States in 1947 to perform with her family. Her parents sent her to Germany to live with her grandparents in 1934 at age 6.

Jenny Wallenda walked the high wire as an adult and performed on bareback horses as a child.

According to the Sarasota Herald Tribune Wallenda advocated for causes important to the circus community in her later years and helped create the Circus Ring of Fame. She was inducted into the Ring of Fame in 2008.

Nik Wallenda paid tribute to the woman he called Oma on his Facebook page.

"She was an amazing woman who lived a truly incredible life. She will be missed everyday. Oma in your honor, I will never give up," he wrote.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Matriarch of tight-rope-walking Wallenda family dies at 87
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/0405/Matriarch-of-tight-rope-walking-Wallenda-family-dies-at-87
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe