The Tall Man

At 7 feet 1 inch tall, I’m sure former professional basketball player Shaquille O’Neal has often heard, “Wow, you’re tall.”  After all, Shaq easily towers over most people who see him.  But I’ll bet he’s not accustomed to hearing people say, “Who’s that tall guy with Shaq?”

I’m going to tell you about a young man who would have made Shaq look…well, normal.

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Most of us experience a growth spurt at some point in our lives, and many of us have stood up against a wall so our parents could mark our height and record how much we’d grown since last measured.

Well, a young man named Robert Wadlow had a growth spurt that lasted 22 years and, well, his parents could only have recorded his height on the wall because they lived in a two-storey house.

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Robert Pershing Wadlow was born in Alton, Illinois on February 22, 1918.  There was nothing amazing about the new baby, the first for Harold Franklin and Addie May (Johnson) Wadlow.  Newborn baby Robert was 20 inches long and weighed 8 pounds, 6 ounces.  Nothing incredible there.

But that didn’t last long.

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By the time he was six months old, Robert had almost doubled his length, growing from 1 foot 8 inches at birth to 2 feet 10 ½ inches in ½ year, an increase of 1 foot 2 ½ inches!  He had also gained 21 pounds, 10 ounces!

Things slowed a bit in the second half of his first year.  He only grew 7 ½ inches and gained 15 pounds, to 3 feet, 6 inches and 45 pounds!  Only?  That’s a one year old baby the size of a normal five year old!

When he started school at six, Robert towered over all of his classmates, and many of his teachers too.  Six-years-old Robert stood 5 feet, 7 inches tall.

I won’t detail every six months of growth for little Robert (if the word “little” even applies).  By the time he celebrated his eighth birthday he had outgrown his 5 foot, 11 1/2 inch father by almost an inch.  He was taller than an average full-grown man, 6 feet exactly, and weighed 169 pounds.

He grew another two inches the next year, and gained 11 pounds.  Reportedly, he was well above average in strength too.  He was reportedly able to carry his dad upstairs with Dad still sitting in his living room chair!

At the age of 13, Robert joined the Boy Scouts, instantly becoming the tallest Boy Scout ever, at 7 feet, 3 inches tall, and weighing 260 pounds.  He, of course, required a specially made uniform, tent, and other equipment.

By the time he graduated high school, at the age of seventeen, he was 8 feet, 3 inches, having grown five inches in the past year.

Two years later, when he celebrated his 19^th birthday, he had reached 8 feet 5 inches in height and weighed 480 pounds, and was the tallest person EVER, but he wasn’t finished growing yet.

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Thus far I have emphasized Robert’s height and weight, but there was more to the man.  He enjoyed photography until his hands got too big and he was no longer able to operate all the buttons and controls on any camera made.  He had fun playing the guitar until his fingers were so big he found it impossible to compress individual strings.  He was also above average in intelligence.  After high school, he enrolled in college, intending to practice law, but he just didn’t fit…and I don’t mean with the course of study or with other students, but with the college, and not metaphorically…physically; the building was too small for him to get around in.

He joined the Freemason’s and eventually became a Master Mason under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Illinois A.F. and A.M.. His Freemason’s ring was the largest ever made.

In 1936 Robert did a tour with the Ringling Brothers Circus.  By 1938, he signed on for a promotional tour for the International Shoe Company.  One reason he signed on for the tour was that the company provided his shoes for free.  That may not sound like much to us, even when I say the shoes would have cost him $100 normally, but when I tell you that $100 is equivalent to more than $1600.00 today, it brings it into better perspective.  Of course, he outgrew them regularly.

For the tour, Robert’s father drove him around the country in the family car.  To do that he had to remove the front passenger seat so Robert could sit in the back seat and stretch his feet out forward.

Robert had an affable personality, with a good sense of humor.  One unpleasant, aspect of the public appearances was that people would sometimes pinch his legs, or kick him in the shins, trying to prove that he was a shorter man wearing stilts.

Mild mannered Robert was asked by an interviewer what he did when people rudely tried to hurt him like that.

He smiled, “I just overlook them.”

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As Robert continued to grow, he developed medical problems.  The nerves in his legs grew less capable of transferring sensation, and he gradually lost feeling in his feet and lower legs.   This made it more difficult for him to walk and he began to use a cane.  He had to be fitted for braces since he could not feel and respond to changes in the footing on uneven ground. 

In 1940, Robert made an appearance at Michigan’s Manistee National Forest Festival.  Because of his nerve issues, he was unable to feel a blister forming on his leg.  An infection set in and Wadlow was admitted to the hospital.  Besides the nerve issues Robert had a compromised immune system and, despite a blood transfusion and emergency surgery, Robert Pershing Wadlow passed away in his sleep on July 15, 1940.  He was 22 years old.

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Robert’s body was returned to Alton, Illinois for interment at Oakwood Cemetery.  At 8 feet, 11.1 inches tall, he was obviously much too large for a normal casket, and one was specially made for him that was 10 feet long.  Once the gentle giant was laid in repose, the casket weighed 1000 pounds.  Eighteen pallbearers were enlisted to carry it.

An estimated 40,000 people were in attendance to say goodbye to the much loved young man.

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Robert Wadlow left behind a legacy as large as he was.  In 1985, Alton had a life-size bronze statue of him erected on the campus of the Southern Illinois University.

At the Alton Museum of History and Art, visitors can see photographs of Robert, as well as a few pairs of his shoes, his third-grade school desk, his graduation cap and gown, and his size-25 Masonic ring. (Mr. Wadlow also holds the world’s record for the largest hands ever, measuring 12.75 inches from the wrist to the tip of his middle finger.)

In case you haven’t done the math, when he passed away, Robert was 1 ft 10.1 inches taller than Shaq…almost two feet.  His specially made shoes were size 37AA.  Shaquille O’Neal only wears size 22. 

Only.

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