The story of the life and tragic death of Lucia Zarate — the easiest woman in history

Amazing records from the famous Guinness Book are registered, and then they are broken. That's why it comes out so regularly. But there are also records in it that have been relevant for decades. An example of this is the record of Mexican Lucia Zarate, which she set, unwittingly. This woman has been the lightest in history for more than a hundred years.

It is very difficult to surpass the record of Saratov, because at the time of coming of age she weighed only 2 kg. A congenital ailment stopped her growth in the womb, but did not prevent the development of a proportional body and mental abilities. Lucia looked like a fairy Thumbelina and people did not believe that she was a person and not a fairy fairy.

Lucia Zarate was born on January 2, 1863 in the Mexican city of San Carlos. Her family was large and unremarkable. Contemporaries claimed that her parents, brothers and sisters were of ordinary height. Only years later the secret of the Sarate family was revealed. It turns out that Lucia had an older brother, Manuel, who suffered from dwarfism, but he died in his youth.

Baby Lucia surpassed in miniature not only her brother, but in general everyone who is known to science. In the book "Children of God: Children of the Earth" by James Curry, it is said that at birth she weighed only 226 grams and had a height of just over 20 centimeters. Modern scientists are skeptical about this information and tend to believe that Sarate was born with a lack of weight, but not lighter than 2 kilograms. Up to a year it could develop relatively normally, but then it completely stopped growing.

In the book "Forensic Biomechanics and Human Trauma" by Harold and Darren Frank, it is said that growing up, Lucia almost did not increase in height and weight. At 17, she was not much taller than at 5 — only 35 centimeters. At the same time, she weighed 4.7 pounds, that is, a little more than 2 kilograms. The intelligence of the baby at the same time fully corresponded to her age.

An unusual child was noticed when Lucia turned 12 years old. At the end of the 19th century, cirques of freaks were very popular and the owner of one of them made a deal with the girl's parents. He pledged to take care of her, dress her, shoe her and pay her salary as an artist of a circus troupe. So Zarate found herself outside of her native Mexico, in the USA.

Since Lucia Zarate was truly unique, her career in show business developed brilliantly. She worked in various circuses, variety shows and shows, earning good money. Parents reluctantly gave the girl to strangers, as they could not dress and feed even such a crumb. Now Lucia herself could help her numerous family make ends meet.

The first triumph of Saratov was the number of "Fairy Sisters", in which she performed with other dwarf women. Later, she performed a duet with a small man, Francis Flynn, nicknamed "General Tick". The entertainer presented them as a married couple, but only work connected the artists. Lucia's partner soon married another artist, also a midget.

A long-term partner in the arena of Lucia, Francis Flynn, died at the age of 33 from the diseases accompanying his genetic ailment. Alas, but the "Fairy Sister" fate let go of an even shorter life and a terrible end. Like other popular artists, Sarate toured a lot. A winter trip by rail in January 1890 was unremarkable.

The train in which Lucia and her circus troupe colleagues were traveling was crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California when a heavy snowfall began. Later, the bad weather was aggravated by a blizzard, and the train got stuck in a deserted mountainous area. The coal reserves in the train were not designed for a long downtime and soon it became very cold in the cars.

The smallest artists experienced the temperature drop the worst. Their puny bodies quickly cooled down and there was no way to warm them. Lucia was wrapped in warm blankets, but it didn't help. The lightest woman on the planet died of hypothermia at the age of 27. That tragic trip was the last not only for her, but also for several other passengers of the ill-fated flight.

The record of the lightest woman in the history of Lucia Zarate was recorded during her lifetime. This happened in 1876 in the presence of scientists from Oxford University. The doctors took a lot of measurements and agreed that they had never seen anything like this before.

Mexican Thumbelina was then 12 years old, but no one believed her parents. The results of the survey recorded that Lucia was only 6 years old. But even this skepticism did not prevent Sarata from getting into the Guinness Book of Records years later. She still remains the lightest woman in history, although applicants for this title apply annually.

Modern record holders are far behind Lucia. For example, now the smallest person on the planet is Nepalese Chandra Bahadur Dangi, with a height of 56 centimeters, weighs about 12 kilograms.