The contributions of women to juggling in general and to the IJA in particular have been tremendous and largely unsung. From the expertise of Lottie Brunn to the tireless dedication of Violet Carlson Beahan, from the magic of Dell O'Dell to the behind-the­scenes ministrations of Eva Crosby, countless women have graced the juggling community as performers and supportive non-jugglers.

 

They are too numerous to mention them all, but they deserve recognition and thanks. It seems appropriate, therefore, to choose one to stand for all, and to accept for all a bouquet of gratitude. Appropriate in the service as representative First Lady is Betty Gorham Willer.

 

She was barely a teenager, but already an accomplished amateur juggler, when she began her life-long connection with the embryonic IJA. She was part of a new generation of jugglers and of women in post-vaudeville, post-war America. She first began corresponding with other jugglers simply to learn more about the art. But this correspondence led to years of columns in Roger Montandon's "Juggler's Bulletin" and the IJA "Newsletter" ­ columns full of news on other jugglers and her own career around the country.

 

In 1947 she became, after the original 13 charter members, the first person to join the IJA. She remains a member to this day.

 

She began juggling at age 13 for no par­ticular reason she can remember. When she saw the great Truzzi, she was captivated. From his style, she learned that half of a good performance was involving the audience in the juggler's personality. Her trademark became a happy smile to convey to them the joy she felt juggling.

Doug Couden, an established professional in the school assembly circuit, first brought Gorham to the attention of "Bulletin" readers in July 1945 when she was a 14-year-old club juggler in Davenport, Iowa.  In August, her picture appeared, identified as "that 14-year-old gal tosser." She was a thin young woman, with an open smile and buoyant dark hair, wearing a simple striped blouse and long skirt. The enormous Lind clubs she juggled for the camera nearly dwarfed her.

 

In February 1946, portions of a letter she wrote to Couden were published by Montandon in the "Bulletin." This began a long stretch of faithful reporting to readers, with a quality that rivaled members decades her senior. Her words are flavored with her youth, and one can feel the vivacity of a teenage woman in a postwar era of Sinatra and bobby socks:

 

Think the new Bulletin letterhead is neat. Glad you are going to tell more about school show biz. In last White Tops saw article, 'Juggling is Engineer's Hobby' about Roger by A. Morton Smith. Book 'Circus from Rome to Ringling' has some bits of information about Al Ringling who did juggling and balancing. Hope someone follows your suggestion about taking juggling movies. Guess that's all for now.

The P.S. to that letter mentioned that Wilfred DuBois was playing "across the river" in Moline, but that the nightclub was off limits because of her age. In the typical spirit of those early networking days, Couden air-mailed a request to DuBois to visit Gorham on her own turf.

 

Her reporting was the byproduct of a desire to learn more about juggling during a time when information was hard to come by. The same was true for obtaining props.

 

In July she wrote her appreciation for receiving foil paper from Glen Phillips. At that time, it was one accomplishment to get hold of a set of Lind clubs, and quite another to keep one's self stocked with the fragile foil that professionals used to decorate the naked clubs. She also received juggling knives from Eddie Johnson and books from Jack Taylor of England, and she expressed her gratitude to Montandon for "those utility balls" - good spinning balls hard to come by in the rubber-short postwar years.

 

Still in high school, she practiced for hours in the gym on Saturdays and participated in school shows, all the while broadening her contacts with the IJA juggling community through letters and by catching the acts in her area. Her dedication and success seem all the more remarkable because she did not come from a family of entertainers. She had no sponsorship into the professional juggling community - something that was virtually required then - except her own push and zeal for juggling. "Chutzpah!" she said.

 

On June 19, 1947, just two days after the historic founding luncheon in Pittsburgh, Betty Gorham's name was enrolled as the first member of the IJA at the ripe old age of 15. Her youth and immersion in juggling was a forerunner of the new generation of jugglers waiting to transform the face of the organization.

 

This was confirmed by a published letter from Jack Greene in which he said, "Betty is of the coming generation. She has all the talent necessary and the youth to go with it. Watch for Betty."