In recent years, I have had a chance to meet some of the juggling "gods" who have inspired and influenced me. Trixie has always been at the top of my list. I had watched her on video hundreds of times and spent countless hours learning tricks she performed. After locating her in Oklahoma, I booked a show there to try to meet her. It turned out she was coming to New Jersey to visit her sisters Hilda (who also performed as a juggler) and Lola, and agreed to meet with me.

As I approached the door for our first meeting I was nervously wondering if it would live up to my expectations. My expectations were far surpassed as I got to know this thin, 5'5" woman with a twinkle of wisdom and love in her eye. We have subsequently talked on the phone and met several times, and she constantly overwhelms me with knowledge, experience and wit. Her humble and honest attitude has given me new inspiration that will carry me for a long time to come.

The following is a combination of those meetings, book quotes and my own thoughts.

Trixie was born as Martha Firschke into a circus family living in Budapest, Hungary, in 1920. Her supposed destiny was to follow her mother's tradition as a perch pole balancer. But, at 11 years old, when she was first sent up the pole she was terrified and begged not to go back. Instead, she saw a juggler who let her try his mouth stick. The first time she tried it she could balance a ball. Her father, who was not a juggler, recognized his daughter's natural ability and began working with her. He had seen Rastelli and tried to teach his daughter many Rastelli tricks. She was unaware of what she was becoming and practiced not out of a love of juggling, but for her father.

At age fourteen she was a star, performing on all the great stages in Europe. She even performed for Hitler in 1936, and he gave her a signed box of bonbons. Then she moved to America, where she worked at Radio City, in a movie with Fred Astaire, and as a featured star with Ice Capades trom 1942-1957, except for a two-year break to work stages. She married Escoe Larue, another performer with the Ice Capades, and now lives in Muskogee, Oklahoma, having raised five children.