Out On a Limb

At the age of eight, Louise Baker lost her right leg above the knee as a result of a road accident; she was on her very first bike ride. With a grand sense of humor and great spiritual courage, she faced life with a seemingly irreconcilable handicap. OUT ON A LIMB, her personal story, is not only one of the most stimulating and amusing books; but even more, it will be a revelation to all who have at any time been faced with personal disaster.

Louise Baker mastered her tragedy and had a whale of a lot of fun doing it. One moment, she would play the part of a dare-devil female parachute, the next, a fearless alpine skier whose foot had been frozen rescuing a snowbound child—she had to fabricate the most fantastic tales to crush the typical little boy question, “Hey, Lady! Where’s your leg?”

She made her very crutches a part of woman’s vanity—using different colors for different ensembles. She did everything a normal woman could do and more: competed with other reporters on a news beat, discovered her own and highly unconventional means of holding her beaux in college, went to live with her new husband in the wilds of Arizona, set out on a hilarious trip to Europe. Whenever the world seemed totally against her, she could console herself with Webster’s definition of “handicap”: “A race…in which an artificial disadvantage is imposed on a superior contestant.”

OUT ON A LIMB has a special significance for these times. Louise Baker’s story is told with sympathy and an understanding for all who have suffered similar misfortunes. Her life was not one colored with unhappiness, but filled with energy and purpose—the picture of a woman who enjoyed each day to the fullest.