She's 3 feet 4 inches tall. When she was born in 1955 in southwest Missouri, doctors told her parents not to get too attached because their child would die soon. When she didn't, folks later said the dwarf baby was the biggest thing to hit town since Ol' Doc So-and-So had a baby born with only one ear.

She worked as a medical technician and later an attorney. She is now an ordained minister and director of a four-state district of Little People of America.

Her good friend Largo Callenbach tells about the time the two were in a restaurant when, after Callenbach had ordered, the waitress asked: "And what would your little friend like?"

Her grandfather gave it to her when she started to drive so she could rest her foot on something. She's 52 now, so that old block of wood has been around the block a few times.

And it shows she loved her grandfather because surely some company makes a shiny, government-approved foot stabilizer that she could buy - probably even one to match the interior of her Toyota station wagon - and finally toss out that big hunk of scuffed-up wood that Grampa probably cut in a barn with a crosscut saw.

Wyler drove to college with her foot on that block of wood. And later to law school. Now she drives every day to Unity Village, where she works as a minister.

"Is there a prize for that?" she's likely to ask back - she has done this before. "Because if there's a prize, then I'm really interested that I'm the littlest person you've ever seen."

"He was the first person I ever saw who was like me," she says. "I was this bright, precocious child, and I was going to do whatever I wanted to do - and he was a grown-up.

But then Little Oscar, a dwarf who drove the Wienermobile for Oscar-Mayer, came to town for a store opening. Apparently the man was a bit of a crusader, always on the lookout for dwarfs because he wanted to help those children.

Somebody told him about Joy, and the two talked. He told her to dream big, ignore the slights and stares, and he encouraged her to do whatever she wanted. Yes, he was the driver of the Wienermobile - not exactly positioning himself to win the Nobel Prize, but still he was convincing, and that encounter changed her life.

Well, fair to say most high school girls don't get to date the 6-foot-7 captain of the basketball team, but Wyler and the boy had a lot in common: They both got stared at a lot, and both had a hard time buying clothes.

Beyond that, Wyler has experienced family estrangement. She has worked all her life and been turned down for jobs she thinks she should have gotten. She's raised two children and lost one. Her daughter changed majors. She owns her home, and it looks pretty much like any other except for more step stools.

She has known love and heartbreak. Romance, though, is an area that she prefers not to talk about because she thinks it is the topic that the public is most voyeuristic about when it comes to dwarfs.

But she did share one story of being young and in love. He was a beau of normal height, and they had great times together. She thought he was the one.

Kim Mattox, a paralegal, worked with attorney Wyler at Children's Mercy Hospital. On top of being quite good at her job, Wyler was a joy to work with, Mattox remembers.

She took some blame herself. When she was new to Kansas City and needed money, she took a part-time job playing a leprechaun in a band. She danced around in a green satin suit and tossed "magic dust" at the audience.

But, as head of the Little People of America chapter, she says there is still a ways to go in access to life insurance and health care. Dwarfs are more susceptible to orthopedic problems and spinal stenosis.

But she sees some improvement in entertainment media, specifically the 2003 movie "The Station Agent," which tells the story of a dwarf who, upon losing his best friend, takes his loneliness to a remote community only to be befriended by an eclectic duo who needs his nurturing.

The movie starred 4-foot, 5-inch Peter Dinklage. It perhaps didn't rise to the social message, or box office, of "Philadelphia," "Rain Man" or "Driving Miss Daisy," but it did show dwarfs in very human terms of spirit, frailty and resilience.

Dinklage also plays linguist and mathematician Arthur Ramsey on the science fiction TV series "Threshold," available on DVD. It's not a token role; he's an integral member of the Threshold team.

On a recent shopping trip Wyler and her 20-year-old daughter, Kari, an adoptee who also is short-statured, were in the checkout line when the clerk heard Kari refer to Wyler as "Mom."

Probably because Joy Wyler put her foot on Grampa's block of wood and went out into the world years ago and found that strength of heart is more important than length of leg.

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