In her classroom at Lakewood Elementary, Lois Gerage-Lamb has educated neighborhood children for 20 years.
Her work doesn’t stop when she leaves the school at the end of the day. Gerage-Lamb has spent her life teaching the world that people with dwarfism are just as capable as anyone else. Recently, she was elected president of Little People of America, a national advocacy and support group for dwarfs, their families and their service and medical providers. As president, Gerage-Lamb will lead the 6,000-member organization for two years and oversee its 50th anniversary celebration next year.
“I was raised by a very strict Italian mother,” who wouldn’t let me say no, Gerage-Lamb says. “If you think you can, you can.”
Gerage-Lamb was born in 1948 with achondroplasia. She is the only known member of her family with dwarfism. Despite the challenges she faced, Gerage-Lamb’s mother demanded that her daughter live like ordinary children. Her mother talked to her teachers and explained that even though her daughter was not as tall as other students, she could do everything they could. And as an adult, Gerage-Lamb has taken on that same role as a teacher and advocate for herself and other little people.
“I’ve admired her spunk,” says Mary Beth Eley, a friend of Gerage-Lamb’s through Little People of America. “I never doubted her ability to get what she wanted.”
Gerage-Lamb became involved with Little People of America in 1968 while she attended college at San Diego State University. Her first meeting was a life-changing experience.
“For the first time, you come eye to eye with someone your own size,” Gerage-Lamb says. “You have a bond with someone.”
Billy Barty, an actor in Los Angeles, founded Little People of America in 1957. The organization’s members share successes and struggles with each other, and they network about services and doctors. Prior to the organization, Gerage-Lamb says families had to figure out how to adapt to the world around them on their own.
“They didn’t know,” Gerage-Lamb says. “They did it day by day.”
Little People of America has local chapters, regional districts and a national office. They lobby, educate, provide financial assistance for health care and educational scholarships, and help families adopt dwarf children who have been abandoned by their birth parents.
Eley says she’s not surprised that Gerage-Lamb was elected president. Her friend has filled almost every other leadership role in LPA.
“She’s just always been a leader,” Eley says. “She’s very fair. And she’s strong.”
Her strength has helped get ahead in life. When Gerage-Lamb graduated from college, she interviewed for several teaching jobs in California.
“I had one man say, ‘Let’s be serious, do you really think you’re going to get a job?’” Gerage-Lamb says. “I thought, ‘Do you really think you’ll be interviewing me much longer?’ Everything’s the same; I’m just short.”
Eley says when Gerage-Lamb oversaw LPA’s scholarship committee, she had several conversations with Eley’s daughter, who is also a little person, and gave her the help she needed to get through college.
“It enabled us to do things for Katie that we would have never been able to do,” Eley says.
Mary Ellen McSpedden, another LPA friend, says the scholarships are important. If someone is born with dwarfism, the odds are stacked against that person and he or she needs every edge.
“This might be the kick in the pants someone needs,” McSpedden says.
But McSpedden says Gerage-Lamb also believes that just because someone is little, it doesn’t mean he is limited. She says Gerage-Lamb sends the message that little people can do anything.
“If you don’t do that with little people, no pun intended, you shortchange them,” McSpedden says.
Gerage-Lamb also chaired the LPA committee that worked to coordinate adoptions. Prior to her leadership, adoptions had dropped off. Gerage-Lamb revitalized contacts with other countries, and several children from overseas are now being adopted.
Gerage-Lamb moved to Lakewood in the early ’80s and began teaching at Lakewood Elementary in 1987 — long enough so that students who attended the school when she started are now bringing their children to class. While teaching her first-graders reading and writing is important, she also feels it is vital to teach them confidence and sensitivity.
“Their first lesson on the first day is to go home and tell their parents not to use the word midget,” Gerage-Lamb says.
