5

Her soaring spirit has won this
daring aerialist a place in the hearts of
millions - and a Norman Vincent Peale
Award for Positive Thinking

An
Angel
On High

Condensed from Reader's Digest
Henry Hurt

Elizabeth Pintye was born on March 20,
1968, the sixth of seven children. Her parents
had fled communist Hungary and settled in a
suburb north of New York City.

The Pintye home was filled with fear and terror.
Lizzie's mother was chronically ill. Her father was a
harsh and ill-tempered disciplinarian. Assuming that
the children probably had done something wrong,
even if he did not know what, he would line them up
and make them hold out their arms. Going from child
to child, he would flail their arms with his belt until
each one began to scream and cry.

The Pintye children were sporadically taken by au
thorities and farmed out through the social-services
system. At age three, her blue eyes and flaxen hair en
riching her smile, Lizzie went to live with John and
Pat Wilson in Carmel, N.Y. There she encountered an
oasis of warmth and kindness. Even though the social-