Sonora Webster Carver
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Sonora Webster Carver (1904-2003) answered an ad placed by by "Doc" William Frank Carver in 1924 for a diving girl and soon earned a place in circus history. Her job was to mount a running horse as it reached the top of a forty-foot (sometimes sixty-foot) tower and sail down along the animal's back as it plunged into a deep pool of water directly below. Sonora was a sensation and soon became the lead diving girl for Doc Carver's act as they traveled the country. Soon Sonora fell in love with and married Carver's son, Al, who eventually took over the show in 1927, after the death of his father. It is said that Sonora's sister, Arnette, began diving in 1930 at the age of sixteen along with their friend, Josephine K. DeAngelis, who was, like Sonora, twenty-years-old when she took her first dive.
In 1931, Sonora was blinded (retinal detachment due to hitting the water off-balance) while diving her horse, Red Lips, on New Jersey's Steel Pier, the act's permanent home since 1928. Despite a setback that many would deem tragically handicapping, Sonora continued to dive horses until 1942. Sonora's account can be read in her 1961 novel, A Girl and Five Brave Horses, and seen in the slightly fictionalized movie version of her life, Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, starring Gabrielle Anwar. She died at the age of 99 in New Jersey.
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