Fire on the Track

by Roseanne Montillo

  The afternoon was growing darker, the sun having disappeared long before, though the stickiness of the day lingered on. Sweat collected around her neck and armpits as she inhaled a lungful of humid air. After the meets, she had changed from her running gear into her regular warm-up garb of long sweatpants and a wrinkled sweatshirt, and, after spending several days in Newark, found herself exhausted and ready to go home.

  In the distance a bevy of photographers snapped pictures, and she was grateful they had not come to talk to her. She kept things too much to herself, people often said. She was now very relieved for this little bit of solitude that was afforded to her; only this time it came at a great price. It was hard to settle in to the idea that she would not be going to Amsterdam.

  —

  Stella Walsh had come to Newark from Cleveland, Ohio. She had been born Stanisława Walasiewicz in Poland, in April 1911, although most people she met didn’t know that. Unlike the wider immigrant community, she did not pepper her speech with a scattering of Polish words; she avoided any references to her upbringing, her native land, her family, her friends, or her boyfriends, particularly when prodded with questions. This pursuit of anonymity was aided by her lack of a foreign accent, which allowed her to fully assimilate into her new culture.

  When she was two years old, she and her parents, Julian and Victoria, had left Poland for Cleveland, settling into the Slavic part of town, where other Polish families had already found a home. She could not recall that transatlantic voyage, but as a child she’d heard her parents speak of it with disgust, which in turn made her think of it with repulsion. During her early years she had lived under her given name of Stanisława, but as she grew older and adapted to her new country, she became aware that her name begged the questions that she liked to avoid. So she adopted a new moniker that was easier on the tongue, learning that few people wondered about a name like Stella Walsh. But her name was not the only thing that she changed or the only thing that she actively chose to keep to herself.

  Stella was tall, with broad shoulders, and she stood on powerful and very muscular legs. People often described her as “sturdy,” a description she did not like very much. She had taken to running as a very young girl; it was a skill that had been passed down to her, she thought, honed by hours spent sprinting against her mother and even her grandfather.

  She had always known that there was nothing particularly delicate about her, and her teammates always reminded her of that, appraising her indiscreetly like a pack of hyenas. She was taunted by claims that she lacked the natural graces and feminine attributes to attract anyone of the opposite sex. In the changing rooms, rumors floated that several athletes had seen a peek of a five-o’clock shadow growing on her face. Even her neighbors back in Cleveland spoke of her peculiarities, her intense need for privacy meaning very little to them. But she shook off the rumors.

  —

  Now, as she observed the winning girls leave the track bound for the hotel, from where they would await their departure for Amsterdam, her anger grew further. They were perfect in every sense, reporters agreed; something that she would never be. Still, she swallowed her disappointment and vowed to return again. The 1932 games were not that far away, and she would make the most of these years. Next time, she would not be denied.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE SS PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT

  Stella Walsh returned to Cleveland on July 6, while the Olympic-bound athletes settled comfortably into the Prince George Hotel in Manhattan to await their embarkation. The sprawling old institution delighted Betty, as she continued to soak in all that New York provided. She walked the crowded streets, a feathered hat shielding her from the hot sun, looking up at the skyscrapers with a giddy dizziness, feeling the heat coming off the asphalt and through her shoes.

  New York was then a sea of excitement, not so much because it was the site of the Olympians’ departure for Amsterdam but because a parade was about to be held to honor the first female airplane pilot to cross the Atlantic. Although Amelia Earhart had been a passenger on the Friendship and not a pilot, her participation in the endeavor signified great strides for women, and her accomplishments needed to be recognized. A parade down the Canyon of Heroes was about to take place, and Betty thought it marvelous that she should find herself in New York during such a time—especially as she was embarking on her own pioneering journey. She recognized her own contributions to the sport, and the fact that female track athletes had never been allowed to participate before, while acknowledging that many people still disputed women’s participation in the sport. It seemed absurd to her and her fellow athletes that such arguments were still taking place.

  —

  On July 11, 1928, Betty and her mother hailed a taxicab bound for the port of Manhattan, where nearly three hundred of her team members, along with their families, coaches, and well-wishers, had gathered at Pier 86 to board the SS President Roosevelt, a comfortable ocean liner outfitted for the athletes. On its side, AMERICAN OLYMPIC TEAMS was painted in large white letters, thrilling the athletes as they crossed the plank walkway leading to the ship. The departure was a grand affair, streamers and balloons lending a jovial mood as music rippled through the air.

  General Douglas MacArthur stood at the end of the gangway, awaiting his platoon. He took stock of the athletes coming on board from every corner of the country, excited and eager to represent the United States. In addition to the officials, coaches, family members, newspaper reporters, and assorted guests, the Roosevelt was transporting the greatest assemblage of US athletes the country had ever seen. MacArthur asserted that the athletes were in such “superb condition for the great test that Americans can rest serene and assured,” and those gathered around him could not help but be enthralled by the words coming from his mouth.

  At forty-eight, MacArthur was perfect for leading the team, as throughout his career he had been a great supporter of male athleticism. After a wartime career in the US Army and three years as superintendent of West Point Military Academy, followed by further service in the US Army, Army Chief of Staff General Charles P. Summerall had placed him on “detached service,” granting him permission to accept the post of American Olympic Committee (AOC) president, believing that it would bring “favorable publicity to the Army.” For MacArthur, it was simply a different way of serving his country, his disciplined demeanor akin to what he showed to his army recruits.

  MacArthur was aware that there was no love lost between the NCAA, the AAU, and the AOC. But he was not interested in becoming involved in their squabble. Rather, he “needed something to engage his attention and arouse his enthusiasm.” He intended to bring his military style to this mission, with strictly enforced rules and regulations he employed with his soldiers, plus curfews for the female athletes and the younger ones on board. The athletes just didn’t know it yet.

  —

  SS President Roosevelt had started life as Peninsula State, built for the United States Shipping Board by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation of Camden, New Jersey, in 1921 and 1922. Its first transatlantic service for United States Lines began in 1922, when it was renamed President Pierce. In August 1922, it was rebaptized President Roosevelt, a name it would keep until it was drafted by the US Navy in World War II.

  The athletes did not know it at first, but the ship they were boarding had, in January 1926, been involved in the rescue of the crew of the British cargo ship SS Antinoe, which had floundered in the Atlantic. Although the historical details piqued everyone’s interest, what the Olympic team delighted in most was the fact that the Roosevelt was carrying them to Europe, on what many felt was the grandest vacation imaginable. Having grown up on farms, in tiny midwestern towns, or on inner-city streets, most of them had barely traveled in their lives prior to competing in their respective sport, and thus this was on the whole a new and enjoyable experience.

  Although it was a well-equipped ship, the Roosevelt was not fitted with all the training facilities the athletes required, th
ough efforts had been made to turn it into a vessel worthy of Olympians: on the promenade, a 160-yard linoleum running track had been laid out, along with wrestling mats; and on the sundeck, a boxing ring and rowing machines had been installed so the athletes could keep up with their training and conditioning regimens. And the athletes were everywhere: stretching on the floor; power-walking or jogging on the deck; laughing on stationary equipment while biking or rowing. It was not the most conducive environment for maintaining athletic form, however, and rather than consistently exercising, most of them spent their time socializing and eating—so much so that many of them soon found themselves several pounds heavier than their ideal competing weights.

  Some of the equipment had also been placed in very confined spaces, where many of the athletes tried to use it at the same time. “It was easier for runners,” admitted Nick Carter, a southern California athlete scheduled to run in the 1,500 meters. Comparing the runners’ troubles to those of the swimmers, though, he said they had their own problems: “The object was to do as much as you could to keep in shape by walking or jogging around the boat. Having so many people in such a small space with all of them having the same idea in mind, it was pretty crowded. That was hard to do to keep in condition, everybody was exercising, jogging, walking. It doesn’t seem like there was ever a minute that there wasn’t somebody running around that ship.”

  Traveling with Betty was fourteen-year-old Eleanor Holm, who, along with Betty, was one of the youngest competitors. She had been born in Brooklyn in December 1913 and taken her first strokes in the waters of a public pool not far from her family’s summer cottage in Long Beach, New York. Eleanor was fond of MacArthur—and he, in turn, had a soft spot for the youngest members of his team, whom he liked to call his “little children.” Though he had taken the position with the intention of running the team like a military platoon, he guided some of those junior members with a kinder hand.

  Betty shared a cabin with Catherine Maguire and Delores “Dee” Boeckmann. Catherine, a lovely girl and a 1925 graduate of Pacific High School in Pacific, Missouri, had been born and raised on a farm. One of six children, she had enjoyed hurdling over fences, an activity she later acknowledged had helped her to succeed at the Olympics. Shy but curious, she permitted herself very few confidences with her roommates, and they, in turn, did not encourage them.

  But it was Dee whom Betty found the most fascinating. At twenty-three, Dee was one of the oldest and most experienced female athletes on the ship. Lately she had been working as a physical education teacher at the Loreto Academy in St. Louis, though what she wanted most was an Olympic gold medal. She gained a spot on the team by finishing second in the 800 meters, a standing she sought to better in Amsterdam. She’d been running since she was a little girl, and back in 1920, when she had been barely sixteen, she had held ten of the track-and-field records of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU).

  Dee was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to German and Irish parents and held two passports, one printed as Boeckmann and the other as Beckman, leaving her free to use whichever she deemed most appropriate in any given circumstance. But she always tried to de-emphasize her German heritage and often suggested that other runners of similar background do the same.

  A tall, beautiful, dark-haired, dark-eyed girl, Dee had a fondness for the tiny four-leaf clovers that represented half of her heritage, collecting them with abandon and even sporting them on her clothes when she had the chance to show them off. Dee, at nearly five foot ten, managed to do almost everything better than a boy, including running, her father always said. He had also introduced her to official meets, signing her up for every race he could find. In 1927, with her father watching, of course, she had broken the world record for the indoor 50-yard dash, which she ran in 6.1 seconds, and during her Olympic training, she had set a new record for the 800 yards at 2 minutes, 31 seconds.

  In Dee, Betty saw the embodiment of someone she could become: a strong, self-confident, self-reliant woman pursuing her goals. She had met such women in Chicago, brimming with confidence as they headed off to work. But here was Dee, not only working and being independent but excelling at a sport many considered masculine.

  Betty had been mulling over such matters lately. Her seventeenth birthday was nearly upon her, as was her senior year of high school, which would begin soon after her return from Amsterdam. Then what? She had discussed the possibility of attending the nearby college in Harvey with her sister and Jim but was unsure about what to study. Her mother did not think dancing and theater viable means of making a living—but Betty neither agreed nor disagreed with her. Traveling by train to Chicago, she had gained the opportunity to view the world at large, a world where women worked beyond the confines of their homes; where they dressed up and headed to offices with purpose; where jovial meetings punctuated their evenings with friends, stops at the cinema, or drinks at a bar.

  And now, in Dee, she saw even more possibilities: a woman who was making her mark in athletics, who had breached that masculine world and created a life of her own. It was that kind of woman Betty admired, the kind many feared and others held in awe. It thrilled her to think about becoming one of them.

  —

  The President Roosevelt weighed 13,869 tons and had been traversing the Atlantic for six years. It was a comfortable (if not luxurious) ship, and the athletes took a liking to it right away, enjoying the sun as it shone upon the deck, watching other ships passing by. As the engines sputtered and the ship was nosed out of the harbor by tugboats, it was met halfway by the US warship Rotterdam, coming into the canal from the opposite direction, the band on its promenade playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” as it passed the Olympians. Betty had often viewed barges floating down the Calumet River, small vessels drifting through its waters on their way to and from the city. The Roosevelt was on a different scale. Her entire high school could have fit into the ballroom, Riverdale and Harvey combined onto its deck. The magnitude and the sheer power of the ship were breathtaking.

  And Betty loved it all: the rocking of the ship as it listed in the choppy seas; the plentiful, free lunches and dinners offered every day; the liquor that was available only to first-class passengers (but that was shared and smuggled by everybody who wanted it); and the movies, dances, balls, and casino nights held as the afternoon faded into evening. The athletes often gathered on the parapet to view the sun burning over the horizon and to watch and gawk at the swimming team as they tried to keep up with their training.

  In the makeshift pool the ship officials had built, the American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller often harnessed himself with a long rope to one side of the gangplank, lest he be thrown overboard when the ship listed. At six feet, three inches tall, with powerful legs and well-defined muscles, he was a favorite among the women as they looked on appreciatively while he paraded in his uniform. He had perfected what the experts called his “six-beat crawl stroke,” which produced his speed while in the water. The style called “for six beats of the legs for every two arm strokes, with absolute synchronization of feet and arms.” His prodigious strokes had already propelled him to great heights, the first of which had occurred in 1921, at age seventeen, when he had broken the first of many world records.

  Born Peter Johann Weißmuller on June 2, 1904, in Freidorf, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he had moved to the United States at a young age but left school before finishing the eighth grade. His first introduction to a swimming pool came when he was nine, when he took his first dip in a public pool in Chicago, to which his family had relocated from western Pennsylvania. Thereafter, he enjoyed long swims in the cold, icy waters of Lake Michigan, which few ever attempted. Several years later, at the age of fifteen, he came to the attention of Bill Bachrach, then a coach for the Illinois Athletic Club.

  In 1923, while participating in the AAU National Championships, he made a splash by winning the 50, 100, 220, and 500 yards, along with competing in the 150-yard backstroke, from which he shaved 6.8 seconds from
the world record. That was but a preview of what was to come at the 1924 Olympics, where he won three gold medals—in the 100, 400, and 800 meters. Expectations were high that he would be rewarded with another gold in Amsterdam. (Weissmuller would go on to parlay his successful athletic career into a profitable stint in Hollywood, where he starred in twelve Tarzan movies. Later in life, he would be remembered not for his gold medals but for the stunts he performed while swinging from tree to tree clad only in a loincloth.)

  A tall, attractive, and fast swimmer, Weissmuller soon developed a reputation not only for breaking records but also for the attention he received from women who watched his races. Betty often stood with the rest of the team, Dee included, and looked on as he took a dip in the useless pool before hurrying to the dance halls, where lessons in the fox-trot, the Charleston, and the Lindy Hop were in session.

  Most of the training workouts in the pool (or anywhere else) were short, and the only places the athletes seemed to linger were at meals, where they tried most things, and their faces just beamed as they overindulged with abandon. That gorging—the endless plates of eggs and bowls of cereal for breakfast, the steaks and potatoes for lunch followed by larger quantities for dinner—stunned Betty, who watched her fellow Olympians shovel in as much as they could, as if they had never had enough to eat. She had never suffered the pangs of hunger, did not feel the need to conserve, never had to, and the sight of her fellow athletes doing so often embarrassed her.

  Stewart Heldor, the ship’s chef, chided the athletes publicly for eating all the ice cream on board, which had been deemed sufficient for the round-trip, in less than a week. They liked it at breakfast in addition to the bountiful fare the ship provided. But there would be no more ice cream bars until Amsterdam, where he could replenish his supplies, Heldor eventually had to tell the disgruntled passengers.