Gertrude Ederle

Biography

Champion swimmer Gertrude Ederle was born in New York City in 1906. "Trudy", as she was known to her friends, became an avid swimmer and in the four-year period between 1921-25 she held 29 different national and international swimming records; in one afternoon alone in 1922, at a competition in Brighton Beach, NY, she broke seven records. She was a member of the 1924 US Olympic swim team and received a gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle relay. In 1925 she made an attempt to swim the English Channel, but it was unsuccessful. She returned to try it again the next year. She began her swim from Cape Gris-Nez, near Calais, on August 6 and, despite heavy seas that forced her to swim a total of 35 miles to cover the 21-mile distance, she came ashore at Dover 14 hours and 31 minutes later--beating the previous record by almost two hours and making her the first woman to swim the English Channel. Her accomplishment made her an international star, and she received a tickertape parade upon her return to the US. She even played herself in a movie, Swim Girl, Swim (1927). Afterwards she toured the US as a professional swimmer, but a series of mishaps--including a fall down a flight of stairs that injured her back and resulted in her being in a cast for four years--eclipsed her budding career. However, she did perform at the Billy Rose Aquacade in the New York World's Fair in 1939. Her hearing had been affected by a childhood bout with measles and was damaged even further by the long hours she spent in the water, and by the 1940s she was completely deaf. She eventually became a swimming instructor for deaf children, and was a member of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Youth Fitness Committee. She died in Wyckoff, New Jersey, on November 30, 2003.