11

THE MALDEN ADVOCATE–Friday, February 19, 2021 Page 11 METEOR | FROM PAGE 1 the women’s team not once, but twice. After the 1932 Games, she continued a regimen of training and competition, which earned her another spot on the women’s team for the 1936 Olympics held in Berlin, Germany. For the second time, Stokes was not afforded an opportunity to compete in an event that year. A number of sports historians and researchers have claimed Stokes was denied the opportunity to compete because of her race. The chief evidence pointed to is that she was replaced at the last minute, both in 1932 and 1936, by white athletes in her event, the 4 X 100 women’s relay. Though both relay teams would go on to win Gold Medals as first-place finishers in each year, setting a new world record in 1932, some researchers insist Stokes and Pickett both deserved to have run in those races. In 1936, Pickett did achieve some notoriety when she became the first Black woman to compete in the Olympics, in the hurdles event. However, fate was not with her as she broke her foot in the semifinals of her event and was forced to withdraw. Once again, she joined her Black teammate, Stokes, in the stands to watch the American team win a second Gold Medal in the 4 X 100 relay and tie the world record of 46.9 seconds the 1932 women’s team had set four years earlier. Malden rejoiced at Stokes’ great news When the news hit in 1932, residents of Malden rejoiced at the selection of Stokes to the Olympics team. She was the first-ever Malden resident to achieve such national fame, an achievement that still reigns as unique. To this day she is the only Malden athlete ever to be so honored. Malden was a growing community in the early 1930s, close to 50,000 in population in total, after beginning with just over 33,000 residents at the turn of the century. Even as a teenager, Stokes was well-known around the community for her athletic exploits in both track and field and in girls basketball for Malden High School in the early 1930s. Stokes had brought fame to Malden on an international scale a year before her Olympic selection, having set a new world record for women in the standing broad jump event at a Boston-based, regional competition. In late spring, Stokes joined other Olympic hopefuls, including Pickett, in track trials being held at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. For the wideeyed Stokes, it was farthest she Some of the members of the 1932 U.S. Olympics Team are shown, including Louise Stokes, at left, one of the first black women selected to the U.S. Olympics Team. (Courtesy Photo) had ever travelled from her Malden home. What an adventure! Dominating those trials was none other than someone regarded as one of the greatest female athletes of all time, “Babe” Didrikson, who went on to be a multiple Gold Medalist in the 1932 Olympics and then one of the most successful professional women golfers in history. Stokes and Pickett, the two 18 year olds, despite their age and experience, did extremely well against national competition. Pickett hailed from Illinois, so she was not so much out of her element. Not so for Stokes, as due to the limited travel of Americans overall on those days, she probably would have been hard-pressed to find that state on a map. Who knew she would be making even longer and more distant travels that were looming in her immediate future? Many of the women who competed in the various Olympic trial events had the advantage of formalized training teams sponsored by corporations of the day. For instance, Didrikson – regarded as the best athlete of all those competing – was trained and supported by the nationally known Employers Casualty Company. Stokes had only been training specifically for track and field on a semi-regular basis, for just over a year at the time, with Malden track enthusiast Bill Quaine, who had formed the Onteora Track Club in the Malden-North Shore area. Pickett had just a bit more formal training than Stokes. History made: first two black women Olympians Still, both persevered, performed at a high level and prevailed, as each etched their names in the history books as the first Black women to become Olympians. In 1932, Stokes finished fourth in the 100-meter finals with a time of 12.4 seconds while Pickett was right behind her in sixth place at 12.5 seconds. According to Smithsonian Magazine writer Matt Osgood, in a 2016 article, the method of selection for the four women who would run in the 4 X 100 Relay team for the Olympics women’s team would be the top four finishers in the 100-meter event at the trials, and the fifth (Pickett) and sixth-place finisher there would be alternates. However, the four top finishers were Ethel Harrington, Wilhelmina “Billie” von Bremen, Elizabeth Wilde and Stokes, then a fifth runner – Evelyn Pearl Furtsch – and Pickett. Judging from what ultimately transpired, when women’s track coach George Vreeland announced the members of the 4 X 100 team who would compete the next day in Los Angeles, this all changed. It would appear there were two glaring omissions: Stokes and Pickett. Of the top three eventual selectees for the event, only one of the top five Olympic trial finishers was picked – von Bremen – who would be regarded as the third fastest woman in the world when she won Bronze at the 1932 Olympics at 100 meters. Harrington, who finished first at the trials, and Wilde, who finished third at the trials, competed only in the 100 meter individual event. They did not compete in the relay and apparently that was decided early. According to researchers, the women had been told at the Olympic trials at Northwestern that the top six finishers in the 100-meter at the trial would all be in the relay “pool,” and the four who would be competing would be selected from the pool. It would appear that Stokes, primarily, and Pickett, most likely, would have a chance to join von Bremen and a fourth runner, Annette Rogers, on the 4 X 100 Relay team. Rogers had been the national Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) 100-meter titlist in 1931 and 1932 and ended up finishing fifth in the 100 meter sprint in the 1932 Olympics. On an interesting local note, Rogers was born in Chelsea, Mass., and lived there in her early years before moving on to become a longtime Chicagoan. A few of the U.S. Women Olympians posed for a photo after their return to the United States after the 1936 Games. In the back row, far right is Tidye Pickett and third from the left is Louise Stokes. (Courtesy Photo) The City of Malden dedicated this memorial located in the center of the then new Courtyard at Malden High School in 1987 in the name of former two-time U.S. Olympian Louise Mae Stokes Fraser. (Steve Freker Photo) It looked like Stokes would break the color barrier It really looked like an 18-yearold Black woman from Malden was going to break the color barrier in an international event: the first woman of color to compete in a U.S. Olympic track and field competition. But it was not to be for Stokes and Pickett. The quartet for the 4 X 100 Relay was announced, and the roll call did not include either one of them. Instead, joining von Bremen and Rogers on the 4 X 100 Relay Team would be Evelyn Pearl Furtsch of San Diego, Calif., and Mary Carew – from who would have ever guessed it – Medford, Mass.! Furtsch, also 18 at the time, had a somewhat similar story as Stokes in her early years. Facing little competition from her own gender in her home region, she ran against boys for a couple of years before competing with the Los Angeles Athletic Track Club. She did not have a wealth of national competition experience, though considered a fine, up-and-coming runner. But she had finished behind three other American sprinters, Wilde, Stokes and Pickett, at the supposedly decisive time trials two weeks earlier. Her only claim to fame had been second-place finish in a regional AAU competition. Furtsch was a bit of a local hero, however, as she ran with the highly regarded Los Angeles Track Club at the time, a direct affiliation to that 1932 venue. The fourth selectee raises even more eyebrows, as Mary Carew had graduated from the school known as Malden High’s fiercest athletic rival – Medford High – just a few months earlier. At age 17, she was seemingly not in the mix in the 100-meter field, individually or in the relay. Medford woman selected to relay team over Stokes They called Stokes “The Malden Meteor” during her Olympic run. Carew also garnered a catchy nickname, “The Little Medford Miss.” Like Stokes, Carew had garnered acclaim for her sprinting exploits next door in Medford, but in a shorter distance, the 60-meter sprint. She was a National Champion in the AAU 60-meter dash, four years running! She was tops in the United States each year from 1929-32. Her best time was 7.32 seconds. A spot on the 4 X 100 Relay Team was Carew’s, much to the dismay of Stokes, Pickett and all of Stokes’ many friends, fellow citizens and supporters back in Malden. Were she and Pickett denied the privilege of competing for their country because they were Black? Was the color of their skin more of a factor in Coach Vreeland’s decision than the pure ability of these young women? When asked in later years, Stokes, who added Fraser to her METEOR| SEE PAGE 12

12 Publizr Home