Young Woman and the Sea: How Trudy Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World (47 page)

But with Trudy's name on everyone's lips all over the world, her picture on the cover of virtually every newspaper in the country, her achievement still fresh and with her popularity and fame at its absolute zenith, and an entire country breathlessly waiting for more, Trudy wasn't going to America. Although any ship sailing for the United States would have welcomed her aboard as their guest just for the publicity, her father had booked passage to return to America on the
Berengaria—
on August 21. In the meantime he decided to take Trudy to Germany to visit with her grandmother and other relatives.

Trudy didn't really care—although she was anxious to get home and see her mother, she had Meg with her and looked forward to seeing her grandmother and cousins—but the decision to go to Germany was the first of a number of poor decisions made by her father and by Malone that would hasten Trudy back to anonymity. The most famous woman in the world was hardly dry, yet her notoriety was already about to fade.

But in Dover, she was still a hero. After the press conference Helmi and Louis Timson delivered her back to the hotel atop their shoulders to keep the crowd off her, and for the rest of the afternoon Trudy was ushered all over town to meet this person, greet that one, and have her picture taken here and there, including before a bust of Captain Webb in front of the Hotel Burlington. She even managed to check in with the customs office, where her reception was much more pleasant—and briefer—than the previous evening's.

Before sailing for Boulogne, Trudy went back home, down to the water, and with hundreds of onlookers gathered on the beach, she dove back into the sea. For a moment she forgot the last fifteen or sixteen hours, and as she swam she felt the stiffness leave her body and her anxiety begin to fade. Had it been up to her, she would have kept swimming, but it would be a long time before she could just swim for herself again. The real purpose of the swim was to provide the newsreel cameramen some footage of Trudy stepping onshore and reenacting her arrival less than twenty-four hours earlier. They had complained that due to the fact that she had reached Kingsdown at night, there were no photographs or film of Trudy walking out of the water, and after all, that was what was important.

Trudy dutifully did her duty, reenacting her arrival, only this time in broad daylight and being enveloped by the crowd. Within a week the staged shot would be foisted off to the world as genuine. In fact, most newsreel accounts of her achievement not only utilized such staged footage, but film of her from her failed swim the previous summer, which had been taken under better weather conditions and was far superior. Audiences were so eager to see Trudy that they seemed not to notice the changing boats, weather conditions, coaches, or, most notably, the swimsuit and the goggles Trudy wore while swimming.

Later that afternoon Trudy and her entourage reboarded the
Alsace,
crossed the Channel once more, landed at Boulogne to a raucous reception, and then returned to Cape Gris-Nez, where Pop Ederle was still in a celebratory mood and held a party at the hotel. Trudy turned in early and finally received a little rest, but the next day Trudy, her father and sister, Julia Harpman, and Arthur Sorenson left for Germany, where she was looking forward, at last, to the opportunity to get some extended rest away from the crowds. Bill Burgess was left behind, his job done, and was disappointed that Henry Ederle didn't even see fit to give him a bonus, but after all, had it been up to him, Trudy never would have finished. He sought out Lillian Cannon and began training her again.

Yet before she left Cape Gris-Nez, Trudy was able to do something she had been trying to do ever since she walked onto the beach. She had been so busy and so tired, that apart from a brief telegram, she had never had a chance to write a letter to her own mother. Julia had offered to do it for her, but Trudy wanted to write this one herself.

My Dearest Loving Mother:

We did it, Mother, we did it! The trick is turned and aren't you just so proud? We are all so happy. England and France are rejoicing in the glory. Oh, the crowds that follow us here and there. The paper people are just impossible, but grand.

Mom, I had the feeling of sure success—just wouldn't give up. Not once was I on the point of abandoning the swim. The good God led me on safely. It all went so quick ... Get there or die, that was my motto ... Really Mom, I can't dope it all out yet...[Margaret] was just lovely, did everything in her power to get me over. Didn't I say I need people like her? Pop, too, was helping me on, only he felt bad, I mean sorry for me. He just had to cry and, Mommie, he wants to say that you are too soft!...

Coming back from England yesterday they buried me in flowers.

How happy everyone is.

Last night pop gave a party. We did it. No more worrying!

Love and kisses galore for you, dear Mother. I am only your

"Trudy."

T
HERE WAS NO
end to it.

As Trudy traveled from Cape Gris-Nez to Calais and then to Germany, stopping first in Stuttgart before finally making her way to Bissingen, where she hoped to spend some time relaxing with her family, Trudy was swarmed over by the crowds, feted by government officials, and otherwise swept along in a frenzy of adoration for which she still wasn't prepared. Thirty thousand people greeted her in Stuttgart, packing the streets around the train station, forcing her to participate in an impromptu parade just to leave town. And when she arrived in Bissingen, it was utterly unrecognizable. The quiet little village was flooded with visitors.

Trudy tried to stay out of public view and hardly left her grandmother's home and business, the Lambs' Inn, the center of the family's substantial farm holdings. Yet there was still no escape from her fans. An unending stream of telegrams, letters, bouquets of flowers, and other gifts piled up and spilled over. The local postman, the sole employee of the office, was reported to be near a nervous breakdown just trying to keep up.

She gave few interviews, as Julia Harpman was still protective of her story and eager to keep other reporters away, but at the same time it was becoming ever clearer that while Trudy might have conquered the Channel, her nerves were proving to be an ever greater challenge. Everywhere she went there was always someone who wanted to ask something of her, and, increasingly, Trudy's first response was to recoil and back away.

The European press viewed her reticence with suspicion—what was she hiding? Back in Cape Gris-Nez there were still newspaper reporters assigned to cover those swimmers waiting to swim the Channel, and those swimmers, particularly the females, were disappointed that Trudy had stolen their thunder and more than a little jealous. They resented not only her accomplishment, but all the attention that had subsequently been foisted upon her. Clarabelle Barrett, Lillian Cannon, Mercedes Gleitze, and Mille Gade Corson had all hoped to reap the financial windfall that being the first woman to swim the Channel promised—a windfall that now seemed certain to be Trudy's alone. Gade Corson had been absolutely blunt about that, telling the press she intended to swim the Channel "for the kiddies," to provide for the financial well-being of her two young children, and both Barrett and Cannon, like Trudy, had financial backers who hoped to see a return on their investment.

Despite Trudy's achievement, all four women were still determined to duplicate Trudy's effort. If one of these other swimmers could better Trudy's time or if Trudy's accomplishment were somehow called into question, the next woman to swim the English Channel would still be famous and could still cash in. There was a long tradition of false claimants when it came to swimming the Channel, and while Trudy was in Germany, rumors that called her swim into question found their way into print.

After the initial wash of good publicity, a backlash soon began to appear in newspapers on both sides of the Channel as reporters were denied access to Trudy. Will Rogers, America's leading humorist, took note of the jealousy and joked that "England is trying to get credit for it [Ederle's crossing]. They claim they furnished the land for her to land on, otherwise she never would have made it. France can't get any ad out of it at all, outside of being a good place to start somewhere from." While the European press certainly understood the nature of Trudy's agreement with the
Tribune-News
syndicate, they had to sell newspapers, too, and a controversy with Trudy at its center was the next best thing to Trudy herself. Her first lesson in the life of a celebrity was about to come.

The newspaper
Phare du Calais (Lighthouse of Calais)
got right to the point and asked whether proper neutral witnesses had been present during Trudy's swim. Simply by asking the question the paper left the impression that they had not. Newspapers in Dover and Kent followed up and wondered aloud why so few details of her swim had been released, ignoring Harpman's stories entirely, but that wasn't the point. Their intention was to raise questions surrounding Trudy's swim, and in that they succeeded. The
Westminster Gazette
interviewed a Folkestone boat captain who believed the tugboats provided Trudy with unfair assistance and asked "whether a swim assisted by adventurous aid, such as the shelter of a boat, is comparable with the unaided effort of the other swimmers who have succeeded." The paper speculated that Trudy had somehow been able to take advantage of the "suction" of the tug plowing through the water and had, in effect, been towed across the Channel, drafting in the wake of the tug.

Such questions gave new life to the efforts of swimmers like Cannon and Gade Corson. If Trudy were discredited, the next woman to swim the Channel might nab at least a share of the glory and notoriety that was now Trudy's alone.

When these reports made their way to the Lambs' Inn, the reaction was instantaneous. Trudy, understandably, was upset. She knew what she had done, and to have that called into question hurt her deeply.

It was a manufactured controversy—Trudy accurately called it a "made up story." Most of those who had tried to swim the Channel in recent years had been accompanied by a tug, and the presence of a second tug on Trudy's swim had been entirely out of her control and had hardly been of any help. "The wash was absolutely fearful," said Trudy in reference to the rough water created by the boat, which, since it is mixed with turbulent air, actually provides less buoyancy; "It almost took me down." But within twenty-four hours the charges that Trudy had somehow received unfair aid while swimming the Channel swept the globe.

Julia Harpman stepped to the fore, protecting not only her story, but both her own reputation and Trudy's, not to mention the financial offers now piling up on Dudley Field Malone's desk in New York. Harpman gathered witnesses and drafted an affidavit that stated, "We, the undersigned witnesses of the Channel swim of Miss Gertrude Ederle, hereby certify in the presence of American Consul M. Gaston Smith, that on the morning of Friday Aug. 6, Miss Ederle walked into the water at Cape Gris Nez and swam to Kingsdown, England, where she arrived 14 and a half hours later and that she received no aid in her swimming and that she abided faithfully by all rules of Channel swimming and international sportsmanship." Of course there were no "official" rules or governing authority overseeing Channel swims, apart from the long-standing custom that swimmers could not be touched or receive direct assistance, but the affidavit served its purpose. It was then signed not only by Harpman and Trudy's father and sister, but by several others on board both the
Alsace
and
La Morinie,
including Arthur Sorenson, Minott Saunders, Alec Rutherford, and Frederick Abbot, the French correspondent of the International News Service, who expressly had been invited aboard the
Alsace
to serve as an impartial observer.

The affidavit stopped the controversy in its tracks, but the attacks taught Trudy a lesson. Even as she set world records and won Olympic medals, she always had been able to remain "one of the girls." As if she needed any more evidence, swimming the Channel set her apart. She wasn't just herself anymore, but a symbol—and to some, a target. Her departure for America on August 21 aboard the
Berengaria
could not come soon enough.

Aboard the boat Trudy finally, finally had some time to relax. Although the passenger list included the best-known socialites of the era, Trudy topped the list. She enjoyed a first-class suite as the captain and crew of the vessel did everything in their power to ensure that she had a pleasant and relaxing journey. Apart from giving a few swimming demonstrations in the ship's Pompeian-inspired pool, she was, by and large, segregated from the bulk of the ship's passengers by her status in first class. She enjoyed the privacy and found she enjoyed meeting people on a smaller scale in the restaurants and lounges dedicated to the ship's wealthier passengers. Some of the richest and most important people in the world were asking her, Trudy Ederle, for her autograph. She signed for everyone, using the same salutation she would for the remainder of her life, "Swimmingly Yours."

Mostly, however, she had just slept and rested, not so much from her ordeal in the Channel, but from everything that had come after. In the last three weeks she'd hardly had any time to think. Then came New York.

As Trudy stood on the promenade of the
Berengaria
as it steamed into New York Harbor in midmorning of August 27, she once again found herself completely taken aback. Since swimming the English Channel only three short weeks before, that was becoming something of a pattern.