Users' questions

Is Gertrude Ederle still alive?

Is Gertrude Ederle still alive?

Deceased (1905–2003)
Gertrude Ederle/Living or Deceased

What happened to Gertrude Ederle in Germany?

Ederle had poor hearing since childhood due to measles, and by the 1940s she was almost completely deaf. Aside from her time in Vaudeville, she taught swimming to deaf children. She never married and she was living in an old peoples home in 2001. She died on November 30, 2003, in Wyckoff, New Jersey, at the age of 98.

How did Gertrude Ederle go deaf?

Ederle had a hearing problem since childhood and damaged her hearing during the English Channel swim which caused her eventual deafness. She taught swimming to children at the Lexington School for the Deaf. She never married and lived in New York City with several female friends.

What obstacles did Gertrude Ederle face?

The challenges included quickly changing tides, six-foot waves, frigid temperatures and lots of jellyfish. That day, Ederle not only made it across, she beat all of the previous men’s times—swimming 35 miles in 14 and a half hours. Ederle was born in October 1905 to German immigrants in New York City.

Where did Gertrude Ederle live most of her life?

S Gertrude Caroline Ederle was born on October 23, 1905, in New York City. She was one of five children of Henry and Anna Ederle, German immigrants who owned a butcher shop on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

How many national swimming records did Trudy Ederle break?

“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.

Why was Trudy Ederle disqualified for the first time?

In her first attempt at the Channel on August 18, 1925, Trudy was disqualified when Wolffe ordered another swimmer (who was keeping her company in the water), Ishak Helmy, to recover her from the water. According to Trudy and other witnesses, she was not “drowning” but resting, floating face-down. Trudy bitterly disagreed with Wolffe’s decision.

When did Gertrude Ederle become a professional swimmer?

In 1925, Gertrude became a professional swimmer. Her older sister, who was also a swimmer, convinced her to try swimming record-breaking distances instead of shorter races. Gertrude’s first major effort was a twenty-two-mile swim from Manhattan’s Battery Park to New Jersey’s Sandy Hook.