WORTH WHILE?

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 105, 24 December 1931, Page 7

WORTH WHILE?

EXPERIENCES OF THE FIRST WQMAN TO SWIM THE ENGLISH CHANNEL GERTRUDE EDERLE'S FINANCE S What beeome of Gertrude Ederle? Five years ago (writes the. New York correspondent of the "Rand , Daily Mail") that question would } have startled a small riot on any street corner of the American nation. The country was plastered with pennants and banners to "Our Trudy." The first girl to swim the English .Channel was the most famous person in America — for a little while. To-day she's teaching 1 swimming classes in The Bronx. She has little of 'the f abulous f ortune that was predicted for her when she. made her triumphal retnrn to New York in 1926, and the whole city took the day off to cheer itself hoarse in her honour. People tore up thousands of telephone books to welcome her then, ahd her parade up Broadway left the streets ankle-deep in ticker tape. She was greeted by the Mayor, and she was the idol of every high school girl in the land. And to-day she's teaching swimming- at a nominal salary, and perhaps thinking of that short-lived thing called fame. Her little moment in the sun eost Trudy something else. She's almost deaf from her swimming and diving. The hamniering of | water against her ear-drums during 'that long streteh across the channel did its work. But she's cheerful ahout , it all.

. # 1 She's a little- puzzled, however. She was puzzled a year after her triumph, when she stopped to count up her fortune — and found it next to nothing. Immediately after her return she went on a nine-week vaudeville tour at 6,000 dollars a we.ek.. That looked like riches — until you started to count up the many ways it had to be sliced. There was 10 per cent. to the agent for the act. There were. 1,000 dollars a week to the lawyej who put up money for her expenses when she went to France. There were 1,000 dollars a week for Trudy's father. There were 175 dollars a week for. a Press agent and 200 dollars for a manager. There were 500 dollars a week in salaries for the two other girls who shared the act, and there were railroad fares and hotel bills. "When the tour was over and the profits counted up, Trudy had just about 20,000 dollars of the 54,000 dollars she earned. And that was four years ago. Since then she has earned a lot, but the jinx has followed Trudy relentlessly. So now she's teaching swimming and wondering whether it was worth the effort — that long, hard swim across the Channel.