Part 1
July 1928–December 1929
1.
July 1928
New York City
BEFORE THEY LEFT THE PRINCE GEORGE HOTEL, BETTY’S mother warned her to be careful aboard the steamship and avoid the girls from California. Apparently they were a loose set, something to do with year-round sun and mild temperatures softening one’s moral fiber. Up until that point Betty had only been half listening, but now she perked to attention. A roommate from some glamorous-sounding location like Santa Monica or Santa Barbara—wouldn’t that be a lark? With a series of decisive clicks, Betty fastened the latches closed on her suitcase and started for the door. Maybe if she was lucky, some of those objectionable girls from California would be her cabinmates aboard the S.S. President Roosevelt.
Minutes later, Betty and her mother, Mrs. Robinson, sat in the back of a taxicab on their way to Pier 86. A heat wave had been pressing over New York City for a week, and Betty fanned herself while her mother fussed with their taxicab driver over the best route to take. Traffic clogged the street and newspaperboys hawked their wares, bobbing from one stopped vehicle to the next. Their driver bought one and rested it against the steering wheel, studying the headlines.
“Are you sure this is the fastest way?” Betty’s mother huffed.
“Ma’am, if there was a faster one, we’d be taking it, I promise. Now pray to the Virgin Mary that my engine doesn’t overheat.” He crossed himself.
As if on cue, the automobile shuddered and her mother inhaled sharply. “Pray all you want, but my daughter simply cannot be late. She’s on the Olympic team set to depart for Amsterdam at noon.”
“That so?” He turned around to inspect Betty.
“Please, sir, keep your eyes on the road,” her mother said.
“But we’re not moving.”
Her mother folded her arms across her chest. “So I noticed.”
“I didn’t realize there were lady Olympians.”
“This is the first year women will be competing in running events,” her mother said, and though she still sounded annoyed with the man, the unmistakable pride in her voice made Betty sit straighter.
“Running doesn’t seem like a very ladylike business. Aren’t you worried she’ll become a bit manly if she keeps this up?” he asked, squinting at her from under the rim of his porkpie hat. “I could see encouraging rowing. Builds up the chest, you know.” He smirked.
“What an absurd notion, and anyway, she’s not running the marathon or undertaking anything too dangerous. She’s a sprinter.”
“If you say so,” said the driver, cracking his knuckles. Clearly, he was enjoying rankling her mother, and Betty hid her glee by turning to gaze at the throngs of people on the sidewalks. Heat rippled in the air above the pavement.
“Here we are,” the driver said, nosing his taxicab into a line of vehicles at the edge of the road. Band music floated over the crowd. When he opened the door, Betty paused on the running board, tenting her hand to study the S.S. President Roosevelt in the distance.
Red, white, and blue bunting decorated the ship’s decks, and its brass railings gleamed to a high shine, but it looked awfully small, its proportions unbalanced, especially when compared with the majestic vessels gracing neighboring piers. It appeared Betty’s journey was to begin with a steamship better suited to pleasure cruising in New York Harbor than the far more serious task of transporting America’s Olympic team across the Atlantic.
Betty reached for the U.S. Olympic Team pass dangling around her neck and wrapped her fingers around it, taking comfort in the solidity of the thick card stock. None of this was a dream. Only several months earlier, the boys’ track team coach spotted her sprinting for the train, and now here she was in New York City, a member of the inaugural women’s track and field team bound for the Amsterdam Olympics. A flutter of anticipation surged through her.
“Never thought I’d live to see the day when lady runners would compete in the Olympics,” the driver muttered, shaking his head as he fetched Betty’s suitcase from the trunk of the taxicab. He straightened and searched their surroundings. “Now, where’s a porter who can take this?”
Betty reached for the luggage, but the man shook his head. “Aww, miss, you’re a wee thing. Let’s put a porter to work.”
“I can do it.”
“Impatient, are you?” He shrugged and placed it in front of her.
Betty leaned into the vehicle where her mother sat. “Well, this is it, Mother. So long. I’ll be sure to write.” They embraced. When Betty pried herself free from her mother, her voile blouse stuck to her damp back.
“Make us all proud, dear.”
“I will. Look for me in the newspapers,” she said, winking.
Mother shook her head, but Betty detected a softening in her expression. Mother had always been a staunch believer that a woman’s name should appear in the papers only when she married and when she died, but since Betty’s success had begun on the track, she seemed to have loosened her position.
Betty turned back to the crowd, lifted her suitcase, and stifled a groan. It was heavier than expected, but there was no way she would ask for help. She gritted her teeth and took a step past the driver.
“Best of luck to you, miss,” he said.
She could barely stifle her delight. “I think you’ll need it more than me. You’re the one staying behind with my mother.”
THE TIDAL PULL of the crowd pushed Betty toward the gangway, where she handed her suitcase to a liveried steward, and there was a moment when she glanced back to consider all that she was leaving behind. Her country, her family, everything that was familiar. But the moment was brief, because she hungered for the adventure of something new.
She pushed toward the plank and found General MacArthur at the top greeting everyone individually. The previous evening, at a meeting in the hotel’s ballroom for the athletes and their families, he had been stern, but now when she reached him, he grinned. “Ah, Miss Robinson, the fastest girl in the Midwest. Ready to serve your country?”
His transformation from fearless leader to something akin to more of a garrulous uncle made her uneasy, like the uncomfortable feeling of overfamiliarity that comes from hearing someone use the lavatory or seeing the dark cloud of a man’s chest hair through his shirt.
She forced a smile.
“Good, good. You’ll find your chaperone in there and she has your cabin assignment. We’ve got you bunking with two other midwesterners. Chicago and St. Louis, I believe. You’ll feel right at home.”
St. Louis? What about those Californians? She hid her disappointment by thanking him in a cheerful voice and marched into a dizzying tumult of porters shouting directions and athletes gawking at the rails and calling out to the spectators lining the wharf below. Never before had she seen such a spectacle.
“Betty, dear, is that you?” Mrs. Allen, the track team chaperone, jostled through the crowd, huffing loudly as she fanned at herself with a sheaf of paper. “Do you have your cabin number?”
“Yes,” Betty said, raising her pass. “How in the world does General MacArthur manage to remember everyone’s room assignments?”
“Follow me,” Mrs. Allen called over her shoulder as she waddled along the narrow corridor. “Oh, that General MacArthur, bless his heart. He appears to have a soft spot for the younger athletes. Now, how old are you again?”