"Washington Island's Kay Curtis becoming a legend in her time" on June 14, 1977 in the Door County Advocate
By KETA STEEBS
Kay Whitney Curtis
Washington Island's Kay Curtis becoming a legend in her time
By KETA STEEBS
"I am neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring. I'm at home everywhere but don't belong anywhere," said Katharine Whitney Curtis, busily spading dirt in the garden of her rented Washington Island home.
Kay's own Island home, the one she shared with her legendary mother, author Anne Whitney, was recently sold to a young "off-Island" couple who are living up to their promise to take good care of it. Kay doesn't regret the sale but she does miss her three-acre wooded backyard and the melange of wild flowers it yielded.
We take time, the day of our visit, to pay a call on her beloved former home and after Kay quietly consoles a hedge of white lilacs on its inevitable demise, we talk for a long, long time.
"I just came back from my 60th class reunion," she told me with a broad grin. "I don't know if you realize it or not but the University of Wisconsin really turned out some kooks back in 1917."
One of the kooks, an 80-year-old classmate she hardly remembers, cornered her in the elevator of the Madison hotel and asked if he could kiss her. "I've wanted to do it ever since our college clays," he said wistfully. "Would you mind just one little kiss."
Kay, still attractive, athletic and remarkably youthful, was delighted. She's had her share of suitors in her day but this unabashed homage meant something special.
"He still remembered me," she exclaimed. "Can you imagine someone wanting to kiss you for 60 years."
Knowing something of Kay's spectacular college career, I found this easy to believe. After all, how many girls back in 1914 even went on to college let alone became super-swimmers majoring in physical education?
Katharine Whitney Curtis believes she is still the only woman to have swum across Lake Mendota and even though she had to discard her voluminous bloomers, stockings and sailor blouse for a man's skimpy swimsuit, she doesn't regret the incapacitating sunburn her abbreviated costume brought on.
"All kinds of fellows attempted to accompany me but I was the only one who made it. I swam from the men's gym straight across the lake to the state insane asylum. I remember being asked when I got there why I didn't plan on staying."
Blessed with superstrength, verve, supreme self-confidence and her mother's gregarious nature, Kay gave up her intended career as a home economics teacher to major in phy-ed. Later credits included a major in geology from the University of Chicago and a master's degree in education from De Paul University.
While still in high school, Kay (through Anne Whitney's influence) was employed as a recreational director in the city park system. Asked to speak on the value of a well-rounded sports program, Kay chose the title, "Recreation is RE-creation" and remembers how, even as a sophomore, she stressed the importance of a girls' athletic program.
Much later, when endowed with the title "sportsmistress" at Principia college in St. Louis, Mo., Kay introduced her girls to field hockey, basketball and, of course, her favorite of all sports, swimming. It wasn't until she was hired by her old alma mater Chicago, however, that Kay taught her young charges to swim to music.
"The beautiful Ida Noyes hall had just been built and when I took one look at the women's gym and pool, I knew I'd be spending a lot of time there," Kay recollects. "The fact that a nickleodeon stood near the pool tempted me to combine swimming with swing."
Kay had the nickleodeon fixed so it would only respond to slugs and then hid the slugs. "I didn't want the other teachers hogging the machine" she explained. When the girls became upset because they couldn't hear the music under water, she advised them to hum.
"The one song they all knew was the 'Merry Widow Waltz'. I don't know how many dance routines were performed to that old faithful."
Seasoned as her techniques were becoming, Kay didn't start teaching serious water ballet, complete with complex patterns and stringent routines, until she transferred to Wright junior college, another Chicago school with a zest for innovation.
Kay credits an ex-vaudeville gymnast named Joe Steinauer as being a source of inspiration for her fast growing swimming repertoire. "In other words," she smiled, "I stole his routines. Whatever he did in the air, I taught my students to do in the water."
The Kay Curtis swimmers, dressed in improvised costumes and humming their familiar theme song, literally stole every show they appeared in. During her tenure at Wright, Kay was asked to broaden her horizons. Would she, the mayor's office asked, be interested in doing a mermaid show at the Chicago World's Fair?
Those who saw the "Kay Curtis Modern Mermaids" exhibition back in 1934, say they have never forgotten the experience. One spectator, Gertrude Henning (grandmother of Olympic skating champion Anne Henning and a neighbor of Kay's on Washington Island) still remembers the beauty of that performance. A paper, written and read by Gertrude for a party held in Kay's honor a few year's ago, carefully details each highlight of her spectacular career.
In 1943, the indefatigable Curtis was shipped to North Africa as a Red Cross recreational worker. This volunteer job, supposedly wartime only, lasted until 1962. Following World War II's end, Kay served as chief of recreational travel for the U. S. occupation forces in Europe. During her hectic but satisfying years abroad Kay met almost all of America's four and five star generals and managed to have at least one argument with most of them.
Although ostensibly retired, Kay's executive ability is continually finding new outlets. She was instrumental in getting the Island's Community Action program started (agreeing to serve as its first director) and helped lay the groundwork for the Arts and Nature Study Center. She also initiated the Island's informational booth at Gills Rock, promoted Island interests the width and breadth of the county, and is still an active member of the Senior Citizens Club, which she helped found.
Kay has been a summer resident on the Island since her teaching days at Principia. She loves the place unreservedly and yet there are days when her feet start itching and her hands long to clasp a steering wheel. On such days, she just packs up and leaves. Where to go is no problem. Kay's friends, like her interests, are legion.
The only concession Kay Curtis has made to her four score years and life's little vagaries is to anticipate the inevitable. A card, prominently positioned on the dashboard of her car, reads: In case of injury or death, notify the CAP office on Washington Island.
That way, said Kay happily, I know I'll be coming back home.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
Other posts about girls sports
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Other posts by Keta Steebs
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