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Helen E. Wainwright (March 15, 1906 – October 8, 1965), also known by her married name Helen Stelling, was a competition diver and swimmer for the Women's Swimming Association of New York, who represented the United States at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, where she won a silver medal in 3-meter springboard diving and in the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, where she won a silver medal in the 400-meter freestyle. She remains the only woman to ever win Olympic silver medals in both swimming and diving.
Four years later, at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, she won the silver medal with a time of 6:03.8 in the women's 400-meter freestyle event. Although Gertrude Ederle would have been the favorite for the event, she had a poor Olympics. The American women swept the finals, with Martha Norelius winning the gold, and Trudy Ederle taking the bronze.
Demonstrating sustained dominance in distance freestyle, on August 19, 1922, Wainwright set a world record in the women's 1500 metres freestyle swimming event, a distance of around 1 mile, which stood for over three years.
During her exceptional swimming career, she held the world record at various times in the 50, 220, 440, and 880 yard freestyle events. With standard short course pool sizes having changed from 20 to 25 yards or meters since Wainwright's career, swimming events are all now multiples of 25 yards or meters in distance. She was national diving champion for the three years from 1923-1925."Former Swim Star Dies in New York", The Independent, Richmond, California, 13 October 1965, pg. 42
Wainwright very nearly became the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1925; she was selected by the WSA to make the attempt but was forced to pull out due to an injury to her leg caused while stepping off a New York trolley, so her teammate Gertrude Ederle was chosen to take her place.
While headlining a 1927 vaudeville performance in Dallas, Texas, though engaged to Ben Owen, she briefly married George Leonard Holland, an accompanying organist, Long Island resident and former athlete at the University of Pennsylvania. Wainwright never subsequently claimed the marriage was more than a spontaneous whim."The 10-cent Wedding Ring", Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Michigan, 21 August 1927, pg. 68 She soon obtained an annulment with the permission of Holland. In the 1930s, she became a swimming coach on cruise liners out of New York.
She died at her home in Hampton Bays, Long Island at the age of 59 on Friday, October 8, 1965 after a long illness. A private graveside service was held for her on October 11 at Long Island National Cemetery, Farmingdale."Obituaries, Helen Wainwright", Daily News, New York, New York, 12 October 1965, pg. 44
Post Olympic career
Shortly after the 1924 Olympics, she performed in swimming-and-diving shows at the New York Hippodrome along with fellow U.S. Olympians and WSA colleagues Aileen Riggin and Gertrude Ederle. They later toured round some of the biggest theaters in the U.S. using a portable water tank.
Wedding
At 26, she married a career military man, Lt. Howard Cree Stelling of the 22nd Observation Squadron on February 1, 1933, in Shreveport, Caddo, Louisiana, United States, three miles from Bossier City. Stelling would later attain the rank of Colonel. The wedding coincided with the dedication of the newly established Barksdale Field, a new U.S. Army Air Corps Aviation Center in Bossier City, nearly adjacent to Shreveport. At the time, the U.S. Air Force had not been established as a military branch separate from the U.S. Army. A variety of high-ranking military personnel, including the Secretary and Assistant Secretary of War, and a Chief of the Army Air Corps, attended the dedication of the new base. Stelling of Augusta, Ga., who had earlier played football for the University of Georgia, was than an aviator stationed in Brooksfield, Texas. The couple met in 1928 in Chattanooga, Tennessee."Swimmer and Flier to Marry", Weekly Town Talk, Alexandria, Louisiana, 4 February 1933, pg. 10
Honors
Wainwright was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1972.
See also
External links
Categories: 1906 Births, 1965 Deaths, American Female Divers, American Female Freestyle Swimmers, Divers At The 1920 Summer Olympics, World Record Setters In Swimming, Olympic Silver Medalists For The United States In Diving, Olympic Silver Medalists For The United States In Swimming, Olympic Medalists In Diving, Swimmers From New York City, Swimmers At The 1924 Summer Olympics, Medalists At The 1924 Summer Olympics, Medalists At The 1920 Summer Olympics, 20th-century American Sportswomen
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