Press photograph of competitive swimmers Adrienne Gibson,
Eleanor Garatti and Hilda Curtis taken on September 21, 1925.
With the Paris Olympics still in our minds, it’s a good time to celebrate some local Marin Olympians.
Eleanor Garatti grew up swimming at the San Rafael saltwater baths - a 100 x 40 foot concrete pool filled with unheated water from the nearby canal. She began setting world records in the 50 and 100-yard swimming races around the country and won her first national championship at age 15. She earned a spot on the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic team winning a silver medal in the 100-meter race and a gold medal as part of the 4x100 relay team. Prior to the 1932 Olympics, Garatti married engineer Laurence Edward Saville and moved to San Francisco. In the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, she won a bronze medal in the 100-meter race and another gold on the relay team. Garatti helped establish Marin’s first American Red Cross Swimming Program in the 1920s.
Archie Williams grew up in Oakland with his family. After high school, Archie enrolled at San Mateo Junior College and joined the track team under coach Brutus Hamilton. Williams went on to win at the 1936 NCAA finals in Chicago setting a new world record of 46.1 seconds. At the Olympic trials held in New York City, Williams finished first and was on his way to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. In a come-from-behind victory, Williams won the gold medal in the 400-meter race. He went on to earn his diploma in engineering at Cal in 1939. During WWII, he became a member of the Tuskegee Airmen during WWII, the first black military aviators in the US Army Air Corps. Williams taught math and computer science for more than twenty years at Archie Williams High School now named after him.
Ann Curtis was initially taught to swim by nuns at a convent in Santa Rosa. Curtis was later coached by Charlie Sava from age 15. With no women’s swim team at Cal, Curtis had to commute daily to Treasure Island to train. In 1944 at age 18, Ann Curtis was regarded as an outstanding swimmer and athlete, winning the James E. Sullivan Award. She was ready to compete in the 1944 Olympic Games but with WWII raging on, the event was canceled. Her first chance to swim in the Olympics came in 1948 in London. She won 2 gold medals in the 400-meter freestyle and as a member of the 4x100-meter freestyle relay team. She also won silver in the 100-meter freestyle. Curtis married in 1949, and went on to open the Ann Curtis School of Swimming in 1959 in San Rafael. For over four decades, she taught children to swim while raising five children.
Archie Williams at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Ann Curtis with her coach, Charlie Sava, (others unidentified)