Sanders: Cairo girl wins Olympic gold

Caroline Smith is probably not a name known to too many Girardeans these days, but 100 years ago she brought reflected glory to Cairo, Illinois, and Cape Girardeau by winning gold in the 1924 summer Olympics in Paris, France.

Smith, who later in life became Carolyn Snyder, was born July 21, 1906, in Cairo, the daughter of Egbert A. and Phyllis Mae Howard Smith Sr.

Her sister, Catherine, attended Cape Girardeau Teachers College, and Caroline Smith was taught to swim and dive by the college’s star football player, Chellis “Chubby” Chambers. Three years after his tutelage, she claimed the gold medal in the 10-meter platform competition in Paris, one day shy of her 18th birthday. It baffles me that someone with so little training could perform at this level. I’m left to conclude it was her natural abilities that gave her the skills to succeed.

It’s also interesting to note that one of the members of her Olympic swim team was future Tarzan movie star Johnny Weissmuller. Previous reporting in the Southeast Missourian's TBY publication noted that Weissmuller wanted Smith to play opposite him in the movies, but she nixed the idea...

Published July 21, 1924, in the Southeast Missourian:

Caroline Smith, Cairo girl, is champion diver

Miss Caroline Smith of Cairo, Illinois, won the world’s championship in high diving at the Olympic Games Sunday morning at Paris, France, by defeating experienced divers from 46 nations of the world. Her rise to stardom in the aquatic sport has been short and spectacular. It has been but three years since Miss Smith, a graduate of last year’s class at Cairo High School, learned to swim. Since then she has had no special training other than (what) she had just before entering the Olympic Games, and her phenomenal rise from obscurity in the athlete world has been due almost wholly to her own efforts.

Chellis “Chubby” Chambers, former football star on the Teachers College team here, taught her to swim and dive, but since then she has had no professional training until she went to New York for the tryouts. In these tryouts the judges and spectators marveled at her grace and skill in the plain 40-foot dive event and predicted victory for her across the ocean. This is the first time that the United States has brought home the honors in plain high diving and this adds to the already great honor given the young mid-westerner. Most of Miss Smith’s competitors from this country were already well known and were national champions.

Celebrated birthday today

Miss Smith is 18 years old today. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E.A. Smith, 2503 Walnut St., of Cairo. Her sister, Catherine, is a student in the Teachers College in Cape Girardeau, and was at home when the news came of her sister’s triumph in the semi-finals on Saturday. Miss Caroline’s mother accompanied her to Paris to the games.

Mr. Smith is president of the Cairo National Bank and one of Cairo’s most prominent citizens. Miss Caroline is popular in Cairo society and is well known in other towns in this section. She visited in Cape Girardeau with her sister two years ago and swam in the pool at the Teachers College while here.

Mr. Smith and his daughter, Catherine, will go to New York in about two weeks to meet Miss Caroline and her mother.

Read the rest of this blog at www.semissourian.com/blogs/fromthemorgue.

Sharon Sanders is the librarian at the Southeast Missourian.