[Michael B]

I have acquired 4 or 5 1932 Los Angeles Olympic autograph books the last few years. Without fail, they were all male athletes. I recently acquire my first one that was almost all female competitors. It was even better as all but two of the pages were single sided and the two that were not have less significant signatures on the back. They were collected by a woman named Mrs. Douglas. Finding period signatures of female competitors is much less common than those of male athletes of that era. The signatures include:

Babe Didrickson and Dorothy Poynton (-Hill) – Signed by Babe about a month after turning 21. Poyton won 2 golds, a silver and a bronze in diving in 1932 and 1936 Berlin.

Georgia Coleman – won four medals in diving 1928 Amsterdam and 1932 Los Angeles including gold. Died of polio in 1940 at the age of 28

Helene Mayer – German fencer. Won a gold in 1928 and silver in 1936. She was a world champion and many time German champion. Kicked out of her fencing club in 1933 because she was half Jewish. She moved to the U.S. With threats of an Olympic boycott she was invited to compete for Germany in 1936. She was the only German Jewish participant in 1936, the token athlete. She gave the Nazi salute during the medal ceremony which brought her much criticism. She remained in the U.S. until 1952 when she returned to Germany, married a German baron and died of breast cancer a year later.

Tidye Pickett – the first black female to compete for the U.S. She was an alternate in 1932. She competed in 1936, but did not medal.

Endre Kabos – one of the great Hungarian fencers and one of two male signatures in the book. He won 3 gold medals and one silver medal between 1932 and 1936. He was Jewish and sent to the concentration camp in Vax, Hungary. Recognized by one of the guards as an Olympic champion he was made a driver for the Germans. He was driving an ammunitions truck across the Margaret Bridge between Buda and Pest in 1944 when it was blown up by Hungarian resistance fighters. He either died in the explosion or drowned.

Stanislava Walasiewicz aka Stella Walsh – moved to the U.S. from Poland in 1913, but still competed for her homeland. She won the 100m dash in 1932 and finished second in 1936. She was shot and killed by muggers in Cleveland in 1980. An autopsy revealed she had mixed internal sexual organs (gynandromorphism).