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This post about Maribel Vinson Owen concerns the prodigy Maribel, growing up in Winchester MA, with veteran skater parents Thomas and Gertrude. The following is from the Winchester Star newspaper of February 23, 1923. While young Maribel may come across as a bit prudish, she certainly wasn't in later years, know as an astounding raconteur and conversationalist who enjoyed a sherry or two after dinner.
I will supply more background detail about her youth--but right now, here's this choice profile of a saucy child prodigy...
Little Maribel “was found in the dressing shed at the Cambridge Skating Club, a private place next to Longfellow Park...Maribel’s mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas M. Vinson of High Street [Winchester] are fancy skaters. Mr. Vinson has gained honors and Mrs. Vinson has done fancy skating for fun, although she has never been in competition…
...when Maribel was old enough to walk they brought her along [to the Rink], first with double-runner skates. They gave her her first real skates when she was 4 years old. From the first, Maribel didn’t have to take ahold of anybody’s hand. She was skating in imitation of her parents before they realized she could get along at all. Maribel is now 11 years old.
For her skating she has been awarded four cups, three plates, one bowl, seven badges and two medals. Last year she began taking professional instruction. Now she is skating with “Willie” Frick, exhibition skater at the [Boston] Arena….
Maribel is an unusual little girl in a good many ways. She has disliked dolls from babyhood. Her pleasures have been of the outdoors., although she had dabbled sometimes in making pies and can make them well, also cakes and candy…
Along with the activities of the child has grown an immense capacity for ideas. She has ideas on most everything and on fashions she has ideas “decidedly.”
‘I think powder and rouge are sins and I think long skirts [with] panels, hanging down from them, are horrid. And I think that knickers are not the thing for skating—absolutely.. They’re not disgraceful. I’ve got knickers, but I wouldn’t wear them skating.
O, I like other things than skating. I like to climb trees and I like to swim, and run and jump and ride horseback.’ (Maribel rode in a horse show a month after she was put on a horse).
I like Latin best of all my studies. I’m taking history, geography, mathematics and physiology. I’m going to be a doctor. A brain specialist.’
Maribel is a darting, flashing, graceful little thing. As she flashes over the ice every movement is like a fancy dance. She lives pictures—obviously not a set of poses taught her, but poetic motion due to an innate sense of rhythm.
This post about Maribel Vinson Owen concerns the prodigy Maribel, growing up in Winchester MA, with veteran skater parents Thomas and Gertrude. The following is from the Winchester Star newspaper of February 23, 1923. While young Maribel may come across as a bit prudish, she certainly wasn't in later years, know as an astounding raconteur and conversationalist who enjoyed a sherry or two after dinner.
I will supply more background detail about her youth--but right now, here's this choice profile of a saucy child prodigy...
Little Maribel “was found in the dressing shed at the Cambridge Skating Club, a private place next to Longfellow Park...Maribel’s mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas M. Vinson of High Street [Winchester] are fancy skaters. Mr. Vinson has gained honors and Mrs. Vinson has done fancy skating for fun, although she has never been in competition…
...when Maribel was old enough to walk they brought her along [to the Rink], first with double-runner skates. They gave her her first real skates when she was 4 years old. From the first, Maribel didn’t have to take ahold of anybody’s hand. She was skating in imitation of her parents before they realized she could get along at all. Maribel is now 11 years old.
For her skating she has been awarded four cups, three plates, one bowl, seven badges and two medals. Last year she began taking professional instruction. Now she is skating with “Willie” Frick, exhibition skater at the [Boston] Arena….
Maribel is an unusual little girl in a good many ways. She has disliked dolls from babyhood. Her pleasures have been of the outdoors., although she had dabbled sometimes in making pies and can make them well, also cakes and candy…
Along with the activities of the child has grown an immense capacity for ideas. She has ideas on most everything and on fashions she has ideas “decidedly.”
‘I think powder and rouge are sins and I think long skirts [with] panels, hanging down from them, are horrid. And I think that knickers are not the thing for skating—absolutely.. They’re not disgraceful. I’ve got knickers, but I wouldn’t wear them skating.
O, I like other things than skating. I like to climb trees and I like to swim, and run and jump and ride horseback.’ (Maribel rode in a horse show a month after she was put on a horse).
I like Latin best of all my studies. I’m taking history, geography, mathematics and physiology. I’m going to be a doctor. A brain specialist.’
Maribel is a darting, flashing, graceful little thing. As she flashes over the ice every movement is like a fancy dance. She lives pictures—obviously not a set of poses taught her, but poetic motion due to an innate sense of rhythm.
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