Alice Arden
Alice Jean Arden-Hodge (born July 23, 1914 in Philadelphia , † March 1, 2012 ) was an American high jumper .
Alice Arden was raised in Long Island as the child of Ray Arden, an inventor who had 400 patents registered. She began playing sports at school, playing basketball , hockey, and athletics . She later started for St. George's Dragon Club in New York City and was a pioneer in the physical education of women. While still using the scissor jump technique at that time, she was three times, in 1933 and 1934, US champion of the Amateur Athletic Union . In 1935 she came close to the high jump record of "Babe" Didrikson with her personal best of 1.61 meters . In 1936 she finished second behind Annette Rogers in the US trials, through which the US athletes qualified for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin . She was one of three high jumpers and one of only 15 women on the US team for the Games. With a jump height of 1.50 meters, she and four other jumpers initially finished ninth in the starting field of 13 participants, but moved up to eighth two years later due to the disqualification of the intersex Heinrich Ratjen . It was both career highlight and last competition for Arden. After her active career, she was a member of the US Olympic Committee Women's Track & Field Committee in the 1950s .
Four months after the Olympics, their home club's basketball team in Monticello played against the Liberty Emeralds team . It was there that she met the semi-professional basketball player Russ Hodge, the man she married a year later. The couple had three sons, including the decathlete Russ Hodge Junior. The mother and son were the only US starters in this family line-up who ever took part in the Olympics. With her husband, she ran a dairy farm, a gravel pit and the Hodge's Fashions in Furniture store . The family lived first in Liberty , since 1939 in Roscoe . The couple had been married for 64 years until Russ' death in 2001. Alice Hodge was active well into old age and was 97 years old. In 2003 mother and son received the History Maker award from the Historical Society of Sullivan County .
Web links
- Alice Arden in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
- Olympian Alice Hodge this at age 97 (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Arden, Alice |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Arden-Hodge, Alice Jean (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American high jumper |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 23, 1914 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Philadelphia |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 1, 2012 |