Barbara Ann Scott: Queen of the Ice

1 "In a slightly scary way, I sometimes feel as though I, Barbara Ann, didn't exist at all. I often seem to be something people have conjured up in their minds, something they want to believe I am, something a little bit better than perfect - which no one can be." - Barbara Ann Scott Barbara Ann Scott was born May 9, 1928, on an unseasonably warm day in Canada's capital. She grew up in an ordinary Ottawa home, with an ordinary name, yet her family was far from ordinary. Barbara Ann's father Clyde Rutherford Scott abandoned his studies in Mining Engineering at Queen's University to join the 42nd Lanark and Renfrew Regiment of the Canadian Expeditionary Force during The Great War. Serving on the front lines during the Battle of Langemarck, Clyde faced a sudden ambush at a farmhouse. He sustained multiple injuries: rifle and machine gun fire wounds in both hips and one knee and shrapnel in his left eye. The severity of his injuries led the Germans to mistakenly believe that he had perished. They left him among a pile of dead bodies until a dog alerted them to his survival. Major William Beattie, the Chaplain to the 1st Infantry Brigade, sent a telegram to the Mayor of Perth. The telegram falsely stated that Clyde had passed away. Consequently, his parents held a memorial service in his honour. Clyde spent over two years in German and Swiss Prisoner of War camps before being repatriated to England in 1917. His parents were shocked and delighted when he eventually made his way back to Canada on a hospital ship, but his injuries were so severe that he had to have nine surgeries upon his return to Ontario. Though permanently disabled, he earned the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal. When Barbara Ann was born, he was serving as the military's Assistant Director of Records. He was later appointed Military Secretary of National Defence. Clyde and Barbara Ann's mother, Mary Purvis Derbyshire, had not yet crossed paths. However, Mary faced tough times of her own while Clyde was interned in a series of POW Camps in Europe. Soon after marrying William Chalmers MacLaren, Mary moved to the U.S. with her husband, daughter Mary, and son William to live the California dream. Mary's husband William was a Director of the Ottawa, Rideau Valley and Brockville Railway Company and a manufacturer of gloves and suspenders. The marriage ended when Mary divorced her husband on the grounds of neglect and non-support. She supported herself by working as a real estate agent in San Francisco. Through her family's high-society connections, Mary was introduced to Clyde. They continued to correspond over time after their first introduction, and over time a relationship blossomed. They planned a quiet wedding in Boston. However, their wedding was delayed because Mary couldn't produce a divorce certificate from her first marriage. It was over a week before the necessary paperwork materialized. The couple married in 1927. They settled into a modest brick house at 648 Rideau Street in the Ottawa neighbourhood of Sandy Hill. Mary's family was extremely prominent in her hometown of Brockville. Her great-grandfather was a Senator and Member of Parliament, Hon. Daniel Derbyshire. A popular dairy supplier, he was known as "The Eastern Ontario Cheese King". Her great uncle Hon. Robert Alfred Ernest Greenshields was Chief Justice of the Superior Court of the Province of Quebec. Justice Greenshields served as a defence lawyer in the trial of Louis Riel when he was arrested for his role in the Northwest Rebellion. Her godfather was Viscount Richard Bedford Bennett, who served as Canada's 11th Prime Minister from 1930 to 1935. Barbara Ann was raised in a church-going Anglican family with conservative values. She was essentially an only child, as her half-siblings were considerably older than her. As divorce was a taboo subject at the time, Barbara Ann's half-sister Mary lived with the family briefly, but she was passed off as a servant. She married a hockey player in 1934 and moved to Brockville. Barbara Ann's half-brother William was sent off to be raised by his grandparents in Brockville when he was ten and was not really a presence in the household. Barbara Ann's father Clyde gave her the childhood nickname Tinker - after Tinker Bell - the fairy from the book Peter Pan. He called her this because she was so small and dainty. He insisted Barbara Ann wear her hair quite short when she was young. Her mother put a ribbon on it so the neighbours would know she was a girl. Barbara Ann regarded her father as "a wonderful man. He was kind but he was strict." Though fiercely independent, Clyde was unable to bend over and was plagued by the injuries he had suffered during The Great War. "His body was full of shrapnel," Barbara Ann remembered. "He'd get a little red spot on his arm and it would fester and finally out would come a little piece of metal. This happened for years." Determined to be independent, he designed a pair of three-foot-long pincers, so he could pull on his socks and tie his shoelaces. He would limp his way through basketball games and rounds of golf at the Kingsmere Golf Club near the family's summer cottage. Clyde and Mary both valued modesty, kindness and hard work and tried to instill these values in Barbara Ann. They also both loved animals. The family home was overrun with a menagerie of pets, including two dogs, two rabbits, a cat, a canary, a family of mud turtles and a white rat. Visiting The Scotts was like visiting a miniature petting zoo.  When she was only three years old, Barbara Ann first expressed an interest in skating. She wrote a letter to Santa Claus, care of a local radio station, asking for a pair of "one-runner skates and a horse". When Santa brought her a pair of black skates with double runners, she was none too pleased. She thumped her bum down on frozen Dow's Lake to watch a man who was ice fishing while her mother skated nearby. She hated the double runners and never used them again, but her interest in skating never waned. When Barbara Ann was five, and taking music lessons from former Olympic figure skater Fran Claudet, she said, "If I do my music well, will you ask my mother to let me skate?" Fran encouraged her to take up the sport and spoke to her parents about it. Santa finally brought her a 'real' pair of skates when she was six. Barbara Ann was taken over to skate on the crowded Junior sessions at the Minto Skating Club's rink on Waller Street, just east of where the Rideau Centre is today. Melville Rogers, the first man to represent Canada at the Winter Olympic Games in 1924, was the biggest mover and shaker at the Minto Skating Club, so much so that he came to be known as "Mr. Minto". He recognized very early on that there was something special about Barbara Ann. At his suggestion, Barbara Ann was quickly moved up to the Intermediate session. There she was able to receive instruction from the club's professional at the time: Gustave Lussi. Unfortunately, she missed most of her first skating season, as she was quite sickly at the time. She had whooping cough and a series of mastoid operations when she was an infant and was plagued by ear problems throughout her young life. When her mother kept her home from the rink, she would take her skates to bed with her instead of her dolls. Barbara Ann took her first figure test when she was seven. She weighed only fifty or sixty pounds at the time, and the judges had to get down on all fours to see her faint tracings on the ice. That winter, she performed in her first Minto Follies, dressed as a Käthe Kruse doll in a brown, yellow and white plaid dress, a white blouse and a big bow in her hair. The Ottawa Citizen raved, "Barbara Ann Scott, a little seven-year-old lady... literally stole the hearts of the audience with her daintiness and captivating solo in which she did front and back spirals and ballet jumps extraordinarily well for one so young." Gustave Lussi left the Minto Skating Club not long after Barbara Ann's arrival. Paul Wilson took over as the Club's professional in 1935. The Swede was followed by two other European coaches, Rudolf Praznowski of Czechoslovakia and Freddy Mésot of Belgium. In those days, skaters took from whatever professional the club employed, and coach-hopping wasn't something that was typically done. Praznowski and Mésot were both seasoned international competitors and their expertise provided Barbara Ann a strong foundation in the basics of skating. Even though her coaches recognized her potential as a skater, Barbara Ann's strict upbringing and Mary's discouraging words led to feelings of inferiority. Barbara Ann remembered, "She told me when I was a girl that I was homely, but if I was very good at what I did, I would be a success. So I always felt a little inferior, and that I had to work a little harder." She often felt she could not be as "good or polite as the next person" and constantly strove to please people. As a girl, she was also very shy. "I would sit in a corner and listen to older people talk and not participate too much," she recalled. "In fact, I was terrified of people my own age." Barbara Ann insisted her mother always be there when she skated, so she could see a familiar face. Mary was ever-present rink side, with a pair of number nine knitting needles in her hand, making practice dresses, mitts and Angora bonnets. Barbara Ann recalled, "I was timid as a child and wanted to know she was there. Some mothers drive children and don't let them stand still a...