A Voice from the Past
Wendy McColskey
Mother Ann Shedden in tennis attire from Vassar newspaper
Ruth Hartwell Blodgett was born in 1894 and grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her mother, Mabel Fuller Blodgett, was an accomplished children’s book author. She and her younger sister Dorothy were fortunate to have the opportunity to learn tennis in its infancy at the Longwood Cricket Club. Ruth attended Smith College, graduating in 1916, where she competed there in tennis. She married in 1918 to Dr. William Martindale Shedden. As confirmed by Tennis Forum.com (Biographies of Female Tennis Players), she played national tennis tournaments throughout the 1920s, including at Forest Hills where she made it to the third round, losing to Kitty Godfree. She and her sister Dorothy often played doubles in these tournaments. Ruth Blodgett Shedden had five children in the 1920s during her competitive tennis-playing career.
Her daughter, Ann Shedden was born in 1925, married Robert McColskey in 1946, and is the mother of two current NWTO members, Wendy McColskey and Dale McColskey. Ann played tennis as a child, competing in summer tournaments on Cape Cod, and then at Vassar College from 1942-46. She went on to get her Ph.D. from the University of Florida in clinical psychology in 1958 (the first woman in the program) with her three daughters and supportive husband in tow. Dale was 9, Wendy was 6, and Erin was 3 when Ann completed her Ph.D. (Erin was born while she was working towards her Ph.D.) Ann kept up her own lifetime enjoyment of tennis by playing senior women’s tournaments in Florida and nationally, including playing regularly at Houston (gaining a national ranking in her 60s).
An article from WWII years showing Grandmother Ruth Blodgett Shedden with other women tennis players hosting a war relief luncheon for Alice Marble
She introduced Dale, Wendy, and Erin to tennis by signing them up for Saturday clinics at the local tennis club in Ormond Beach, Florida in the early 1960s. The three sisters enjoyed competing in junior tennis tournaments in Florida throughout the 1960s. Dale and Wendy played tennis in college--Dale for Florida State University in the late 1960s and Wendy for Vanderbilt (#2) and then for Eckerd College (#1 and #2) in 1972-74 on the men’s team. They also traveled together and played tournament tennis in Europe in their 20s. They started playing doubles again together in their 65s in 2015.
There you have it--three generations of women who truly enjoyed and benefitted from the mental and physical challenge, the life-long friendships, and the travel and experiences that tennis provided. Ruth Blodgett Shedden, our grandmother, wrote a reflection of her tennis experiences in the 1930s after her tournament tennis playing days were over to celebrate her journey. She entitled it A Tennis Tree which is shared below.
Granddaughters Dale and Wendy McColskey with the Gold Ball at Houston in 2017
• • •
A Tennis Tree
by Ruth Blodgett Shedden
Dedication: Once in a lifetime, there is produced a blossom of finer quality than all the rest. To this champion of champions, this one rare person, who lives in helping others succeed—Mrs. George W. Wightman—I humbly dedicate my article.
Everyone who participates in a tennis tournament hopes secretly to achieve that which is possible to only one. But that one, like the blossom of a tree, owes its very being to the roots beneath the earth’s surface. In other words, the first-rounders of a tournament, those who enter but never win, -- the losers, unnoticed and unranked, giving generously of strength and mind, -- all these are responsible for our Davis Cup Team, our Wightman Cup Team, our national heroes who are the flowers of our Tennis Tree. Each person who competes in a tournament is an essential part of the whole Tennis Tree that produces a winner (a blossom)—but those who are the roots of the tree are perhaps the most important of all.
For eighteen years, I have played tournament tennis, always hoping that I was to blossom into a champion, but now I mean it when I say that if I could I would not change my tennis place with any, for I know what downright fun there is in persevering and learning a game so thoroughly from a loser’s point of view. During all that span of years, although there were interruptions in my playing (five children who are all wielding racquets now), I never won a major tournament, although I entered countless times, even including Nationals. However, once or twice I nearly won!
There was that semi-final match against the 8th ranking player in the nation at the Covered Courts of Longwood. I can still recall the moment when I had game, set, match-point on my racquet. I can see my opponent as she returned my serve and came to net and I lobbed just out of reach of her racquet. Oh- the suspense as the ball rose in a perfect arc and dropped but two inches beyond the baseline. In vain, I struggled to recover the golden opportunity but the match was lost and only time made my smile less rueful.
In retrospect, it is easy for me to replay my very first tournament match when I drew Molla Bjurstedt on her arrival at Longwood. My knees trembled so I wondered if she could see the shaking of my long white skirt as I served an ace on the first point. That so unnerved me that I literally never won another point. But that short-lived match was a learning experience that helped me when I drew Elizabeth Ryan and managed to hold her to a deuce set before she annihilated me in the next. The luckiest draw of all was one that placed me against Helen Wills Moody one summer on the championship court in Essex. She had just arrived from Europe and thanks to the rocking of the boat, I collected two games in two sets, but most of all I was proud of three beads of perspiration which I counted on her forehead as we changed sides to serve.
Now after 18 years of tournament play, I have a claim that I am better acquainted with tennis defeats than any other tennis player in the country- from close matches to the overwhelming losses. Therefore, I have earned the knowledge that comes with my message, which is especially for those who may never win the championship trophy, and that is, to play, to keep on playing, to compete if physically able because you are part of the Tennis Tree. If I had never competed in tournaments, I would never have known the experiences and would never have become an integral part of Sarah Palfrey or Helen Jacobs or Helen Wills Moody tournament experiences. So, to each competitor, wherever they fall in the draw, I want to say that in tennis nothing is lost. The more courage, skill, and strength is spent in lost tournament matches, the greater the losers’ share in the final winner’s blossoming.
• • •
Our grandmother’s message and our mother’s (who tried mightily over the years to conquer her errant tossing arm on the serve and her slightly suspect forehand stroke) was essentially that taking the challenge is the reward (along with the fun of being part of a larger tennis community of friends). They both would have taken some intergenerational pride in knowing that their perseverance had “blossomed” in Wendy and Dale winning the Gold Ball in the 65s Doubles in Houston in 2017! The challenge is the thing! By the way, I still have my mother’s ball hopper that I regularly use to work on my own somewhat errant service motion. I am reminded of her passion and perseverance each time I use it.
