The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Summer 1978, Volume 24, Number 3
Thomas L. Scharf, Managing Editor
By Dick Carlson
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There seemed to be no competition or skill that women weren’t willing to try. Fay Baird Fraser conquered a massive ten-foot long hunk of redwood to become our first woman surfer. Fraser and Charles W. Wright were photographed above in 1926 after a swim with the Silver Gate Club. Fay Fraser is still a San Diego country resident.
Another San Diego athlete was Florence Chadwick, whose name will be memorialized forever because of her four heroic English Channel swims.
Chadwick’s teacher, Florence Chambers (left) was equally adept. At the 1924 World Olympics in Paris she won a bronze medal for the 100 meter backstroke and during her swimming career gathered more than 175 trophies and 450 medals. Chambers later retired in San Diego-her childhood home-to operate a dairy ranch in the San Pasqual Valley.
