Sears, Eleonora R.
Tennis
b. Sept. 28, 1881, Boston, MA
d. March 26, 1968
A 1910 magazine article proclaimed Sears "the best all-around athlete in American society." A great-great-granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson and the daughter of a wealthy shipping and real estate tycoon, Sears bred, trained and rode show horses for most of her adult life. She was also an excellent golf, tennis, and squash player; she was among the first women to race a car and fly a plane; and she was the first person of either sex to swim the 4½ miles from Bailey's Beach to First Beach in Newport, RI.
Sears once skippered a yacht that beat Alfred Vanderbilt's Walthra and, at one time or another, she played baseball and football, skated, and raced speedboats.
On a bet, Sears in January of 1912 usurped a traditional male role by driving a four-in-hand down Fifth Avenue. Later that year, she wore breeches to play for an otherwise all-male polo team, spurring a California women's club to pass a resolution: "Such unconventional trousers and clothes of the masculine sex are contrary to the hard and fast customs of our ancestors. It is immodest and wholly unbecoming a woman, having a bad effect on the sensibilities of our boys and girls."
Sears probably just laughed at that. A member of the highest social set, at night she played a traditional female role, wearing elegant gowns and dancing at balls. During his visit to Boston in 1924, the Prince of Wales was so charmed by Sears that he spent most of the night as her dancing partner.
Although many of her feats were inspired by dares or bets, Sears was very serious about tennis and squash. She won the U. S. women's doubles tennis championship with Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman in 1911 and 1915 and with Molla Bjurstedt Mallory in 1916 and 1917. Sears and Willis E. Davis won the mixed doubles title in 1916, and she was twice a finalist for the national singles championship. In 1928, when she was 46, she won the national women's squash title.
In her later years, Sears became known for her long-distance walks. Her best time for an annual 47-mile walk from Providence to Boston was 9 hours, 53 minutes, and she once walked from Newport to Boston, 73 miles, in 17 hours. During a visit to France she walked 42½ miles from Fontainebleu to the Ritz Bar in Paris in 8½ hours.