US hammer questions

[LopenUupunut]

I was looking into 1930s US hammer throwers and have a couple of (non-trivia) questions...

1) What did William Rowe die of? The basics I know (i.e. he died in hospital on April 20, 1938 aged 24), but the closest I've come to finding why is this newspaper story...

William J. A. Rowe [...] is dead at Post-Graduate hospital. New York. He was taken there last week suffering from mysterious growths under both armpits.

...does anyone know more?

2) Did Irving Folwartshny ever use the surname "Folsworthy", and if so, when? People who should know more than me say he did - for instance, rhymans in his brilliant Olympic Trials book speaks of "Folwartshny (who later changed his name to Folsworthy and then Folsworth)" - but apart from one appearance that could easily be an error, no contemporary sources I could find call him by that name; he's either Folwartshny or Folsworth. Hard to prove a negative that way, though.

Any answers would be appreciated

[rhymans]

Re: US hammer questions

You may be correct about Folsworthy - I can find no newspaper reference to him under that name (though after his athletic career he may well have been Folsworthy but not newsworthy before becoming Folsworth).

References to Rowe [the AP story in April 21 papers] just mention that he died after a long illness. 1938 was a horrible year for US Hammer throwers called William, with World Ranked William Lynch [best of 55.47m/181'11 3/4 on August 21 in Germany] dropping dead of a heart attack after Football practise on September 15

[LopenUupunut]

Re: US hammer questions

Thanks.

[dj]

Re: US hammer questions

"Folsworthy" is a typo which combined his birth surname and his adopted surname.

Irving "Shorty" (he was 6-7/250) Folwartshny threw at Rhode Island State (now Univ. of Rhode Island), where his coach was Fred Tootell. He graduated in 1938, then threw for the New York AC.

From the New York Times Feb. 27, 1944, story on the AAU indoor championships, we get the following paragraph: "Up to a short time ago the name of one of the Winged Foot club's strong men was Irving Folwartshny, but yesterday, when he took second place behind his team-mate Dreyer, in the 35-pound weight throw, he was called Irving Folsworth and announcement was made that it now was his legal name."

The war years saw many Americans change their surnames to Anglicize them, often to decrease discriminations against them. I suspect Folsworth was one, although I don't know that to be true. One thrower for whom this was the case was javelin thrower Seymour Cohen, who changed his name to Steve Seymour.

[LopenUupunut]

Re: US hammer questions

Excellent, thank you