Henry B. Eaton elected FMTC President (1936)

Springtime at Fox Meadow Tennis Club

Walter Pleuthner the architect for the Fox Meadow clubhouse sketched the scene

The Childress tennis and paddle dynasty

The first of this racquet dynasty at the Club were Avent and Madeline Childress. Mrs. Childress taught all four of her daughters to play tennis, and three of them loved the game. When the girls were introduced to paddle, they took to the game like a trio of naturals. All three became national champions: Sally Childress Auxford, Madge Childress Beck, and Maizie Childress Moore. For decades, the family's daughters and grandchildren formed a nearly unbeatable paddle dynasty, with a string of APTA National Championships stretching from 1936 to 1974. Sally Childress, a frequent women's tennis champ at the Club, took her first national paddle tournament in 1937. Her partner was her sister Maizie. Nearly twenty years later Sally Childress Auxford captured a second Women's Doubles title, with partner Barbara Koegel, and in 1959 she won the Mixed Doubles crown. Although each of the Childr[...]

APTA Report to Membership

Report includes comments on Evans backstop and court surface improvement. APTA Report to Members,1936

Media interest in the game grows

Newsweek featured platform tennis in a March 21, 1937 article and on March 23, 1937, J.P. Allen proclaimed in the New York Sun: Davis Cup Panacea Offered. Blanchard Proposes Paddle Tennis to Balance California Supremacy in East

Word of the game reaches overseas

In January, 1937, the APTA received a request for information from Durban, Natal, South Africa, after they had read about the sport in the Christian Science Monitor.

National Championships

Fox Meadow Tennis Club teams dominated the Nationals, winning all five events and Charley O'Hearn completed a hat-trick in the Mixed (with Kitty Fuller in 1935 and then with his wife, Virginia, in 1936 and 1937). This was the last year the singles was played until Men's singles was reintroduced in 1980.

John Van Norden elected FMTC President (1937-1939)

Effort to gain control over the Tennis Realty Corporation

Before Fox Meadow could make any substantial changes—buy or sell property, expand the clubhouse—it first had to gain operating control of the old Tennis Realty Corporation, which owned the Club's grounds and facilities. This wearisome task took more than a decade. By the early 1930s, so many former members (and therefore stockholders) had resigned, moved, or died that Club members owned a shrinking percentage of the Realty Corporation's stock. It had become impossible to assemble a quorum for the annual meeting of the Realty Corporation, a situation that left its directors in a legally untenable situation. In 1937, during John Van Norden's presidency, the Club board began an all-out effort to collect enough stock through donation, purchase, or affidavits stating that the shares were lost, to gain control of the Realty Corporation and then liquidate it. After years of persistent[...]

Tea after paddle at Fox Meadow

This tradition began when the Cogswells arrived at FMTC with the Old Army Athletes in the 1930s. Families took turns serving tea, cinnamon toast, and cookies. In 1936, fifteen cents entitled a member to “unlimited tea, toast, and condiments.” (see sidebar article) So popular were the Saturday teas that they were extended to Sundays, and iced tea was served during tennis season. It was not until the 1970s that the Sunday teas were discontinued. Source: Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club - The First Hundred Years, 1983