As Babe Ruth
became more famous with the NY Yankees he began to enjoy the good life in
Manhattan that fame and fortune bring. Having been brought up in poverty he now
began spending money with complete abandon. The parties he threw are now part
of his legend. Even at his home on the farm in Sudbury Ma. Stories of his
shenanigans are retold. Once in a drunken stupor he and his friends allegedly
took a piano onto the middle of a frozen pond where it eventually sunk to the
bottom.
His absence
during the baseball season and his new lifestyle did not sit well with his wife
Helen. Eventually she moved to New York to be with her husband but that didn’t
change his “Bon Vivant” way of living. The marriage disintegrated and Helen returned
to Boston with their daughter Dorothy. Ruth eventually met up with a divorced woman
Claire Hodgson who had a daughter named Julie. Claire was a strong willed
person who soon “tamed the tiger” of the Babe.
Helen and
Ruth never divorced.
As an
aside..my father also lived on Silver St. and told me of Babe Ruth living
further down the same street. Ironically he worked at Joe’s Spa and in 1945
became part owner. A really small world isn’t it.
More on the
Babe on the next Post
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