San Rafael Municipal Baths, ca. 1930s (Marin History Museum Collection)
Marin County’s first Olympian was a teenage girl born on Belvedere Island in 1909, raised in San Rafael and discovered while swimming in the saltwater pools of the magnificent San Rafael
Municipal Baths.
Eleanor Garatti, a second-generation Italian-American, rocketed to international fame during the 1920s as she set world records in the 50 and 100-yard swimming races around the country. Incredibly, she won her first national championship at the age of 15. A 1927 Sausalito News article described her “appearance” with Olympic Champion and future film star, Johnny Weissmuller, at the San Rafael Baths that was attended by hundreds of enthusiastic fans who watched her, once again, lower her record for the 100-yard swim. Her record time of 27 seconds flat in the 100-yard event lasted for almost twenty years.
Garatti’s domination in the short-distance sprints earned her a spot on the 1928 U.S. Olympic swim team that traveled to Amsterdam where she won a Silver medal in the individual 100-meter race and a Gold medal as a member of the women’s 4x100 relay team. Eleanor returned to San Rafael as a celebrated athlete and became a regular participant in swim meets around the country and a luminary at many local fairs and events. She competed four years later in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, winning a Bronze medal in the individual 100- meter race and repeating as a member of the Gold-medal winning 4x100 relay team.
Eleanor Garatti, a second-generation Italian-American, rocketed to international fame during the 1920s as she set world records in the 50 and 100-yard swimming races around the country. Incredibly, she won her first national championship at the age of 15. A 1927 Sausalito News article described her “appearance” with Olympic Champion and future film star, Johnny Weissmuller, at the San Rafael Baths that was attended by hundreds of enthusiastic fans who watched her, once again, lower her record for the 100-yard swim. Her record time of 27 seconds flat in the 100-yard event lasted for almost twenty years.
Garatti’s domination in the short-distance sprints earned her a spot on the 1928 U.S. Olympic swim team that traveled to Amsterdam where she won a Silver medal in the individual 100-meter race and a Gold medal as a member of the women’s 4x100 relay team. Eleanor returned to San Rafael as a celebrated athlete and became a regular participant in swim meets around the country and a luminary at many local fairs and events. She competed four years later in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, winning a Bronze medal in the individual 100- meter race and repeating as a member of the Gold-medal winning 4x100 relay team.
Source: Patch.com
According to the 1930 census, Eleanor lived with her family at 324
Second St. in San Rafael, just a few blocks from the San Rafael Municipal
Baths where she was discovered by Director Harold Duffy. She
was also listed as working as a stenographer for the Pacific Gas and
Electric Company where her coach, James Ward, also worked. Between
her Olympic appearances, Eleanor married an engineer, Laurence
Edward Saville and changed her name to Eleanor Garatti-Saville.
The census shows the couple lived on Clement Street in San Francisco in 1940. Eleanor died in Walnut
Creek in 1998 at the age of 89 and is buried alongside her husband at Oak Mound Cemetery in Healdsburg,
CA.
Written at the height of her fame, a 1929 Mill Valley Record article said of her birth, that it was, “… in a cottage named ‘Wiggin’ where, “she first waked to the music of the waves,” and “where the mermaids first promised that she should be one of them.”
Written at the height of her fame, a 1929 Mill Valley Record article said of her birth, that it was, “… in a cottage named ‘Wiggin’ where, “she first waked to the music of the waves,” and “where the mermaids first promised that she should be one of them.”
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