📍Beaumont, TX, USA
1915 – 1930“I was born Mildred Ella Didrikson in Port Arthur, Texas, in June 1911, the sixth of seven children of Ole and Hannah Didrikson, who had come from Norway. When I was about three, a hurricane wrecked Port Arthur, and we moved seventeen miles inland to Beaumont, a refinery and port town, settling in a house on Doucette Avenue in the working-class South End. My father was a ship's carpenter and furniture refinisher, and my mother took in washing, and money was always short. My parents believed in sport, and my father built a gym in our backyard with bars and weights. I was a tomboy who could beat the boys at anything: running, jumping, baseball and fighting. I practised hurdling by jumping over the hedges along our street, and I claimed I got the name Babe, after Babe Ruth, by hitting five home runs in one sandlot game. I helped my family too, sewing potato sacks at a factory for pennies. At Beaumont High School I starred at basketball, baseball, swimming, tennis and volleyball, but I wasn't always popular with the other girls. In 1930 I left school to play basketball for an insurance company team in Dallas, and I became an All-American. At the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics I won two gold medals and a silver in track and field. Then I took up golf and won ten major championships, helping to found the LPGA. People called me the greatest female athlete of the century, and Beaumont has a museum in my honour.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today