Friday, April 30, 2010

SEPIA SATURDAY- Uncle Bob and my father- wrestlers at The University of Chicago

What a bunch of hunks! 
My father(Gil Finwall), front row second from right, Uncle Bob (Finwall), third from right. 
(About 1936, '37, or '38.)

From articles in the University of Chicago magazine:

 This ad was also in the magazine. Maybe this is where they ate:


Supposedly my uncle was supposed to go to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. I can't remember what happened to keep him from going. Another one of those family stories that I'm not sure was true and now there's no one left to ask.

See more Sepia Saturdays at http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com

8 comments:

  1. Well, you certainly wouldn't want to mess with this bunch! I remember wrestling being very big in the UK during the 1960s, but that was purely for entertainment. Your father and uncle were serious competitors, and successful too. Has anyone else in the family continued in the sport?

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  2. Hunks is right!! Wow!! Your father looks like a film star!

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  3. Oh my...whoa! haha. What a super picture! Love it...and they were quite good, too! :)

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  4. No, Martin, no one in the family became a wrestler. My father used to love to watch that fake wrestling that was on television in the '60s. I don't know how he could stand it when he knew what it really supposed to be like. I guess it amused him.

    Thanks, Willow, I always thought he looked like a movie star,too.

    Betsy, this picture always makes me laugh, although I'm sure they were quite serious.

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  5. Move over Chippendales! I love the magazine quip about the weight of his medals causing curvature of his shoulders.

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  6. We do seem to get the most amazing photographs on Sepia Saturday, but that has to be one of the most amazing. As far as the Olympics were concerned the Berlin Olympics were in 1936. I suspect your Uncle Bob would have been considered for the sames after that - the 1940 Olympic Games which were due to be held in Tokyo. These games never took place because of the outbreak of war. By the time the Olympics returned (in 1945) he will have probably long since have retired from competition.

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  7. Alan, Thanks for noticing that. I should have done a little research about the Olympics. It was the Berlin Olympics that the family story was about. I think he graduated in 1938. In one of the articles it says he tied with an Olympic wrestler from Cornell in 1938. So it must have been 2 years before that he missed the Olympics. Another family mystery I'm going to have to research some more.
    He became a pilot in the Army Air Corps. and was killed in 1940.(See story on Feb. 27)

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