Gretchen Van Zandt Merrill was born on November 2, 1925, in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the only child of Abner Scott Merrill, a son of Frank Abner Merrill, founder and senior partner of the private Boston banking firm of Merrill, Oldham and Company, and Gretchen Van Zandt.
Education
Merrill attended Beaver Country Day School in Brookline, Massachusetts An indifferent student, she was by contrast a natural athlete, always active in competitive sports. Merrill did have professional instruction, but only after 1941 were these lessons important.
Career
Merrill began taking ice skating lessons in 1935. During one of her early lessons, she met Sonja Henie, the Norwegian world and Olympic figure skating champion who was on tour in the United States. Watching a characteristic Henie temper tantrum, Merrill decided she could be a successful although untemperamental world-class skater. She also attended the University of California as an extension student, probably as a diversion from her daily routine. At that time serious figure skaters did not routinely employ gymnastic coaches and choreographers, and Merrill was largely self-taught. She sketched her own routines on paper and practiced them at home in her stocking feet, executing split jumps over the sofa. She trained rigorously from 6:30 a. m. until school began and after school until dinner time. In 1942, she moved to Berkeley, California, to train with Maribel Vinson Owen, a former United States champion. There she concentrated on the technical aspects of the sport. She mastered such difficult maneuvers as the loop-change-loop and the bracket-change-bracket. This technical mastery remained the strong point of her performance for years. The rigorous training paid off in 1943 when Merrill won the first of six consecutive National Senior Ladies Figure Skating Championships, tying a record held by her coach. Her school figures those exact tracings on the ice that are at once a mark of agility, concentration, and self-control enabled her to enter the free-skating portions of championship competitions with comfortable leads over her rivals. Other skaters at times performed more successfully in the free-skating competition, but no one in these years managed to overtake her early lead. This pattern was broken only in 1948 when she won the free-skating portion of the program after finishing second in the school figures. She never captured the North American Championship; her best finish was second in 1943. Moreover, the war forced a suspension of international competition, and by the time it resumed in 1948, younger women such as Barbara Ann Scott of Canada were competing. In the 1948 Olympics, Merrill finished a disappointing eighth, falling three times in her free-skating program in part because of her inexperience on outdoor ice. Complaining of exhaustion and overpreparation, she subsequently withdrew from the world championships in February 1948. Although she successfully defended her title in the United States in April 1948, she was hard pressed for the first time in years. The following year she was defeated in her effort to secure her seventh consecutive national title. Thereafter she retired. She never turned professional. She died of unknown but natural causes in Windsor, Connecticut, where her body lay undiscovered for about a week.
Achievements
Personality
Merrill was a popular champion. Her shapely figure, blond hair, and easy manner in interviews captured the public. She was named the best-dressed woman in United States sports in 1945. Although short and not spectacular, Merrill's career was noteworthy. At her best, she dominated the United States women's ice skating as few have. It is unfortunate that the larger events of the century kept her from competing against the best world figure skaters while she was at the peak of her skills.
Connections
On January 9, 1953, Merrill married William Otis Gay, a stockbroker who was much older than she. The marriage was childless and ended in divorce. Thereafter she lived quietly and alone.