Background
Her father was a colonel in the Union Army cavalry during the American Civil War.
golfer Tennis player social assistant
Her father was a colonel in the Union Army cavalry during the American Civil War.
Simmons College.
From the Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts area, she was the youngest of ten children. Her brother James Freeman Curtis became a lawyer in New York City, and was the Assistant United States Secretary of the Treasury under President William Howard Taft. Founded in 1900, it was the first state women"s golf association in the United States.
In 1897, 13-year-old Curtis qualified fourth in her first appearance at the United States. Women"s Amateur.
Curtis hit her drive into gorse bush, a very spiny and dense evergreen shrub common throughout western Europe but unfamiliar to an American. Curtis ended up taking a disastrous 13 on the hole to lose the tournament.
Curtis made it back-to-back United States. titles in 1912 when she also was the medalist for the sixth time. Besides her skill at golf, Curtis was an excellent tennis player.
With her career over in competitive golf, during World War I, she went to Paris, France where she joined the Red Cross, serving as the head of its Bureau for Refugees for three years.
Her time in Paris marked the beginning of several more years spent in various places across Europe with the Red Cross. She remained active in golf matters for most of her life. In December 1955, the Women"s Golf Association of Massachusetts established a tournament in her and her sister"s honor.
The trophy, known as "The Curtis Bowl," is a replica of the Curtis Cup.
Curtis was the recipient of the 1958 Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. She died in 1965 at the age of 82.
In 1906 her sister Harriot won the Championship. In 1908 she lost in the quarter-finals of the United States. Championship to eventual winner Katherine Harley. In the 1911 United States. Championship semi-finals she beat Dorothy Campbell, that year"s Canadian Women"s Amateur and British Ladies Amateur champion, then defeated Lillian B. Hyde in the championship match. In 1908 she won the United States. Open doubles tennis championship with Evelyn Sears, becoming the only woman to simultaneously hold the United States. golf and tennis titles.
In 1904, Curtis was a student at Simmons College School of Social Work in Boston, training that would lead to her being a Board member of the Family Service Society for 51 years.
