Elsie Marion Eaton
Marion Five Sports All-Star
Marion Eaton was an all-round athlete both at Wolfville High School and at Acadia University. An important member of the girls’ basketball team in high school, she continued the to excel at basketball in her university years. In fact, Eaton took part in every sport available to women during her time at Acadia; the 1931 yearbook called her “the mainstay of the [basketball] team, always plays a steady, effective game and we should be lost without her.” The 1931 women’s team had an undefeated season and won the tri-province championship, thanks in part to the scoring and play-making ability of Eaton.
During her Sophomore year, she literally made a big splash during the women’s interclass swim meet. As reported in Halifax’s Acadian Recorder: “Marion Eaton scored 29 points for her team. She captured three firsts, one of them setting a new tank record, and many second places. Her record was broken in the 100 yard swim, in the last of the six events in which she either took first or second honors.... Such performance and staying power marks her as one of the finest swimmers in the province.” Eaton scored more points than the second place team and with her teammates, overpowered the other classes. In her Junior year, she was on class teams that won championships in both swimming and tennis. She repeated as swim meet high scorer in her senior year.
Although there was no women’s track team at Acadia during this period, Eaton did participate in an indoor meet at Acadia in 1929 where she was second only to Gertrude Phinney. She was also a member of a Halifax-based relay team that won a silver medal at the Canadian championships and won a silver medal in the 200 yard dash at a meet in Halifax in 1929. Marion Eaton played tennis for Acadia and represented the Wolfville Lawn Tennis Club in several events in the late 1920s and early 1930s. She was active in the Tumblers Club, a women’s group which practised gymnastics sports at Acadia even though they were not allowed to compete. She was presented with a silver “A” and a gold basketball pendant as a tribute to her athletic skill.
Eaton received a BSc in Home Economics in 1931, did post-graduate work at Brigham Hospital in Boston, worked as a Home Economics demonstrator for the Nova Scotia Extension Department and as a teacher at the Normal School in Truro; she moved to Manitoba after her marriage in 1941 and lived in a number of provinces, finally settling in New Brunswick.
(Acadian Recorder [27] May 1929; Wolfville Acadian 21 May 1931; Acadia Yearbook,1931)
