Historic Photos

Photo of the Week, 80: It's Jeanne!

August 14th, 2014

On July 11, 1941, 17-year-old Jeanne Cline won the Women's Western Golf Association junior championship at St. Charles (IL) Country Club. Bloomington's "golfing sensation" defeated Dorothy Campbell of St. Louis to capture her first major championship. Cline, already the two-time Bloomington women's champion, was enjoying a great year on the links, having appeared on the cover of the March 1941 issue of "Golfing" magazine. Jeanne Cline married Thomas Leete Stilwell of Cleveland, OH, and the couple raised a family in the Cleveland suburbs. After her husband's death, Jeanne lived in Pinehurst, NC and Boca Raton, FL. She passed away on July 18, 1999 in Boca Raton. Her Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel obituary mentioned that she played golf with Patty Berg and "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias, two influential female pioneers of the sport.

Bill Kemp

Librarian

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