2022 Memorial Day Issue

34
HISTORY
Lake Hopatcong’s
Queen of the High Tower
The Treaty of
Versailles,
which ended World
War I, forbade Germany from stationing
armed forces in a demilitarized zone known as
the Rhineland, a region in western Germany
bordering France, Belgium and part of the
Netherlands. Although the agreement stated
that Allied forces would occupy the region,
German troops reoccupied the zone on March
7, 1936, in a blatant violation of the treaty.
Hitler gambled that the western powers
would not intervene.
His action brought condemnation from
Great Britain and France, but neither nation
intervened to enforce the treaty. At a point
when German forces were still weak and could
have been stopped, the world watched German
aggression across eastern Europe until the
invasion of Poland in 1939 shattered the idea
that war could be avoided.
Many parallels have been drawn recently
between these events preceding World War
II and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Another
comparison between recent events and 1936 is
the way news from Europe cast a foreboding
shadow over an Olympic Games.
Throughout the Winter Olympics in Beijing
this past February, there were constant reports
of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Most people could not conceive of the world
again witnessing a land war in Europe. Yet
Got leakys?
by MARTY KANE
Photos courtesy of the
LAKE HOPATCONG
HISTORICAL MUSEUM
ARCHIVES
LAKE HOPATCONG NEWS Memorial Day 2022
Russian forces crossed the Ukrainian
border just days after the Games
ended.
At Lake Hopatcong in the summer
of 1936, many were focused on the
upcoming Olympic Games in Berlin.
Thousands of cheering, flag-waving
spectators lined the New York and
New Jersey shoreline on July 15 to see
359 members of the U.S. Olympic
team off for their 10-day journey to
Germany.
Among the 46 female team members
was Cornelia “Corky” Gilissen, a
20-year-old diver who had learned to
swim at her family’s Lake Hopatcong
cottage.
In an Olympics that will forever be
remembered for the dramatic politics being
played out as a precursor to the devastating
war ahead, the American team also featured the
great Jesse Owens, who would win four gold
medals in track and field, and a men’s rowing
team made up of University of Washington
college students who would manage an
incredible David versus Goliath victory over a
dominant German team in front of Hitler and
Nazi officials.
The Lake Hopatcong community eagerly
followed the story of one of its own.
Born on September 21, 1915, in Elmhurst,
Queens, Gilissen began summering in the
Northwood section of Hopatcong with her
family around 1920.
In a 1939 newspaper interview with the
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Gilissen
explained she learned to swim at Lake
Hopatcong at the age of 6. Though their
973-398-0875
We’ll never ask how it happened!
Cornelia Gilissen competing in the 1934
Metropolitan AAU Swimming Meet at
Jones Beach, Long Island.
parents could not swim, Gilissen and her two
younger sisters learned by daily practice in the
lake.
In July 1928, 12-year-old Gilissen caught
the attention of the lake community by
winning the girls’ “fancy diving” title (known
today as springboard) at the Lake Hopatcong
Association competition at Glasser’s Pavilion
(now the location of Lola’s Mexican Restaurant).
A year later the talented teen earned
the interest of the entire American diving
community when she competed in the annual
Daily News Water Derby in New York City’s
Central Park.
A photograph in the August 2, 1929 Daily
News of Gilissen in mid-flight during the
Water Derby competition was captioned “as
graceful and poised as a bird on the wing,
Cornelia Gilissen, of Lake Hopatcong, N.J.,
goes through one of her dives from the fourfoot
board. She won third place in the event for
girls and helped to thrill the crowd of 60,000.”
Just one day earlier, Gilissen had earned two
first-prize trophies at the Lake Hopatcong
Yacht Club’s annual competition. Younger
sister Josephine, a competitive swimmer, also
took home a first-place trophy.
Competing nationally while still finding the
time to participate in diving, swimming and
canoeing competitions at Lake Hopatcong was
the norm for Corky Gilissen.
In 1930, Gilissen began training and
competing with the Women’s Swimming
Association of New York. She moved up to
a second-place finish in the Water Derby
that year and in 1931 won the competition,
establishing her as one the East Coast’s strongest