The last time Paris hosted the Olympic Games was 100 years ago in 1924. A Connecticut native and longtime Maine resident won a gold medal for rowing then. NBC10 Boston’s Bianca Beltran spoke to his widow in Rockport, Maine, about his incredible legacy.
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The last time Paris hosted the Olympics was 100 years ago in 1924.
The men's eight rowing event in the 1924 Paris Olympics happened on the Seine River, and a Connecticut native and longtime Maine resident won a gold medal for rowing in those games. But you may know his name by another claim to fame.
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NBC10 Boston spoke to Benjamin Spock's widow in Rockport, Maine, about his incredible legacy beyond the Olympics as a famous doctor, writer and peace activist.
Mary Morgan's photo albums hold so much history. Her late husband was on Yale University's eight rowing team that competed at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. They traveled on a first class transatlantic ocean liner because Yale had a race against Harvard after Team USA left for France.
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The rowers won gold -- and 100 years later, the medal is shiny as ever.
"He didn’t brag about it at all. He really enjoyed being there in Paris. At that time, but most people didn’t even know that he had a gold medal," Morgan said.
That's probably because it may be one of the least interesting things about him.
"He and Martin Luther King were asked to run for president and vice president together for Peace and Freedom Party," Morgan shared. "And then he had an interesting court trial that put him in prison."
That conviction, later overturned, happened at the federal courthouse in Boston and was for anti-war protests encouraging young men to dodge the draft for the Vietnam War.
But you may know him as Doctor Spock -- the pediatrician whose book "Baby and Child Care" is one of the best-selling books of the 20th century.
Morgan met him after he gave a speech in her home state of Arkansas. She says there were sparks between the two straight away.
"It’s what he didn’t say to me. His silence. The way that he could hold his attention of an audience of 150 people, and the way it was so contagious," she said, acknowledging that people have a difficult time trying to understand the couple's age gap. "It wasn’t our age, it was our spirit that was it."
It was a spirit that bridged a 40-year age difference and a marriage that lasted until the day Spock died at 94 years old in March 1998.
"He rowed the rest of his life," Morgan said of her late husband. "I’ve got a photograph right before he died that he’s in that boat, and he’s doing this and he's just beautiful."
Every morning at dawn, Morgan rows their boat they lovingly named "Turtle."
"When I go there, it's like Ben's presence is there," she said. "That's really wonderful."
Morgan had planned to return Spock's gold medal to Paris. She made hotel reservations and everything, but her doctor recommended against it. So for now, that 1924 gold medal remains in Maine.
