Lester R. Fry, born January 11, 1892, was the youngest son of James S. and Mary Ellen (Myers) Fry. Unlike my Grandfather Elson, I have more memories of great uncle Lester Fry; perhaps because he and my father got along so well--and for a very long period of time. My father worked for the Firestone Bank in Monrovia, Liberia between 1934 and 1936. In a letter dated February 24, 1934, he wrote "I have been on the tennis court every day since I got here and if my Uncle [Lester Fry] hadn't insisted, I would not have bought a racket."

And I remember visiting Lester's tennis shop on E. Exchange Street in Akron, just west of Arlington Street, with my father. It was a separate little sales and tennis racket stringing shop above the front porch. Lester was also a notary public, at a time when authenticating documents was still a valuable part of a healthy livelihood.

Father told me Lester had his children sleep in rooms with the windows open in the winter time--just to toughen them up. Whether that were true, Lester did put all of his children on a tough regimen of sports. In an article in Sports Illustrated dated September 3, 1956, the following revealing anecdote is reported:

On the first page of [world tennis champion] Shirley Fry's scrap-book, started by her father when she was 9, there is a picture of the center court at Wimbledon under which is written "Objective—Wimbledon by 1945." The surprising thing is not that she won the title 11 years late, but that she won it at all. She is a girl who triumphed over encouragement.