POVERTY TO WEALTH

Southland Times, Issue 25360, 12 August 1935, Page 11

POVERTY TO WEALTH

BOXER AND FAMILY. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WON. “While Jim was beating Max Baer, I was praying in a church that he should not be killed.” Mrs James Joseph Braddock, wife of the 29-year-old ex-dock labourer who has become heavyweight boxing champion of the world, made this confession in New York, when she told of their struggle against poverty, that ended in the ring at Madison Square Garden Bowl, with Braddock’s spectacular victory over Baer. She also stated that Braddock’s father was an outstanding athlete, being champion weight-lifter and longdistance runner of the Manchester Police Force. Manchester may rightly boast of the new world’s champion, for his mother, formerly Elizabeth Toole, was also born in Manchester, of Irish parents. Mrs Braddock admitted that she never dared hope her husband would win. “I was so worried,” she said. “I was afraid Baer might kill him. I did not care whether or not he won, so long as he was not killed. If he had come back battered and broken and bruised, but at least on his feet, I should have been content.” Two Ambitions. “The prayer must have strengthened me, because I was able to go back and listen by the wireless to the entire fight. It was nice to know that, if he didn’t win, it wouldn’t be because I had not prayed for him.” Mrs Braddock told of the two things she wants most, now that the pall of poverty has been lifted. “Jim and I are agreed about our ambitions this time, as we have always been,” she said. “We’re going to take a vacation. Jim wants to go to Ireland to see where his family came from originally. But before we go, Jim is going to make arrangements so that we can have the only other things we want from life—a nice one-family house. When you’ve been living in cramped flats year after year it must me heaven to go to ;. house all your own! “We are going to stay in this neighbourhood, though, poor as it is, because Jim doesn’t want our old friends to think we’ve got high-hat over a little money.” The champion’s wife, who is. barely more than a girl, was asked if, she were not excited at being rpeketed from poverty to affluence ovefnight. She smiled a little wistfully. Despair—then Luck. “It’s pretty hard to get excited after all we’ve been through,” she said. “Just a few months ago they cut off our gas, and we had nothing to eat in the house. We were desperate, but it was then that our luck turned. One day Jim walked the streets trying to borrow. That night he went on Government relief. “We felt that the end of the world had come, so great was the blow to our pride. We, who had always held up our heads, were on the dole! And I was not feeling well. Poor Jim. They took me away to hospital, and while I was there he went to Madison Square Garden and was matched against Art Lasky. He won! I shall never forget him coming to see me. He had £5O prize-money, and his win had placed him in direct line for the heavyweight title. Optimistic Fighter. “We paid off the relief money we owed and the doctors’ bills, and Jim went into training. He told me before he went into the ring that he would ‘bring home the bacon,’ and all during the fight I remembered his phrase. Well, he has brought it home, and to the happiest family in New York.” The sudden change in his fortunes means little to Jim Braddock. Life for him has always been a series of ups and downs. His parents met in the United States, where they had emigrated. James, the new champion, was born in what was then known as “Hell’s Kitchen,” the rowdiest district in New York. It was too rough for Mrs Braddock, so the family moved to West New York, the mecca of Irish picnickers 20 years ago, and it was there that young Jim fought his first boyhood battles. Before he was 16 Jim Braddock was tramping the roads between Chicago and New York until he. eventually obtained work as a stevedore on the Hudson river front—one of the hardest jobs in the world. Six years ago, after a few fights in the ring, he was picked by Gene Tunney as a future champion of the world. While fighting one of Jack Sharkey’s sparring partners, he broke his right hand, finished the fight with his left, and won. A few minutes later he went back into the ring, won another fight with his left—and used the proceeds of the two battles to have the broken fist repaired. Shortly after that, he received neck injuries which sent him to lorry driving for a living. He got married, went back to stevedoring, to the ring—and this time, to the world heavyweight championship.