Queen Anne Aces
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| - | [[Image:BaskGirlsQueen37rev.jpg|right|thumb|300px|'''Queen Anne Aces, 1937''', l to r: Helen Kaczynski, Sevela Albianiak, Frances Rospond, and Willien Schrum]] | + | [[Image:QueenAnne37.jpg|right|thumb|300px|'''Queen Anne Aces, 1937''', l to r: Helen Kaczynski, Sevela Albianiak, Frances Rospond, and Willien Schrum]] |
| '''Queen Anne Aces,''' a women’s industrial basketball team that played in the Chicago and the Gary, Indiana, areas in the latter part of the 1930s. They were the last great female basketball team from the city’s golden age of women’s amateur basketball during the twenty year period of the 1920s and 1930s, following a line of great teams—the [[Brownies]], [[Taylor Trunks]], [[Jewish Peoples' Institute Girls]], [[Roamer Girls]], [[May & Malone Girls]], and [[Spencer Coals]]. | '''Queen Anne Aces,''' a women’s industrial basketball team that played in the Chicago and the Gary, Indiana, areas in the latter part of the 1930s. They were the last great female basketball team from the city’s golden age of women’s amateur basketball during the twenty year period of the 1920s and 1930s, following a line of great teams—the [[Brownies]], [[Taylor Trunks]], [[Jewish Peoples' Institute Girls]], [[Roamer Girls]], [[May & Malone Girls]], and [[Spencer Coals]]. | ||
Revision as of 23:36, 29 March 2012
Queen Anne Aces, a women’s industrial basketball team that played in the Chicago and the Gary, Indiana, areas in the latter part of the 1930s. They were the last great female basketball team from the city’s golden age of women’s amateur basketball during the twenty year period of the 1920s and 1930s, following a line of great teams—the Brownies, Taylor Trunks, Jewish Peoples' Institute Girls, Roamer Girls, May & Malone Girls, and Spencer Coals.
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Founding in Hammond
The Queen Anne Aces began in Hammond some time around 1935 under the sponsorship of the Queen Anne Candy Company. The candy company was established in 1921, and moved to Hammond in 1924. The company employed nearly 500 workers. For the first several years the Queen Anne Aces competed against touring teams in the Midwest.
In 1937, the company decided to introduce its team in neighboring Chicago and play against the best the city had to offer. They entered the women’s division of the Windy City League, and played such teams as the Turner Clothier Girls. Eddie McCabe Girls, Bill Rand Girls, and the Taylor Trunks, almost always as a preliminary game to the men’s league game. At the time, the team consisted of all local Hammond girls, namely Frances Rospond, Helen Kaczynski, Elva Forsberg, Sevela Albiniak, Willien Schrum, and Klisiak, with a number of Eastern European ethnic names of the Gary area.
The Queen Anne Aces chose to compete in the huge American Tournament in 1937, sponsored by the Chicago American and held around the first two weeks of March each year. The tournament field was narrowed to eight from hundreds of teams during weeks of preliminary contests, and the Queen Anne Aces were good enough to make it to the final eight. They won their quarterfinal and semifinal games, but lost the final 22-13 to an outstanding team filled with veteran women basketball players, the Alamo Theater Co-eds. The Alamo women included such standouts as the Krubaeck sisters, Violet and Evelyn; Ruth McCracken; and the DeSutter twins, Marion and Mercedes.
Becomes Chicago's Top Team
The Queen Anne Aces knew that to compete successfully at the highest level in Chicago they needed to bring in some veterans, and for the 1938 season got what the Alamo Theater Co-eds had, namely Violet and Evelyn Krubaeck, and Ruth McCracken. The team also recruited the great Cassie Martin, who along with Violet Krubaeck, were members in the legendary Taylor Trunks back in the late 1920s. The other members of the 1938 team were veteran Hammond locals Francis Rospond, Helen Kaczynski, Elva Forsberg, and Sevela Albiniak, plus newcomer Stella Kiligen. In March 1938, the Queen Anne Aces were able to win the American Tournament free-lance title (the major title then), and during the year continued contests against Windy City League teams. The oddest contest was against the Bill Rand Girls on the north side of the city, at the Norshore Theater, where two teams played a contest on the stage before the movie came on (the short court must have made for a high scoring game, the results which were not reported).
The team played a heavy schedule of games in the Windy City League, January and February, all as preliminary games before the men's Windy City League contests. They played against such opponents as the Bill Rand Girls, Turner Trunks, Sappano Paints, and I. C. Co-Eds. The Trunks, Queen Annes, and Bill Rands were evenly matched and most of their matches were closely contested with all three trading wins, although the Bill Rand Girls emerged as the league winner. A high note of the season was when they repeated as the American Tournament free-lance champion, beating the Bill Rand Girls, 18-14.
The 1939 team was considered good enough to meet the great Edmonton Grads team of Edmonton, Canada, which had consistently held the Underwood Trophy, representative of the North American championship, since 1923. The Queen Annes did better than most Edmonton's opponents, losing the first two games, 41-29 and 46-34, but winning the third 35-33. The peculiar rules of the Underwood Trophy series meant that Edmonton won based on total point margin, 120-98, for the three games.
The End Game
In the 1939-40 season, the Queen Anne Aces added Spencer Coals great, Lillian Rozhon, to its lineup, and retained the Krubaecks, Rospond, Kaczynski, Forsberg, Albiniak, and Kiligen. In the American Tournament that year, the team became the event’s first three-time winner, beating the veteran Spencer Coals, 32-19, who were past their prime. The team traveled to Calgary to meet the Edmonton Grads, but because the AAU refused to grant traveling permits the three games they contested were considered exhibition games rather than for the Underwood championship. The Grads swept all three games, 56-34. 45-38, and 62-52.
That was the end of the Queen Anne Aces, which disbanded after their last great winning season. In 1941, many of the women from that team were playing for Brills Lassies, which included Rospond, Kiligen, and Evelyn Krubaeck (Violet Krubaeck had apparently retired). That year the Brills Lassies took second to the Standard Transformers in the American Tournament, but the following year they would be playing under yet another name, the Ducky Sloan Girls.
