Gertrude Ederle had her goggles sealed with paraffin to render them water tight. Gertrude possessed a contract from both the "New York Daily News" and "Chicago Tribune" when she attempted the Channel swim a second time. The money she received paid her expenses and provided her with a modest salary. It also gave her a bonus in exchange for exclusive rights to her personal story. The "Daily News" and the "Chicago Tribune" got the jump on every other newspaper in America. Another American swimmer in France in 1926 to try and swim the Channel was Lillian Cannon from Baltimore. She was also
Gertrude Hermes Gertrude Hermes Gertrude Anna Bertha Hermes (18 August 1901 – 9 May 1983) was an English wood engraver, printmaker and sculptor. Gertrude Anna Bertha Hermes was born on 18 August 1901 in Bickley, Kent. Her parents, Louis August Hermes and Helene, "née" Gerdes, were from Altena, near Dortmund, Germany. In about 1921 she attended the Beckenham School of Art, and in 1922 enrolled at Leon Underwood's Brook Green School of Painting and Sculpture, where other students included Eileen Agar, Raymond Coxon, Henry Moore and Blair Hughes-Stanton, whom she married in 1926; they separated in 1931, and were divorced in 1933.