Naomia Abbott Memorial

WHO WAS NAOMIA ABBOTT?

The war had put an end to local fencing on Galveston Island. Then, in November of 1946, John P. "Jack" Baird announced that fencing was to return to Galveston. He stated the fencing season would begin with the Galveston Amateur Open, ironically dated for December 7-8, 1946, at the Galveston YMCA. The competitors came from Houston, Beaumont and Dallas. While it drew nowhere near the hoped-for 50-75 entrants, eight women and 22 men did show up to bring fencing back to Galveston.

The first event fenced was women’s individual foil. Betty Allen of Houston captured first place. Second place went to Laurette Eckstein of Dallas. Naomia Abbott of Houston was third.

On March 30, 1947, the Galveston contingent traveled north to Dallas for a tournament at the YMCA there. Naomia Abbott, fencing for Galveston, captured the gold in women’s foil.

The Galveston Fencing Club was at the Rice Institute, on April 19^th [1947], to participate in a four-club tournament, which also included the Houston Fencing Club and the Dallas YMCA. Both the Galveston and Houston Fencing Clubs managed to best the fencers from Big D. In the women’s foil event, Galvestonians Silvia D’Albergo, Naomia Abbott and Mrs. Lawrence McMillan defeated their north Texas counterparts.

The Galveston fencers had also settled in to teaching weekly fencing classes at the Galveston YWCA and at the Menard Youth Center.

By early 1948, Galveston sported two fencing clubs. In addition to the Galveston Fencing Club, there was also a second group known as the Galveston Buccaneer Fencing Club and, occasionally, as the Galveston Buccaneers of Chemical Carbide Company. The Galveston Fencing Club included Naomia Abbott and William T. "Bill" Brown.

Arnold Mercado [now president of the United States Fencing Coaches Association] recalled, "Mrs. Abbot and Betty Jean Fox were the best women in the state with Foxie usually coming out on top. Mrs. Abbot was cheerful, genial and a great person to be around. Her husband fenced also but his technique was limited and she usually beat him."

May 7-8 [1949] saw fencers from all over the state converge on Dallas for the Texas Division’s championships (some papers called it the Southwestern Division’s championship). The local press gave the event considerable notice for a fencing tournament. As an indication of the relative scale of event, then and now, one Dallas newspaper story carried the headline, "75 Fencers Enter Meet." The story began, "The four fencing strips of the two downtown YMCA gyms will see plenty of action this weekend as fencers from ten YMCAs, colleges and cities compete in the meet to be hosted by the Dallas Fencing Club."

A team made up of Naomia Abbott, Lee Kinney and Dorothy Trigg gave the islanders a sure route to victory in women’s team foil.

Things suddenly turned bad for Naomia Abbott on the second day.

For three years she had trained for this moment. The second day would include the women’s open foil event. If she won, she would earn a slot at the national championships in New York, the first Texan ever offered the trip. The second day saw her without a glove, mask or foil. In the dead of night after the first day’s events, her car was broken into outside the Central YMCA. Someone had smashed in a front window and absconded with her equipment bag (representing sixty dollars in gear in 1949 prices).

As fencers filtered in for the second day, word of Abbott’s misfortune spread among the competitors. Soon she was fully outfitted with a glove from Dallas, a mask from Rice and a foil from another Galveston fencer.

She honored her colleagues’ charity by taking those tokens to the victory line. Abbott captured first place in women’s open foil. (Third place went to Houstonian Betty Jean Fox, fencing unattached). She won her place in the New York finals. As for the thief, whoever they were, she had a challenge noted down by a local reporter, "Foils at sunrise, bring your own seconds."

In 1949, the old Texas Division of the AFLA was split into two divisions. The North Texas Division had Hal Lattimore of Ft. Worth as the Division Chairman. In the new Gulf Coast Division, William T. "Bill" Brown of Texas City was the first Chair.

Recalling the formation of the Gulf Coast Division, Arnold Mercado stated, "As far as the name of our division, I don't remember it's original name. Naomia Abbott came to me suggesting the Gulf Coast name. She was trying to tie it in with the recently formed Gulf Coast Athletic Conference that the University of Houston became part of. I vaguely remember it included Sam Houston and some other of the small non-SW Conference schools."

Galveston played host on January 14 [1950], holding competitions in open foil for both men and women and men’s sabre at the Ft. Crockett gym. Eighteen men and ten women entered the tournament.

In the women’s open foil competition Galveston’s Naomia Abbott took the top honors, just ahead of Betty Jean Fox from Rice. Corine Lukovich of Galveston finished in third place while Margaret Pack of the Rice Institute was fourth.

The first fencing event of the New Year [1951] was the open men’s foil and open women’s foil tournament in Houston on January 13.In the women’s event, Naomia Abbott of Galveston placed first and Betty Jean Fox from the Rice Institute took second. Virginia Pritchett from the St. Joseph School for Nursing was third. This competition had also drawn the largest number of women fencers to date at any one tournament in the Gulf Coast Division history.

The Abbotts, Everett and Naomia, moved to Florida. Capt. Everett W. Abbott Jr., was still an active duty officer. In Florida he was commander of the 17th Air Police Squadron. Naomia, not only found time to continue he fencing, but in 1956 won the title of All-Florida Women’s Fencing Champion.

Naomia Abbott continued her dominance of women’s foil, winning the [1958]  All-Florida Women’s Fencing Champion title for the third straight year. A newspaper photograph of the era shows her smiling, with her hair pulled back, a medal around her neck, her mask held under her left arm, her right hand holding her characteristic Italian foil.

The Southwest Section Championship was hosted that year by the Dallas Blades at the Downtown YMCA, May 9-10 [1959]. Naomia Abbott captured first place in women’s foil. Dallas’ Helen Gray and Marietta Towry took second and third places, respectively.

Everett and Naomia Abbott, October [1962] found them teaching beginning and advanced fencing at the YMCA in Waco, where they now lived.

November [1969] saw fencers converging on Dallas for the annual Dallas Open Invitational Fencing Tournament at the Downtown YMCA. Houston’s Steve Farid captured third place in men’s foil. Third place in women’s foil went to former Galvestonian Naomia Abbott, who now lived in Huntsville.

Far from the national championships and politics, the pair of veteran fencing hands settled into semi-retirement. Everett and Naomia Abbott had established themselves in the small community of Sour Lake, some distance east of Houston, between that city and Beaumont. They were, however, only semi-retired. In 1974 the Abbotts could be found frequently presenting a fencing program for the Beaumont School Volunteer Program.

A fencer who was married to a fencer, she followed her husband from one military post to another. She taught fencing to children and senior citizens at YMCAs and YWCAs in half a dozen communities.

She also taught hula dancing.

From the end of WWII into the 1960s, women's competitive foil in Texas frequently came down to a duel between her and Betty Jean Kolenda (nee' Fox). She helped develop women's fencing and gave the Gulf Coast Division its name.