The following is an excerpt from “Punahou 1841 – 1941” by Mary Alexander and Charlotte Dodge.
“From 1921 to 1924 there was a remarkable group of girl swimmers at Punahou. They were all pupils of ‘Dad’ Center. While there was no swimming instructor on the staff, Punahou could hardly have had more expert teaching than was given by this group of stars (two of whom qualified for the Olympic Games)… The leaders in this group of swimmers were Helen Moses, Mariechen Wehselau, Lily Bowmer, Helen Ellis, Dot Waters, Janis Lovett, Ruch Scudder, and Agnes Auld.” Incidentally, these girl swimmers were so good they even trained the boys for the 1922 Yale meet. This article appears as originally published in the Summer 1981 issue of the Punahou Bulletin.
The two Olympic games qualifiers referred to were Helen Moses (qualified 1920) and Mariechen Wehselau (qualified 1924). Helen, only a 14 year old freshman at the time, was just beginning her Punahou swimming career as indicated by her performances in her sophomore, junior and senior years when she won top honors in the annual Thurston Meet (1922 – open champion and team captain). Following her high school days Helen continued to help train Punahou’s swimmers and from 1935 to 1937 served as Punahou’s girls swimming coach. Retired, she lives at Kamuela on the Big Island next door to her old swimming buddy, Mariechen.