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Claire Hodgson Ruth:
The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Babe Ruth
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Was Claire the Cause of the Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig Feud?
“I couldn’t have been happier. It was so wonderful because he [Babe Ruth] had been around for quite a while and I loved him and he loved me and it was just absolutely the greatest moment of my life.” -Julia Stephens Ruth, speaking of her adoption by Babe Ruth.
Here’s something a bit different. We all know a lot about the Babe, but I thought I’d share some interesting information about his second wife, Claire Hodgson, which I picked up from their daughter Julia Ruth Stevens’ website. Also, I’ll shed some light on the purported role that Claire played in the storied feud between the Babe and the great Iron Horse, Lou Gehrig.
Claire Hodgson Ruth
Claire Hodgson was a dark-haired beauty with an engaging southern drawl, who had come to New York from her home in Georgia. At 14, she had married a Southern gentleman almost 20 years her senior. The marriage produced a baby girl, Julia, but it didn’t last. This gave Claire, now a beautiful divorcee, an opportunity to escape to the big city to seek a career as a fashion model. While in New York, the attractive Southern belle, now suddenly available, soon caught the attention of a Yankee ballplayer well on his way to becoming a national sensation. His name was George Herman “Babe” Ruth.
Claire and Babe’s romance was an open secret for five or six years, but marriage appeared out of the question for Ruth. For one thing, he already was married to Helen Woodford, a coffee-shop waitress he had met in Boston during his playing days with the Red Sox. For another, though Babe and Helen long had been living apart, Babe had been raised at St. Mary’s Industrial School in Baltimore and was at least nominally a Catholic. For him, divorce was out of the question.
All that changed suddenly in 1929 when Helen was tragically killed in a fire. The house she shared with a man (who neighbors assumed was her husband) caught fire and burned to the ground. Adopted daughter, Dorothy, away at boarding school, was spared.
In the featured photo, we see Claire and the Babe along with daughter Julia. The photo is from the cover of Julia’s book, Babe Ruth, A Daughter’s Portrait.
The death of his first wife removed a major obstacle for Babe, and he was now free to marry Claire. The couple tied the knot just three months later. A year after that, the blended family formally merged into one when Babe adopted Julia and Claire adopted Dorothy. The new family actually was considerably larger. For most of Babe and Claire’s marriage, the couple also shared their New York apartment with Claire’s mother and two of her brothers.
Ruth had been a major carouser during his first marriage, driving his wife Helen to nervous exhaustion with his drunken binges and infidelity. But that changed when Claire entered his life. Gone were the days when Ruth tipped $100 for a ham sandwich. Claire took over the household finances, limiting him to the $50 checks she wrote when he needed pocket money.
Some of Ruth’s friends resented Claire’s tight-fisted control over the Babe. But daughter Julia Ruth Stevens says her father never did. “In a lot of ways, she was rather strong-willed,” she said of Claire, adding:
“But she had to be to keep Daddy in tow. And she did it in a way that Daddy didn’t mind. If she would say, ‘I don’t think we should do such and such,’ he wouldn’t argue. He’d say, ‘All right.’ I think he felt she was a better manager of the house, social life, and things like that than he was.”
The Ruth-Gehrig Feud
If Claire took over the Babe’s social life, she also played a role in his famous feud with teammate Lou Gehrig. The two Yankees icons were almost polar opposites: Gehrig, a frugal mama’s boy (before his marriage to Eleanor Twitchell), normally in bed by 10:00; and Ruth, the night owl, and notorious curfew breaker. But they were close friends through the 1920s forming the heart of the Yankees’ famed “Murderers’ Row,” along with Tony Lazzeri and Bob Meusel. They even teamed up on off-season barnstorming tours.
Away from the ballpark, Gehrig’s mother, Christina, took a liking to the Babe’s daughter from his first marriage, Dorothy. Mrs. Gehrig often invited little Dorothy to spend afternoons with her at the Gehrig home. One of Dorothy’s overnight visits led to a fight that turned the families against each other for years.
The little girl arrived one afternoon with worn, old play clothes. Julia Stevens recalls that Dorothy had packed the things herself while her mother was out of town. But for Ma Gehrig, it was just another example of Claire Ruth’s favored treatment of Julia and her neglect of her adopted daughter. Julia Stevens recalled:
“Mrs. Gehrig said, ‘Claire Ruth’s daughter [Julia], she goes to the ballgames in silks and satins, and poor little Dorothy has nothing but rags to wear.’ When Mother heard about that, she said, ‘Tell Lou’s mother to keep her big mouth shut.’ And that was that. Lou wouldn’t stand for anyone speaking ill about his mother.”
It took Gehrig’s fatal illness in the late 1930s to reconcile the families. Later, Claire admitted that she had overreacted, apologetically accepting full responsibility for the rift between the two players—which, many contend, had numerous other causes besides the one indicated by Claire.
Following the Babe’s death, Claire Ruth became a fixture at Yankee games for many years. Before her death on October 25, 1976, she lived to see two of Babe Ruth’s most famous records broken: his single-season record of 60 home runs, broken by Roger Maris in 1961; and his career record of 714 home runs, broken by Hank Aaron in 1974. Claire was quoted as saying: “The Babe loved baseball so very much. I know he was pulling for Hank Aaron to break his record.”
I think it’s a fair question to ask what would have become of George Herman Ruth without the taming influence of his wife Claire, who added much-needed stability to his life and gave him the family life he had lacked and so desperately desired. So let’s take a moment to shine our baseball spotlight on the woman who was undoubtedly the best thing that ever happened to Babe Ruth. Let’s salute Claire Hodgson Ruth.
Gary Livacari
Information: Excerpts edited from Babe Ruth, A Daughter’s Portrait, by Julia Ruth Stevens
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