Joan McSheehy

At age 13, she won her first accolade, when she came first in the 440-yeard junior title at Melrose. The following year, at the somerville YMCA, she won the New England women's senior backstroke championship.^[3]

In 1929, at 15, she won a national backstroke championship in Chicago, and placed 3rd the 300-yeard medley title swim at the same event. She competed in the National A. A. U. outdoor women's swimming championships in Honolulu, with Albina Osipowich.^[3] The next year she beat, by 0.2 seconds, the world record for the 75-yeard breaststroke, completing the distance in 53.6 seconds, 34th annual swimming meet of the Brookline Swimming Club.^[4]

At the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, McSheehy finished fifth in the final of the women's 100-meter backstroke.^[5] She was also on the winning medley-race team.^[6]

After the Olympics McSheehy appeared with one of the early professional swimming tours in Boston, that also featured Eleanor Holm.^[2] However, she gave up completive swimming in 1933, though she continued swimming for pleasure.^[7]

McSheehy married sailor Wilson Huffman, from Luray, Virginia, in November 1945.^[7][6] She died 16 April 1948, at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, of meningitis.^[2][7]

• Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Joan McSheehy". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 2012-10-06.