Katherine Mansfield Hoopes, 26, housewife, saved Margaret I. Brown, 19, from drowning, Guilford, Connecticut, July 17, 1931. While Miss Brown was swimming in a current of 2 or 3 m.p.h. in West River, she was unable to make progress toward the bank and called for help. She struggled and drifted to a point 22 feet from the bank and went below the surface. Mrs. Hoopes, who was clothed and had been cautioned by her physician against overexertion, swam to her from the bank, pulled her to the surface, and towed her as she swam. Her clothing interfered with her swimming, and four feet from the bank she slipped back into deep water three times as she tried to wade. A man then arrived and aided her to the bank.
31350 – 2571
31350-2571Obituary
Katherine Mansfield Hoopes, 37, on July 4, 1943, in Columbia Hospital, Pittsburgh, of a heart ailment aggravated in 1931 when she plunged into West River near Guilford, Conn., to rescue a 19-year-old girl. Hoopes, invalided at the time, had been warned by physicians to avoid violent exercise. Her heroism won her a Carnegie Medal.
Hoopes was a graduate of the school of drama, Carnegie Institute of Technology (now known as Carnegie Mellon University). She also was a member of the Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America.
(Edited from an obituary provided by a family member from an unidentified newspaper.)