Tell me about tennis star Edward Fischer

January 3, 2009 10:20 AM

I'm looking for information about early twentieth century tennis player Edward Fischer, who suffered a mental breakdown and ended up in Bellevue Hospital.

I have searched every combination of "edward fischer" and "tennis" and found very little. Does anyone have information about his life and/or his tennis accomplishments?

Online info would be ideal, but I'll take anything at this point.

Thanks.

posted by Flying Saucer to sports, hobbies, & recreation (7 comments total)

Where did you find this original information? Are you 100% sure you have the spelling correct?
posted by jessamyn at 11:38 AM on January 3

Okay, I found this blurb from the NYTimes published in December, 1920 and afte rmore digging, this earlier article from October. Did you see these? If not, there may be some bits of interest there for you. His name is Edwin Fischer. Given that, here are a few more links with little bits of info

• Ed's "prediction" of Wall Street Explosion noted in a 9/11 book.
• "supernatural claims" from Amityville Asylum inmate Fischer (scroll down)

That helpful?
posted by jessamyn at 11:48 AM on January 3

Fischer predicted the Wall Street bomb would blow at 2:10 after seeing a friend playing cards who was dealt two tens. "Fischer arrived at Grand Central wearing two business suits for warmth and tennis whites underneath in case he had a chance for a game."

An interesting cat indeed.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:31 PM on January 3

Thanks for the responses.

You were right, jessamyn, about the spelling. Several other sites spelled it wrong, including this one, which was one of my sources.

Also, those NY Times articles are fantastic! Where did you find them? The URL is unusual to me.

As you've seen, his strange ties to the Wall Street bombing are fairly well-known. It's the rest of his life that interests me -- did he win major tennis championships, when did his battle with mental illness start, and ultimately what happened to him?

I can already see there are more search results with that information using his correct name. If anyone has any other information, please feel free to pass it along.
posted by Flying Saucer at 10:30 AM on January 4

I found the NYTimes articles through some Googling and then I took the PDFs which were returned and put them on Flickr so I could link to them more easily otherwise there was some convoluted process to get to them. If you have a card at a library with any access to newspaper archives you might be able to dig up more stuff. I found a few notes in Google Books as well. Here are two more articles from the NY Times. This was huge when it was happening apparently.

- Fischer Warned Five Friends
- Two Cards of Warning
- Parker beaten by Millett (early ref to Ed Fischer at the West Side Tennis Club, you can find a few more tennis articles googling E P Fischer)

In these, we also learn that Fischer

- born in 1886 or 1887
- six feet tall, 200 lbs.
- lived with his family. Dad P.A. Fisher, sister Ethel, brother Robert @ 33 W 92nd St NY NY (more)
- brother in law to Robert Pope [who oddly corroborate Fischer's claim of psychic powers - cite]
- Graduated from College of the City of NY and NY Law
- was a former employee of the French High Comission, joined Sept 18, 1918, Left Aug 2, 1920
- "the son of an old and respected New York family"
- Mailed the postcards from Toronto Canada on 9/11
- was registered as "E.P. Fischer" and did not pay his bill
- apparently he is of German descent and possibly a Communist says the grouchy hotel manager
- had a breakdown in 1915 or thereabouts
- implied in a postcard that his position with the FHC made it his job to "run down anarchists"
- others say that he always took the sides of the Bolshviks and the anarchists
- was "well up in the ranks" of tennis players for 5-6 years. #9 in the US in 1901.
- Won the Metropolitan Championships in 1896, 1898 and 1899 (more details in the "five friend" article)
- Played in the West Side Tennis Club. Didn't place at anything after 1906. Was said to have gotten sunstroke while playing and not quite the same since.
- Stayed at Amityville for two months and was released "apparently recovered" and inncocent. His friend said "No conspirators, after talking to Fischer for ten minutes, would consider letting him into a plot with them"

Oh and here's a photo of him.
posted by jessamyn at 11:30 AM on January 4 [2 favorites]

You are awesome.
posted by Flying Saucer at 12:25 PM on January 4

I thank you both (Flying Saucer and Jessamyn) for introducing me to a very interesting person that I would not have otherwise known about or considered.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 5:26 AM on January 5