Louise Bertram
 Bertram being lifted by partner Stewart Reburn at the 1936 Winter Olympics | |||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Frances Louise Bertram | ||||||||||||||
| Born | March 30, 1908 Toronto, Ontario, Canada | ||||||||||||||
| Died | October 18, 1996 (aged 88) Toronto, Ontario, Canada | ||||||||||||||
| Home town | Toronto | ||||||||||||||
| Figure skating career | |||||||||||||||
| Country |  Canada | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||
Frances Louise Bertram (later Hulbig, March 30, 1908 – October 18, 1996) was a Canadian pair skater. Skating with Stewart Reburn, she was the 1935 Canadian champion and competed at the 1936 Winter Olympics.
Career
[edit]Bertram competed at her first Canadian National Championships in 1928. She placed 4th in pairs, skating with Errol Morson.[1]
In 1932, she competed at the Canadian Championships in four skating along with Stewart Reburn, Veronica Clarke, and John J. Machado. Their group won the competition.[2]
At the 1934 Championships, she and Reburn won silver in the pairs competition. They again entered the fours competition, this time with Margaret Henry and Hubert Sprott, and won the silver medal.[3]
In 1935, she and Reburn became the Canadian pairs champions, and they also won - as the only competitors - the tenstep competition.[4][5] They placed second in the fours competition.[6] In March, they competed at the North American Championships, where they won bronze. Writing for Skating magazine, Norman V. S. Gregory noted they skated to a tango time and said that although they at first appeared slow, "As they continue you realize you are seeing marvelous pair work, with much real difficulty peculiar to that type of pair."[7]
They competed at the 1936 Winter Olympics. At the time, Canadian athletes received little support; Bertram and Reburn's chaperone at the Olympics said they were not given official jackets and made their own.[8] Their scores varied considerably; the Swedish and Norwegian judges ranked them third and fourth, while the Austrian and German judges ranked them 13th and 14th. They finished in sixth place.[9] Afterward, they competed at the 1936 World Championships and placed 4th.[4] Theresa Weld Blanchard, writing a report about the competition, said, "Their program is so different from the other pairs that it is difficult to rank correctly."[10]
Bertram made a last appearance at the Canadian Championships in 1937 to win bronze in the tenstep competition with Osborne Colson.[11]
She and Reburn were called "the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of the ice world"[4], and they skated together in many shows.[12] Reburn split from her in 1938 to tour with Sonja Henie. When asked about their split, Bertram simply said, "He went one way and I another."[4] She continued performing through the early 1940s but stopped after she married.[4][13]
Personal life
[edit]Bertram married Sidney Hulbig, with whom she had a son with the given name Bertram. She died on October 18, 1996 in Aurora, Ontario.[4]
In 2015, Bertram and Reburn were posthumously inducted into the Skate Canada Hall of Fame. Their induction said they were the "first pair team to skate to the music instead of using it as background".[14]
Competitive highlights
[edit](with Stewart Reburn)[15]
| Event | 1934 | 1935 | 1936 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winter Olympic Games | 6th | ||
| World Championships | 4th | ||
| North American Championships | 3rd | ||
| Canadian Championships | 2nd | 1st | |
References
[edit]- ↑ MacLean, John S. (April 1928). "Canadian Championships" (PDF). Skating. No. 16. pp. 29–30. ISSN 0037-6132. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 20, 2025. Retrieved April 20, 2025.
- ↑ MacLean, John S. (May 1932). "Canadian Championships" (PDF). Skating. No. 33. pp. 26–27. ISSN 0037-6132. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 23, 2025. Retrieved April 20, 2025.
- ↑ Weld-Blanchard, Theresa (February 1934). "The Canadian Championships" (PDF). Skating. No. 40. pp. 15–17. ISSN 0037-6132. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 22, 2025. Retrieved April 20, 2025.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Louise Hulbig skated to fame in 1930s". Canadian Press NewsWire. October 21, 1996. Retrieved May 28, 2026.
- ↑ Stevens (2025), pp. 220–221
- ↑ "Toronto Figure Skaters in Spotlight". The Ottawa Citizen. January 28, 1935. p. 11. Archived from the original on April 22, 2025. Retrieved April 20, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
- ↑ Gregory, Norman V.S. (March 1935). "Championships of North America" (PDF). Skating. No. 47. pp. 5–13. ISSN 0037-6132. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 8, 2025. Retrieved April 6, 2025.
- ↑ Hall, M. Ann (January 1, 2016). The Girl and the Game: A History of Women's Sport in Canada, Second Edition. University of Toronto Press. p. 131. ISBN 978-1-4426-3412-1.
- ↑ Martin, Cleary (February 10, 1992). "Canada has rich tradition in pairs skating : Joy and sorrow almost equal". Kitchener-Waterloo Record. p. D7. Retrieved May 28, 2026.
- ↑ Blanchard, Theresa Weld (April 1936). "1936 Championships of the World" (PDF). Skating. p. 39. Retrieved May 28, 2026.
- ↑ Gales, Doris (March 1937). "Canadian Championships" (PDF). Skating. No. 58. pp. 10–14. ISSN 0037-6132. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 24, 2025. Retrieved April 20, 2025.
- ↑ ""Champion" Personals" (PDF). Skating. November 1938. p. 18. Retrieved May 28, 2026.
- ↑ "Carnival Merry-Go-Round" (PDF). Skating. Vol. 18, no. 6. May 1941. p. 31. Retrieved May 28, 2026.
- ↑ "Louise Bertram & Stewart Reburn". Skate Canada. Retrieved May 28, 2026.
- ↑ "Official Results: Canadian Championships" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on September 20, 2009.
- Stevens, Ryan (2025). The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating (2nd ed.). ISBN 979-8-362-03096-4.
External links
[edit]- Louise Bertram at Team Canada
- Louise Bertram at Olympedia
- Louise Bertram at InterSportStats
