Sarah Palfrey Cooke

[1][2] She was 32 years old, married to Elwood Cooke, and a mother in 1945 when she won her second singles title at the U.S. National Championships.

Because of the manpower crisis during World War II, she and husband Elwood were permitted to enter the men's doubles at the 1945 Tri-State Championships in Cincinnati.

In mixed doubles, Palfrey teamed with four different partners to win the U.S. National Championships: Fred Perry (1932), Enrique Maier (1935), Don Budge (1937), and Jack Kramer (1941).

Palfrey also won the mixed doubles title at the 1939 French International Championships, teaming with future husband Elwood Cooke.

They had been stripped of their amateur status by the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) in early 1947 because Elwood Cooke had written letters to several tournament organizers about creating a professional tour.

[7] Palfrey and Marble lobbied the USLTA to remove the color bar and allow Althea Gibson to play at heretofore whites-only tournaments beginning in 1950.

"She [Palfrey] was calmly persuasive, had clout as an ex-champ, and got Althea into the U. S. [National] Championships in 1950," said Gladys Heldman, founder of the women's professional tennis tour in 1970.

Palfrey and Marty Glickman covered the home games of the 1946-47 New York Knicks on WHN radio.

[9] She had two children and was married three times: to Marshal Fabyan, Elwood Cooke, and Jerome Alan Danzig.

"Five Sisters in Boston Who Know Their Tennis" The Messenger (April 6, 1927); a newspaper feature about the Palfrey sisters
Sarah Palfrey on the cover of the Argentine magazine El Gráfico in 1940.