'Races' digs deep into sprinter Harry Jerome's disturbing family history

Races: The trials & triumphs of Canada's Fastest Family

by Valerie Jerome

Valerie Jerome's family history centres on sprinter Harry Jerome, the author's brother. The title is a double entendre: racial tension and running races receive just about equal attention.

Jerome started writing Races in 1984. She wrestled with the disturbing details for 39 years, and it shows. Most readers will understand that racism breeds inter-generational trauma. That does not lessen the shock at seeing this famous family riven by racial hatred. While three family members saw Olympic or world record success, generations of Jeromes suffered and perpetuated violent bigotry.

Harry Jerome's maternal grandfather, John Armstrong Howard, was born in Winnipeg in 1888. He was a Black man, and he was the fastest runner in Canada. He won the Canadian Olympic trials in 100- and 200-metres and went to the Stockholm Games in 1912. He was treated poorly by Walter Knox, the infamously racist coach of the Canadian athletes. The team stayed in a swanky Montreal hotel enroute the Olympics, while "Army" was left in a shack by the train station. There were attempts to disqualify him on grounds that he was not truly amateur. He fell ill during competition, and won neither of his Olympic events, though he dominated lesser competitions in later years.

"Army" married Edith, a white English woman, and had three kids, Elsie, Connie, and Kay. During their marriage, Edith had another child, Caroline, who was blue-eyed and blonde. When Army died in 1937, Caroline was the only daughter who Edith did not abandon. She re-married, this time to a white, racist piece of work named Happy Sumpton.

After Army's demise, Harry Vincent Jerome, a fellow CNR porter, came to visit