World of Yesterday

From Sports Reference:

http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/la/david-lawrence-1.html

Full name: David Judah Lawrence Gender: Male Born: April 15, 1930 (Age 83) in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France Affiliations: Southern Ski Club Country: USA United States Sport: Alpine Skiing

Related Olympians: Husband of Andrea Mead-Lawrence.

Biography

David Lawrence was born in France, where he was educated by a private tutor, and he learned to ski each winter in Davos, Switzerland. In 1948 he entered Dartmouth College, graduating in 1951. In 1949 Lawrence won the first US giant slalom championship.

In 1951, in Davos, he married fellow US ski team member, and double gold medalist in 1952, Andrea Mead. After the 1952 Winter Olympics, David Lawrence managed the Pico Peak ski area in Vermont, which had been founded by Andrea Mead-Lawrence’s mother. They moved to Colorado in 1954, where David coached the ski team through 1957, when he moved to Switzerland, to work for his father’s company. The Lawrences returned to Aspen in 1960, where David worked in architectural design from 1960-64, and coach the US women’s ski team in 1960. They briefly lived in California, before divorcing in 1965.

David Lawrence later re-married and he and his second wife settled in Mexico in 1968.

Men's Giant Slalom

Games Age City Sport Country Phase Unit Rank T

1952 Winter 21 Oslo Alpine Skiing United States Final Standings 35 2:48.6
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From the Lowell Sun of Lowell, Massachusetts, Friday, March 2, 1951:

Happy Landing!

Rutland, Vt., March 2 (AP) - The engagement of pretty 18-year-old Andrea Mead, who won her first ski championship at 11, and David Lawrence, 20-year-old Dartmouth junior and also a well-known skier, was announced last night by the girl's mother.

The pair, both members of the 1950 United States team of the Federation Internationale Ski, are currently touring European ski slopes.

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From the Lowell Sun of Lowell, Massachusetts on Wednesday, March 14, 1951:

Andrea Mead married: Well-known skier weds David Lawrence:

Arosa, Switzerland, March 16 (AP) - Miss Andrea Mead, 19, and David Lawrence, 21, well-known United States skiers, were married secretly in Davos yesterday after a courtship on most of the major ski slopes of Europe.

Miss Mead, daughter of Janet Mead of Rutland, Vermont, and Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig Lawrence of Paris, kept the wedding a secret until they came to Arosa to start their honeymoon. Lawrence is a student at Dartmouth university. His father formerly was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer representative in Paris and now devotes his time to the breeding of race horses.

Only the parents of the bridegroom were present at the wedding in the Davos town hall. The bridal pair had arrived the night before from Estrieres, Italy, where Miss Mead won the downhill race of the Arlberg Kandahar ski race.

The bridal pair was met by a crowd of enthusiastic skiers when they arrived in Arosa. Lawrence carried his bride through the door of their hotel here. They will go to Paris Friday and return to the United States next month.

Miss Mead has been a prominent figure at many of the international ski races in Switzerland, Austria, and Italy this winter. She won the giant slalom of the next meet at Grindelwald, placed second in the famed Parsenn derby at Davos, and won the giant slalom at Klosters. She was a member of the 1948 U.S. Olympic ski team.

Lawrence was a member of the championship American team at Aspen, Colorado, last year.

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From a photo caption in The Evening Standard of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, March 24, 1951:

Switzerland Ski Wedding: Andrea Mead, 19, and David Lawrence are greated by an arch of skis on their arrival at Arosa, Switzerland. The American champions were married at nearby Davos a few hours earlier.

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From the Corpus Christi Caller Times:

http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/23134777/

America's Olympic queen fished her husband-to-be out of a snowdrift

When they first met on a Montana slope in 1949, Andrea Mead wasn't yet a two-time gold medal winner at the Winter Olympics--and Dave Lawrence was a college ski star who didn't like being "saved" by a 16-year-old girl.
When 23-year-old Andrea Mead Lawrence, America's first lady of skiing, hurtles down the precipitous giant slalom course at Cortina, Italy, in next month's Winter Olympics, one of the most excited spectators at the finish line will be her blond-haired, athletic-looking husband, Dave. The average father of three children would have apoplexy watching his wife careen down the Italian Alps at 50-odd miles per hour, but not Dave.

Having met his wife on skis, courted her on skis, married her at a ski resort, spent his honeymoon with her on skis and skied with her all over Europe and North America, Dave sees no reason to start worrying about her skiing now. He knows Andy can take care of herself in the toughest kind of international competition, as her two gold medals in the 1952 Olympics prove. And he would like to share the thrill of another pair of Olympic titles with her in January, when Andy aims to reconfirm her rating as the world's top woman skier.

Andy and Dave feel as comfortable and natural on skis as other young married couples do in loafers or tennis shoes. Both have been skiing since they were small children and both have grown up to experience the excitement of matching their speed and skill against the world's greatest skiers. (Dave was an alternate on the '52 men's Olympic team.)

They first met, appropriately enough, in a deep pile of snow at Whitefish, Montana, in March, 1949, while both were competing in the national championships. Dave had taken fall and Andy stopped to give him a hand. She remembers the dirty look she got--but not the thank you. As the 185-pound, six-foot star of the Dartmouth ski team, Dave was unaccustomed to getting pulled out of the snow by 16-year-old girls.

Andy says: "I really never gave him a second thought until a couple of weeks later when we sat opposite each other at the Roch Cup dinner. He recognized me and started making funny faces and wiggling his eyebrows. It was very annoying."

Andy admits that up to that time her only interest in boys was how well they skied. Her mother operated the ski center at Pico Peak, near Rutland, Vermont, where Andy attended high school. "I hurried home from school to ski and study," she says. "I had no time for boys."

But Dave Lawrence wasn't easy to ignore. He not only made funny faces but he skied superbly, he was good looking and he obviously enjoyed doing the same things Andy did. The son of Laudy Lawrence, former European manager for M-G-M pictures, Dave had been brought up on his father's horse-breeding farm in France. He'd traveled and skied extensively in Europe.

As a pig-tailed 15- year-old, the youngest girl to make a U. S. Olympic ski team, Andy had competed at St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 1948, and she liked what she'd seen of Europe and of skiing in the Alps. Their friendship quickly developed into a romance on skis. They chased each other up ski tows and down mountain slopes. Back in school they exchanged letters. When the ski season ended they met at a Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, camp and in the late winter of 1950, a year after they met, they "ski-bummed" with friends through the East.

"It was fun," Andy recalls. "Sometimes we'd go out of our way 60 or 70 miles just to get a good meal."

They still enjoy "real good food," especially French and Austrian dishes. "Dave's a better cook than I," Andy says. "He's very good with sauces."

As if their romance needed further encouragement--Andy says it definitely did not--they were selected, along with two friends, for an expenses- paid ski tour of Europe in December, 1950. Accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence---Andy was only 18 at the time--they left for Switzerland, already privately agreed that they would be married before they returned. The date they picked was March 13, 1951. The place: Davos, Switzerland.

"It's lovely there, of course," Andy says, "but we picked Davos because all six of us--Dave's and my parents included--had skied there."

They were married in a civil ceremony at 11 a.m. "It was a good day for skiing," Andy remembers.'

The teen-age Andy Mead that Dave met and fell for 'six years ago remains basically unchanged by Olympic medals and international fame. She is a completely natural, unsophisticated, dauntless girl who never wears make-up and uses a single barrette to control her long, brown hair--unless she is wearing it in pigtails. She likes good books, classical music, the fireside fellowship of other skiers, tough competition and the wide open spaces.

Andy and Dave have already achieved a major non-skiing ambition. They own a 1,400-acre cattle ranch (The Flying V Bar) in Parshall, Colorado, where they now make their year-round home. When Dave is off on a skiing trip with Andy, their herd of Angus cattle is tended by the ranch foreman. Their two-story, four-bedroom home sits in the western shadow of the Rockies.

"We have thousands of rabbits, deer, oik and fish," Andy says. "Dave loves to hunt and fish. I like to fish myself. Our prize possession is a hi-fi set."

Andy says they have little time to get impatient waiting for snow to fall on the ski slopes at nearby Winter Park or Steamboat Springs. "There are plenty of chores to keep us busy."

Andy's chores include the care and feeding of Cortlandt, three years old in January; Matthew, who will be two next May; and daughter Deirdre, who was born last October--giving Andy barely enough time to recuperate and train for the Olympics.

Do the Lawrences have plans of preparing the youngsters for the Winter Olympics of 1972? "If the children want to ski--fine," Andy says. "But their mother and dad aren't going to push them into it."

- THE AMERICAN WEEKLY December 11, 1955

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From David J Lawrence, "New York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1909, 1925-1957":

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/24YT-SKK

Carrier: SwissAir

Air Passenger Manifest: Part of Weight and Balance Manifest For:

Trip No. 17
Plane No. HB - ILO
Flight No. SR 410
Originated at: Zurich (Switzerland)
Destined to: New York (USA)
Date: 3 April 1951
Passengers embarking at: Zurich - International Airport 3 April 1951
Passengers destined to: Various (see below)
Passengers destined to Shannon: Nil

Passengers destined to New York (total: 11 - 4 Swiss, 2 Germans, 2 Yugoslavs, 3 Americans; 740 kg passenger weight, 21 bags, 368 kg baggage weight)

5. Lawrence, David J. 854-54-8157 (375 Park Ave. New York, NY), age 21, M, USA citizen 25002, born in France, student B.D. 1996743 - US CIT., Nbr. Bags: 10; Bag Wt. 77 kg.; Pool: 1
6. Lawrence, Andrea Bario 854-54-8154 (375 Park Ave. New York, NY), age 19, F, USA citizen 132676, born in Utah, housewife B.D. 1996743 - US CIT, Pool: 1
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David Lawrence Placek, "Mexico, Distrito Federal, Civil Registration, 1832-2005"

Name: David Lawrence Placek
Event Type: Death
Event Date: 20 Sep 2003
Event Place: Cuauhtémoc, Distrito Federal, Mexico
Gender: Male
Age: 73
Birth Year (Estimated): 1930
Father's Name: Ludovic Lodi Lawrence
Mother's Name: Johanna Placek
Spouse's Name: Martha Enriquez Batiz
GS Film number: 001264297
Digital Folder Number: 004975161
Image Number: 00278
"México, Distrito Federal, Registro Civil, 1832-2005," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/23JS-VZ1 : accessed 07 Jan 2014), David Lawrence Placek, 2003.