Byrd Mock

Biographical information

RolesCompeted in Olympic Games
SexFemale
Full nameLucy Byrd•Mock
Used nameByrd•Mock
Other namesLe Moqueur
Born23 February 1876 in Prairie Grove, Arkansas (USA)
Died17 November 1966 in Fort Smith, Arkansas (USA)
NOC United States

Biography

Byrd Mock was multi-talented. She was mainly a journalist and author but was also successful as a songwriter. Living in Los Angeles in 1932, she experienced the Olympic Games there. In 1936, Avery Brundage, then President of the American Olympic Committee, was presented with the Olympic Ode (full title: The Olympic Games: Past, Present, and Future, A Pindaric Ode) written by Byrd Mock and illustrated by the American artist, Charles Sindelar. Brundage later presented it to the IOC for the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.

Mock was awarded a diploma by the American Press Association for proficiency in journalism, and she later worked as the chair of Greek and Latin at Forest Park University and did feature work for St. Louis newspapers, with most of her stories making the front pages, including Time magazine. Frequently she reported from the Indian territories. Under the pseudonym “Le Moqueur” she also published poetry.

Miss Byrd Mock was the founder and executive secretary of the American Women’s Legion. She was also inducted into the Arkansas Golf Hall of Fame in 1999 for having designed the first golf course in Arkansas (in Fayetteville). In her early years she studied at the University of Arkansas at Lafayette and was a member of the University Orchestra, playing first violin.

As an exhibit in the painting section, the Olympic Ode should have been listed under the name of illustrator Charles James Sindelar (1875-1947). He first became known for his cover sheets for menu cards for dinners with notable personalities. Beginning in the 1930s, he worked primarily for the “I AM” activities of the Saint Germain movement, which invoked divine revelations dating back to 1930. In 1940, Sindelar was one of the defendants in a fraud trial, but he was acquitted. The group had claimed, for instance, that Jesus had personally posed for his portrait of Sindelar and that he was the reincarnation of Leonardo da Vinci.

The following note reads in American newspapers in January 1936: “When the United States liner Manhattan sailed Friday with the American teams scheduled to take part in the Winter Olympics in the Bavarian Alps, the American Olympic Association placed in charge of Dr. Joel H. Hildebrand of the University of California, coach and manager of the skiing team, the official Olympic Ode, The Olympic Games, Past, Present and Future, written by Byrd Mock and hand-illuminated by Charles Sindelar, painter. This manuscript was valued at 5,000 US dollars, requested by the President of the International Olympic Committee, Count Henri de Baillet-Latour, to be placed permanently in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. He arranged for its publication in the Official Bulletin of the Olympic Games. The ode will be exhibited in the Olympic Art Exhibition. It is set in an olive wood frame from the site of the ancient Olympic Games in Greece. The manuscript with its frame measures about a yard square. The ode is translated into more than 50 languages. Written in the manner of Pindar, who celebrated the ancient Olympics in verse in 500 B.C., the ode earned its author a place in the London publication Most Important Poets of the World.”

Results

Games Discipline (Sport) / Event NOC / Team Pos Medal As
1936 Summer Olympics Art Competitions USA Byrd Mock
Painting, Unknown Event, Open (Olympic) HC