John Hooker

John Hooker was a descendant of Thomas Hooker (1586-1647), one of the first generation of Puritan immigrants and one of the founders of the Connecticut colony. He graduated from Cornell University in 1909, where he had been a member of the athletics team. Hooker placed in the top 20 in the world rankings in hammer throw from 1908-18 except for a few years during World War I. But his sporting career really gained momentum in 1910 competing for the Chicago AA. In that year, he won the junior AAU Championships in the hammer throw and placed second in the shot put of the senior championships. His best event, however, was the hammer throw, in which he placed fourth at the 1910 AAU Championships and second in 1918.

In 1912, Hooker won the US Olympic Trials of the central division and was subsequently selected for the US team at the Stockholm Olympics but did not start. In 1914, he had a short spell at Cornell as a coach of the throwers.

Hooker became a wealthy real estate broker in Chicago. In 1926, he married Mary Beecher Ensley, widow of Lendrum DeWest Murrell with two sons who were later adopted by Hooker. They had three children together which were all survived by their parents: one son died in his infancy, one was killed in World War II and the daughter died in her 40s. One of the adopted sons, DeWest Hooker, was a notorious racist and leading figure of the American Nazi party in the 1950s. In 1929, John Hooker and his wive bought the Belle Grove plantation in Virginia, now a National Historic Landmark and used it as a summer home. After his retirement, they lived there permanently.