Jean R. Yawkey
Owner of the Boston Red Sox
Jean Remington Hollander was born in Brooklyn on January 24, 1909. Her family later moved to Freeport. According to the 1920 and 1930 censuses, the Hollander family lived at 16 Rosedale Avenue.
Before marrying Mr. Yawkey, Hollander married her high school sweetheart Charles Hiller. This marriage ended in divorce in 1933. Hollander worked as a model and saleswoman at Jay Thorpe, an exclusive woman’s clothing store on West 57th Street in Manhattan. It was here where she supposedly met Thomas A. Yawkey, millionaire and owner of the Boston Red Sox. After Mr. Yawkey divorced his first wife, Hollander and Yawkey married in Georgetown, SC on December 24, 1944.
The new Mrs. Yawkey became an avid Red Sox fan. She meticulously kept score in a custom-bound set of cards. After Mr. Yawkey died in 1976, Mrs. Yawkey became a majority shareholder in the Red Sox franchise. When not at games, Mrs. Yawkey was major Boston philanthropist. In 1984 she became director of the National Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame – the first woman elected to the Hall of Fame’s board. She was also a major benefactor to the museum, donating two wings and commissioning a basswood statue of Ted Williams.
In 1992, Jean Yawkey died at the age of 83 after suffering a severe stroke.
Sources:
Stout, Glenn and Richard A. Johnson. Red Sox Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Thomas, Robert. "Jean R. Yawkey, Red Sox Owner and Philanthropist, Is Dead at 83.” New York Times. 27 Feb. 1992.
“Tom A. Yawkey Marries.” New York Times. 25 December 1944,15.
