April 10, 2002
Swimmer makes last splash
Margaret Forster, 85, competes at Michigan Masters meet
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
If you're a regular at the Civic Center Pool midday during the week, you might be familiar with Margaret Forster. At 85, Forster has become somewhat of a legend at the pool, swimming for forty minutes five days a week.
This weekend, drawing on her months of intensive training, she will be in Ypsilanti to compete in the Michigan Masters State Meet. She will swim in the 100 meter, 200 meter, 500 meter and 1000 meter freestyle events as well as the 500 meter backstroke.
"The hardest thing will be doing the 1,000 meter freestyle because I have to swim it after driving down that Friday night," said Forster. "I will be tired and am not used to swimming at night."
Forster already has a wall full of ribbons and certificates, plus numerous world records in her age group. But, after nearly a two-year layoff from swimming competitions - her final World Top Ten time was in 2000 - she is determined to complete one more before hanging up her competitive career for good.
Logistics and cost initially dampened her enthusiasm for going, until staff at the Civic Center pool volunteered to pay her swimming expenses. Then the manager of the Village at Bay Ridge spearheaded a campaign to raise money for Forster's food, gas and hotel expenses. With everybody encouraging her, she decided to go.
"I think this will be my last," said Forster, who took three months off of training after a back injury at Halloween.
A native of the Indianapolis area, Forster began swimming at a young age on a camping trip with her aunt's family. As she recalled, her aunt told her and her sister they had to learn to swim by a certain date or they would have to go home. When her sister learned and Forster did not, her aunt took matters into her own hands.
"She took me to the end of the dock and threw me off of it and told me to swim to shore," Forster recalled. "I wouldn't recommend this method, but it worked for me."
By the time she was in her teens, Forster's hometown had an outdoor swimming pool and both she and her sister became regular swimmers and competitors. Forster took a series of second and third places during her high school swimming years.
Then, after marrying, she and her husband moved to Mt. Pleasant and started a family. She lived all over northern Michigan during her marriage, including a 25-year stay in Traverse City. Despite being surrounded by lakes and many opportunities, Forster did not swim for nearly 50 years until she was widowed and moved to Kalamazoo.
Looking for exercise, she became a regular at a pool there at the age of 70. She soon began competing again and found herself taking first place and an occasional second for her efforts. By her second year of swimming, she had qualified for the National Senior Olympics and civic groups in Kalamazoo raised funds to send her to the competition in St. Louis. That even spurred her to take her training seriously and the results paid off.
"I got ribbons for the next 13 years," said Forster, who has two children, three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. "At the pool, they said I was the best swimmer they ever had; I told them, 'That's not saying much.'"
Over the years, Forster has never had a swimming lesson or a coach, but she continued to rack up medals and records. She moved to Traverse City just over a year ago, to be nearer to family. Last summer she competed in the Senior Olympics events locally and took first place in three events.
Her other wins over the years included a world record in 1996 at a long course meet in Ann Arbor, a first place in age group for the mile in 1999, an event where she took three minutes off her best time.
"All summer I had been working really hard and it was in the morning when I swim best," she said.