27 Facts About Dudley Wolfe

Dudley Francis Cecil Wolfe was an American socialite.

Dudley Wolfe was to inherit a large fortune from his maternal grandfather provided he changed his family name to "Smith", to which he agreed before reverting again.

Dudley Wolfe was born in New York on February 6,1896, to Dudley Wolfe and Mabel Florence Wolfe.

Dudley Wolfe's father had immigrated from England in 1888 and was a coffee importer.

Dudley Wolfe's mother was the daughter of the immensely wealthy Benjamin Franklin Smith, who together with his three brothers had made their money in gold and silver mining in Colorado in the mid-19th century.

Dudley Wolfe's parents had married on October 15,1892, and within a year his father's business was bankrupt.

Dudley Wolfe senior died in May 1908, and Mabel remarried, to a Nebraska businessman, Joseph Baldridge, and moved to Omaha.

In 1916, unable to find a satisfactory job, Dudley Wolfe tried to join the WWI war effort by applying to join several branches of the US military but he was rejected because of poor eyesight and flat feet.

Dudley Wolfe then put himself on the year-long waiting list for the French Foreign Legion, while in the meantime joining the Red Cross ambulance corps.

Lucien Wolf's brother, Dudley Wolf, had been the son of a Bohemian Jew who escaped antisemitic uprisings in 1848 to become a tobacconist in London.

Dudley Wolfe volunteered to work at various war fronts driving an ambulance, a slightly converted Model T Ford, under appalling conditions taking wounded soldiers back from the front to the field hospitals.

Dudley Wolfe stayed in Europe for a year before returning to Omaha to take part in running the family real estate business.

However, after a while Dudley Wolfe felt the change of name had been disloyal to his father so he went to his grandfather to say he would change back and decline the inheritance.

Dudley Wolfe was very stockily built, strong and very determined.

Dudley Wolfe joined the elite unofficial "Dicey" chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon and the "Owl Club", easily meeting the requirements of social status and wealth.

Dudley Wolfe raced in a range of international and local yachting competitions.

Dudley Wolfe raced his new yacht to win the Brooklyn Yacht Club's deep-sea Challenge Cup in 1925.

Dudley Wolfe commissioned a racing cutter Highland Light in which he took part in the 1931 Fastnet Race.

Dudley Wolfe moved to live in Europe where he participated in climbing and skiing in the Alps, appointing guides to help him.

Dudley Wolfe met Alice Blaine Damrosch while skiing in St Anton in the spring of 1934.

Dudley Wolfe was an outdoor enthusiast and an accomplished skier, known for being the first woman to ski down the ice wall of Tuckerman Ravine.

Dudley Wolfe was opposed to Nazism and used her influence to help Jewish friends in Austria during the Nazi regime, including physician Hans Kraus.

When Wiessner broached the subject with him, Dudley Wolfe was immediately hooked, despite his inexperience in climbing high mountains.

In early spring 1939 Dudley Wolfe tried and failed to reach the summits of Mont Blanc and Piz Palu, even with a guide.

Dudley Wolfe did not take any sort of lead and reached each camp after it had already been established by other climbers.

Dudley Wolfe waited there for seven days while Wiessner and Pasang Dawa Lama made their failed summit bid.

Dudley Wolfe was memorialized by inscribing an ancient dinner plate from amongst the debris with his name, and a plaque was made for the nearby Gilkey Memorial, which at that time had the names of 52 other climbers who had died on K2.