Tom Shevlin - Personal and Family Life

Personal and Family Life

As the handsome son of a millionaire and one of the most famous athletes in the United States, Shevlin's courting of, and engagement to, Elizabeth Sherley was the subject of extensive press coverage. Sherley was reported to be one of the most beautiful young women in the South and the daughter of one of the wealthiest families of Louisville, Kentucky. Shevlin met the 17-year-old Sherley in 1905, and she attended all of Yale's football games in the fall of 1905. The press covered the courtship with articles bearing headlines such as, "Tom Shevlin Is Downed By Cupid." Sherley was described as "one of the prettiest girls who ever sat in a grandstand waving a blue banner and cheering a good play on the gridiron." After beating Harvard in 1905, newspapers reported that Shevlin said to a teammate, "I've realized my first ambition today, beating Harvard. I've got one more -- to marry that pretty girl you see sitting there in that box."

The news of the engagement drew national press coverage, and the announcement that Sherley had broken off the engagement a few weeks later drew even wider coverage. After the engagement was announced, Sherley traveled to Baltimore, where she was the subject of considerable attention from the city's men. When news of this attention reached Shevlin, he wrote to her complaining of her activities. Sherley reacted by calling off the engagement noting "it was not her fault that men wished to pay her attention."

In 1906, Shevlin's courtship of Vera Gilbert, the stepdaughter of famed New York architect C. P. H. Gilbert, again put Shevlin's personal life in the public eye. After Shevlin announced his engagement to Gilbert, Gilbert's stepfather spoke publicly in opposition to the union and insisted that there was no engagement. Shevlin insisted that the couple was, in fact, engaged, and the back-and-forth between the two men received extensive press coverage in the last half of 1906. After Shevlin's second engagement in less than a year was called off, one newspaper asked, "Has the little love god deserted Tom Shevlin, Yale's ex-football captain, when not long ago the mere effect of his big, manly self plowing across a player-strewn football field set a hundred feminine hearts a-flutter?"

In February 1909, after renewing his courtship with Elizabeth Sherley, the two were married. The couple had two children, Betty and Thomas, Jr. In 1911, Shevlin and his first child, Betty Shevlin, were profiled in a lengthy article on millionaire babies. The article noted:

"Some of the children of the busy rich inherit more than money. Some have a heritage of beauty. There is little Betty Shevlin of Minneapolis and Yale. ... Betty's father was Thomas Shevlin, famous football end, captain of the Yale team during his senior year, and present advisory coach for Old Eli's players. Tom was the idol of his college mates. He won numerous honors for his college, but he soon fell a victim to Cupid's tackle. There was no hope for Tom after he met that beautiful Kentucky thoroughbred, Miss Elizabeth Sherley. He looked into her violet eyes, saw her long black lashes, gave one glance at her radiant complexion, and, while losing his heart, did not fail to win hers."