By: Mae Rhine
SOLEBURY When John Walsh stole his sister’s ice skates as a young boy, he didn’t realize it would lead to a career that included being the partner of legendary Sonja Henie.
But his sister, Alice Kennedy of New Hope, who owns the Applause clothing store there, bears no grudge. She toured with him for the years he was Ms. Henie’s partner.
"It was a great life for me because he did it (stole the skates)," Ms. Kennedy says with a smile. "I just followed wherever he went."
Mr. Walsh, 79, will be inducted into the Lake Placid Hall of Fame Saturday. He’s unable to attend so standing in for him will be Ms. Kennedy.
It all began as a child growing up at Saranac Lake, N.Y., nine miles from Lake Placid, where ice skating or skiing was the only entertainment, Mr. Walsh recalls.
"They didn’t have baby sitters in my day," adds Ms. Kennedy, 76.
"It was in the 1930s, the height of the Great Depression, and our family was broke," Mr. Walsh recalls. "The only free entertainment was swim-
ming in the summer and skating outdoors in the winter."
His father had lost his men’s clothing store; his mother her stationery store. His grandfather was a doctor, but his patients couldn’t afford to pay their bills.
Mr. Walsh and his sister had been in private schools and taking piano lessons, but that all ended when the family lost their means of support. Mr. Walsh’s father tried all types of different ventures; all failed.
But, somehow, the grandparents supported Mr. Walsh’s family.
"They bought groceries" and helped as much as they could, Mr. Walsh recalls.
About that time, the Lake Placid Arena opened. One weekend, one of the competition skaters was Ms. Henie.
"My sister somehow managed to attend, and she was hooked," Mr. Walsh recalls.
She begged her family for a pair of skates, and she got them for Christmas. They were $5 and black, the wrong color! But she decided she had to make do, her brother remembers.
She got permission from her parents to flood the lawn and make a skating rink by running a hose outside the kitchen window. One day, her brother decided while she was in school, he would borrow the skates. He had just graduated from high school.
"It was something good she was doing that I could get into," he says.
When his sister got home, she was not happy when she saw her brother using her skates which were too small for him on her rink, Mr. Walsh says with a chuckle.
Eventually, Mr. Walsh got his own skates, and they both started to learn the finer points of ice skating. Both he and his sister went to the skating sessions at the arena because the top skaters from all over the country spent the summer there, and it was a chance to learn from experts.
With the family finances the way they were, it was hard to pay for the lessons, about 50 cents a session.
"So we’d climb up to the arena’s top seats and hide after each session, then come back on the ice when the next session started," Mr. Walsh recalls.
That’s where they met Gus Lussi, a world-famous instructor, who was there because he had married a woman from Saranac Lake.
The two siblings participated in the Lake Placid summer ice shows, then started a series of winter shows at the Saranac Lake Indoor Curling Club.
Mr. Walsh went to St. Lawrence University to study journalism and started winter carnival ice shows there. His grandfather helped pay the tuition, and the principal of his high school got him a scholarship. His sister also attended the same college.
But Mr. Walsh’s skating career went on hold for a time when he enlisted as World War II broke out in his senior year. He packed his ice skates in his duffel bag, but there were no rinks in North Carolina where he was sent. He was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division in France and hoped to practice there, but the rinks were all closed because of the war.
When he got out 2½ years later, he stopped on his way home to audition for New York’s Center Theatre Ice Show. He was hired on the spot.
He stayed with the show for four years with solos each year. It was then Ms. Henie, a co-producer of the show who had been watching him, asked him to be her partner for the Hollywood Ice Revue. They also wanted his sister.
"I was in the chorus, holding the feathers," Ms. Kennedy says, laughing.
Two years later, Ms. Henie retired, and Mr. Walsh continued with the show, skating with Carol Lynne.
But then Mr. Walsh decided to use his college degree and joined CBS. He was in charge of special projects, "all the spectaculars, anything that was a special event, special programming."
Then after nine years, he started his own public relations firm, working with such notables as Julie Andrews, Carol Burnett, Noel Coward, Dinah Shore and Tony Randall.
His wife, Sylvia, recalls Colgate-Palmolive was a major client, and her husband worked with CEO David Foster on promotions for women’s golf and tennis.
"John went out to select sites" to promote the sports. This guy knows nothing about sports except figure skating," the petite blond woman says fondly. "He’d look out of this huge press tent and say, ‘What inning is it?’ "
They got married because, Mrs. Walsh says, she was "tired of hiding" from Mr. Foster "the tyrant" because she and Mr. Walsh were afraid he wouldn’t approve of them being together without being married.
Mr. Walsh had built a home in New Hope, but maintained an apartment in New York for a while.
"I had some friends who said it was a great place to go for parties," Mr. Walsh says of his decision to build a home in the New Hope area. In fact, while he was living temporarily in Upper Black Eddy, north of New Hope in Bucks County, he met Sylvia, who said they became "good friends."
Her husband adds with a mischievous smile, "Then we became gooder friends."
After 30 years of public relations work, Mr. Walsh retired in 1990. Now he spends his days being active in the community, most notably as president for 11 years of the New Hope-Solebury Library and now as producer, along with Mrs. Walsh, of the library’s major fund-raiser, the Musical Fireworks concerts.
In fact, it’s because of the final Musical Fireworks concert for the season, Friday, Oct. 12, that Mr. Walsh can’t attend his induction into the Lake Placid Hall of Fame.
His sister just shrugs and seems happy to accept the honor for her brother. Ms. Kennedy moved to New Hope "reluctantly," according to Mrs. Walsh, following her instinct to be close to her brother, a move she’s never regretted throughout her life.

