Laurel Seymour knows who Austin’s first female lifeguard was. Well, she’s pretty certain.
“I know Binnie Seymour was the first lady lifeguard in Austin, Texas,� she told KUT’s ATXplained project. “But can you provide us some proof?�
Binnie Seymour is Laurel’s paternal grandmother: Grandma Binnie.
Binnie was born in 1940, the second of four children. She said she spent much of her childhood in Westlake Hills where her dad attempted to make a living catching minnows and often brought the kids along.
“We were kind of river rats, so to speak,� Binnie said. “I’ve been on every creek and every river around Texas.�
In the mid-1950s, when Binnie was 14, she got a job in the locker room at Deep Eddy Pool. She earned 50 cents an hour taking and retrieving swimmers� clothes from lockers.
A couple weeks later, Binnie said, her bosses approached her with a proposition: Would she like to be considered for a promotion to lifeguard?
“If I could pass the test, then I could have the job,� she said she was told.
Binnie said the lifeguard test consisted of a simulation in which she had to save UT Austin football players who pretended to drown. Binnie, who barely weighed 120 pounds, did her best to rescue the linebackers, fullbacks and wide receivers.
“I probably grabbed some of them by the head of the hair, but I pulled ‘em in,� she said.
She got the job and a raise to 90 cents an hour. Then, Binnie said, her boss told her she had earned another badge.
“My boss told me, ‘You are the first lady lifeguard in Austin, Texas,'� she said. Binnie had no reason not to believe him.
But what would have been a notable moment in the city’s history went unmarked. Binnie said she doesn’t remember a reporter writing a story or a photographer taking her photo for the local newspaper.
And at 86 years old today, Binnie said there are few people still alive to verify her story. This makes confirming the tale she has told her grandchildren that much more difficult.
“I wish a lot of the people were still alive,� Binnie said.
A shortage of lifeguards
Women break barriers when history requires it of them.
During World War I and World War II, women took jobs to support the war effort and to fill vacancies left by the men who had been drafted. Women drove trucks, operated radios and toiled in factories � and, it turns out, sat atop lifeguard stands.
“Many of the old timers that frequent Bartons will recall the good old days when the big husky lifeguards watched over the flock,� a reporter for the Austin American wrote in March 1943. “[H]owever such things are in the past for the duration, and beautiful girls will grace many of the lifeguard stands of the nation this season.�
A month earlier, the same paper reported this news with a bit more of a cautionary tone.
“Habitues of Austin’s several municipal swimming pools may as well get ready to have their safety in the water watched over this summer by women lifeguards, Joe Prowse, assistant city recreation director warned Wednesday,� a reporter wrote.
That same article included the names of two women who had signed up to safeguard pool visitors that summer: Dorothy Kerbow and Jean Parker. Parker had not yet been assigned to a pool, but Kerbow would work at Westenfield Pool, which still operates in the neighborhood of the same name.
These women are the first documented female lifeguards in Austin.
The article included little other information about Kerbow and Parker. KUT News was unable to find additional details about Parker or any living relatives. But Kerbow, because of her distinct last name, was easier to find.
Kerbow was born in San Marcos in 1918 and grew up in New Braunfels, just south of Austin.
Her son, Dave, who owned the seafood restaurant Catfish Parlour in North Austin for decades, said his mother, like Binnie, spent much of her childhood in water.
“She had the Comal River, the Guadalupe River, Landa Park, all those places to swim,� he said.
In the mid-1940s, the city was looking for women to fill lifeguard stands, and Dave said his mom was looking to make extra cash. She passed the test easily and began working as a lifeguard that summer. He said she worked at city pools on weekends and holidays for nearly a decade.
Dave described Kerbow as ahead of her time � a woman who spoke her mind and rarely took no for an answer.
“She was very strong-willed,� he said.
Kerbow began working in an Austin post office in 1950. She moved out to Wimberley 20 years later to take the job of postmaster. Dave said his mother lived in a house with a pool and swam often.
Kerbow passed away in 2013 at 94 years old.
How a swimming affair became a love affair
So, Binnie Seymour was not Austin’s first lady lifeguard. She and her family took the news well.
“I guess I lose a little bit of a bragging right,� Laurel, Binnie’s granddaughter, said.
“Well, that’s interesting,� Binnie said when told about Dorothy Kerbow.
And, as small-town Austin would have it, Binnie knew the Kerbows. She attended Austin High School with Dorothy's oldest child, Karen Kerbow.
“She was blonde-headed,� Binnie recalled. “And she was just very sweet.�
Even though Binnie cannot claim the title of Austin's first female lifeguard, the hours spent swimming netted her something else: a love story.
While Binnie grew up spending time in rivers and creeks throughout Central Austin, she said she never learned how to swim well. Then, she met a boy named Billy when she was just a teenager.
“Billy could swim like a fish,� Binnie said. “I just watched him swim, and before long, I was swimming like a fish, too.�
They got jobs together in the locker room at Deep Eddy Pool and became lifeguards around the same time. Binnie said this gave her the chance to keep an eye on her then-boyfriend.
“I just thought, ‘Oh, that’ll be fun! Billy’s a lifeguard and then I can watch Billy,'" she said. "I watched him to make sure he didn’t flirt with other girls.�
Binnie was an amateur photographer and the two often took photos at Mansfield Dam, with one or both of them standing on the dam’s edge.
In 1958, Binnie and Billy married. Most of the past seven decades, they said, have been spent happily � and in water.
