Louise Ten Broeck Tracy (née Treadwell; July 31, 1896 – November 13, 1983) was the founder of the John Tracy Clinic, a private, non-profit education center for the deaf that began in 1942. She was married to actor Spencer Tracy.
Family
Tracy was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania. Her parents were Alliene Wetmore Treadwell and his wife Bright, née Smith. Alliene Treadwell was a prominent attorney and part owner of the New Castle Daily News in New Castle. Tracy's parents divorced when she was a teenager.
Tracy sought a career in vaudeville in 1914, but after less than a year in New York City she returned to New Castle and taught dancing. After graduating from Lake Erie College in 1917, she worked for a newspaper and taught school while she pursued a career as a stage actor, There was never again an official separation between Tracy and his wife, but the marriage continued to be troubled. Tracy increasingly lived in hotels and by the 1940s, the two were effectively living separate lives. Throughout their marriage, Spencer frequently engaged in extramarital affairs, including those with actresses Loretta Young, Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, Ingrid Bergman, and Gene Tierney.
In 1942, Spencer co-starred with actress Katharine Hepburn in the film Woman of the Year. The pair famously began a long-term romantic relationship that lasted until Spencer's death in 1967. During this time, Spencer and Louise became estranged, but they never divorced. When he died, he left his entire estate, worth around , to her, their two children, and his brother.
The John Tracy Clinic
In July 1942, Louise Tracy spoke for the first time on her experience as the mother of a deaf child at the University of Southern California at a banquet for the National Workshop of Social Workers and teachers and Parents of the Hard of Hearing. Louise spoke frequently and with increasing skill to numerous clubs and groups. It was during this time, that she and a group of mothers of deaf children decided to start a school in Los Angeles for young deaf children and their parents. The John Tracy Clinic, named after her son, was the result.
During the first years of the John Tracy Clinic, and particularly the first few months, Louise established many of the aspects of the clinic's philosophy. She stressed the importance of parents being involved in the education of their children at a very young age and set up a program for them. Louise firmly believed that the clinic should offer both information and support at no charge to make them more accessible to children and families in need; as such, many of the clinic's services were free, including hearing screenings and services for families to better help care for their deaf children. The John Tracy Clinic was also the first preschool in the nation to offer free emotional support and information for families; aside from those services, it also offered families affected by deafness a sense of community.
Louise's husband Spencer supported her work with the clinic and was its sole financial support in the beginning. In April 1951, Spencer turned the world premiere of his new film, Father's Little Dividend, at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, into a building fund-raiser for the clinic's new site. Spencer's support was always strong, and over the years he personally donated more than a half a million dollars to the clinic. His admiration for his wife was another constant. At the dedication of the new clinic building in 1952, he said to the visiting dignitaries, staff and press:
<blockquote>"You honor me because I am a movie actor, a star in Hollywood terms. Well, there's nothing I've ever done that can match what Louise has done for deaf children and their parents." Her son John died on June 15, 2007.