"Milly-Illy-Illy Gade"

This sheet music for "Milly-Illy-Illy Gade" was composed by Marie Randby.

This song commemorates Mille Gade Corson's historic swim across the English Channel. Mille Gade Corson, the second woman to swim the English Channel, three weeks after Gertrude Ederle's record-breaking Channel swim, emigrated to the United States from Denmark. In 1919 Corson became a Life Saving Instructor and Lifeguard at the Harlem branch of the YWCA. Two years later she became the second woman to swim around Manhattan Island and attempted to swim the English Channel in 1923, but was forced to abandon the effort 2 miles from the French coast. After her successful 1926 swim, Corson returned to the United States to many accolades and performed on the vaudeville circuit as the first mother to swim the English Channel.