September 15, 2006
Thoughts About Ann Richards Posted by Frederick E. Allen at 03:05 PM EST Amy Weaver Dorning, a friend of and frequent contributor to AmericanHeritage.com, found herself surprisingly stirred when she learned that Ann Richards had died earlier this week. She wrote the following to us to explain why:
“When I heard that former Texas governor Ann Richards had died on September 13, at age 73, I felt a wave of sadness, like an era had ended. Though I haven’t lived in Texas in 15 years, I still identify with my home state in a powerful way, and Ann Richards’s legacy is emblematic of what I love about being from there. Part of her appeal for me was that she reminded me of so many of the women who had colored my childhood, the kind you don’t often meet in New York or San Francisco, the two places I have called home since I left. My opinionated mother and her friends (Texas ladies though they were) drank beer, smoked, cussed, and loved to joke about men and their various foibles. Ann Richards would have fit right in. This sort of down-home feminist banter got under my skin, and having grown up around these big-haired women allows me rationalize my own occasional excesses, like the need to fill in my sentences with colorful expletives, simply to get my point across. As a native Texan, I figure it is my birthright.
“Dorothy Ann Willis Richards was born in September 1933 outside of Waco and spent most of her life in central Texas. Her parents, Cecil and Ona Willis, hailed from nearby towns of Bugtussle and Hogjaw, and the family eventually moved to Waco so Ann could attend high school and, later, Baylor University. That’s where she met her future husband, David Richards, a man with political aspirations and ambitions. They would have four children together, host many a Democratic political fundraiser, and make some important allies before they were divorced in the 1980s.
“I was a student at the University of Texas at Austin when Richards began her national political ascent from Dallas housewife (she once said her biggest fear was that her tombstone would read ‘She kept a really clean house’) and low-level politico to major player. It all started with her unforgettable speech at the 1988 Democratic Convention and culminated with her election as the second female Texas governor in 1990. Of course, the only line from the convention that has survived is the one about the senior George Bush being born with a silver foot in his mouth, but it was her bawdy sense of humor, her thick Texas accent, and her flamboyant personal style that catapulted her into the American consciousness.
“Nobody had seen anything like her—a smart, funny, and straight-talking woman politician who wanted to make some changes and throw the good-old-boy network on its, ahem, ass. She was open about her divorce and her stint in rehab for alcoholism, both touchy subjects in a conservative state. Her run for governor against the oil man Clayton Williams turned into a battle of the sexes, and she played it to the hilt, getting the majority of the female vote. Her inauguration was a time of celebration, especially for women, and she dubbed her administration the ‘New Texas.’
“My friends and I loved her straight-shooting feminism, despite the fact that her politics seemed pretty middle-of-the-road to a bunch of idealistic college students. We weren’t so interested in women getting jobs at the statehouse as in opposing the Gulf War, which was breaking out just as she took office. Plus, her beefing up of the state prison system and later support of the North American Free Trade Agreement did little to endear her to diehard liberals. But of her nearly 3,000 appointments, some 46 percent were female, 15 percent were black, 20 percent were Hispanic, and 2 percent were Asian-American. Her predecessor, GOP Gov. Bill Clements, gave more than 80 percent of his appointments to Anglos and men. Plus, had any of us known who would be booting her out of office in four years (George Bush II), we would have probably worshiped her unreservedly.
“By Ann’s second year in office, I had moved to New York to attend graduate school, but with my entire family still in Texas, I traveled home often, and paid more attention to the politics and goings-on there than I did in my new home state. Admittedly I probably exaggerated my Texan-ness at that time, partly out of homesickness, but mostly because it got me attention and set me apart from all the East Coast Ivy League types I was now spending time with. That and the fact that my libation of choice was Wild Turkey (I still shudder). Even if I didn’t agree with all of her policies, I was proud of Ann Richards and followed her career. I even pinned the July 1992 cover of Texas Monthly magazine—the famous one with Richards astride a white motorcycle in a white leather outfit—to my cubicle wall at a magazine where I was interning. The cover line, in huge font, reads ‘White Hot Mama: Ann Richards Is Riding High. Can She Be the First Woman President?’
“Of course, that never came to be, with George Bush’s path to the White House taking shape after he ousted Richards before she could serve a second term. I lost track of Ann during her post-governor years as a lobbyist and political consultant. I’m sure that until her death from esophageal cancer, she continued to be the most noticed person everywhere she went, with her silver hairdo, her crinkly megawatt smile, and her trademark ‘Hi, how ya’ll doin’?’ In his public statement of mourning for his former rival, President Bush said, ‘Texas has lost one of its great daughters.’ This daughter of Texas couldn’t agree more.”
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