PUBLIC FIGURES

NO ORDINARY FIRST LADY

The Junior League of Grand Rapids

Causes/Issue Area(s): substance abuse prevention, breast cancer awareness & prevention, women’s equality, pay equity

Honors/Achievements: First Lady of the United States, Substance Abuse Prevention Pioneer, Founder of the Betty Ford Center and Betty Ford Breast Care Services at Spectrum Health

So who was Betty Ford? Wife? Mother? First Lady? Cancer survivor? Activist for women? Substance abuse prevention pioneer?

All of those descriptions fit the woman whose death touched so many people, including some too young to know her at the peak of her life as a trailblazer on important issues.

Raised in Grand Rapids, Elizabeth Ann Bloomer became a member of the Junior League of Grand Rapids as a young woman. (She even performed in the League’s 1936 musical production of “Merry Go Round.”) While her life took her away from Grand Rapids, and she lived for many years in California after she and her husband, President Gerald Ford, left the White House in 1977, Betty remained an Honorary Sustainer in JLGR until her death and helped the League celebrate its 50th anniversary in 1975.

Though she was a strong supporter of her husband’s career, Betty was not afraid to differ from the positions of her own party—even when she was still in the White House. So it was with her support of the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion rights, and pay equity for women.

She also stepped out of the shadows of personal trauma to create lasting legacies in breast cancer prevention and addiction treatment. Her successful recovery from breast cancer in 1974 led to the formation of the Betty Ford Breast Care Services at Spectrum Health, a Grand Rapids-based nonprofit healthcare provider. The recovery was painful, though, and it left Betty addicted to alcohol and painkillers. Her subsequent success in overcoming her addictions inspired her to create the Betty Ford Center for the treatment of chemical dependency in Rancho Mirage, California.

A complex woman of many achievements, Betty was not afraid to speak her mind.

After serving as Second Lady from 1981 to 1989, Barbara Pierce Bush served as First Lady of the United States when her husband George H. W. Bush won the Presidency. She is also the mother of the 43rd President, George W. Bush, and of Florida’s 43rd Governor, Jeb Bush.

Rarely has a First Lady been greeted by the American people and the press with the approbation and warmth accorded to Barbara Pierce Bush. Perhaps this is prompted by the image she calls “everybody’s grandmother.” People were comfortable with her white hair, her warm, relaxed manner, and her keen wit. With characteristic directness, she said people liked her because they knew “I’m fair and I like children and I adore my husband.”

Barbara was born in 1925 to Pauline and Marvin Pierce, who later became president of McCall Corporation. In the suburban town of Rye, New York, she had a happy childhood. She went to boarding school at Ashley Hall in South Carolina, and it was at a dance during Christmas vacation when she was only 16 that she met George Bush, a senior at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. They became engaged a year and a half later, just before he went off to war as a Navy torpedo bomber pilot. By the time George returned on leave, Barbara had dropped out of Smith College. Two weeks later, on January 6, 1945, they were married.

After the war, George graduated from Yale, and they set out for Texas to start their lives together. Six children were born to them: George, Robin, Jeb, Neil, Marvin, and Dorothy. Meanwhile, George built a business in the oil industry. With Texas as home base, he then turned to politics and public service, serving as a member of Congress, U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Chief of the U. S. Liaison Office in the People’s Republic of China, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and later as Vice President. In those 44 years of marriage, Mrs. Bush managed 29 moves of the family.

When her husband was away, she became the family linchpin, providing everything from discipline to carpools. The death of their daughter Robin from leukemia when she was not quite four left George and Barbara Bush with a lifelong compassion. She says, “Because of Robin, George and I love every living human more.”

Barbara Bush was always an asset to her husband during his campaigns for public office. Her friendly, forthright manner won her high marks from the voters and the press. As wife of the Vice President, she selected the promotion of literacy as her special cause. As First Lady, she called working for a more literate America the “most important issue we have.” Involved with many organizations devoted to this cause, she became Honorary Chairman of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. A strong advocate of volunteerism, Mrs. Bush helped many causes–including the homeless, AIDS, the elderly, and school volunteer programs.

Barbara Pierce Bush passed away on April 17, 2018, at the age of 92.

The biographies of the First Ladies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The First Ladies of the United States of America,” by Allida Black. Copyright 2009 by the White House Historical Association.

Laura Lane Welch Bush is the wife of the 43rd President, George W. Bush. She served as First Lady from 2001 to 2009, advocating for historic education reform and the well-being of women and families worldwide.

During her eight years in the White House, Mrs. Laura Bush was a champion of President Bush’s ambitious agenda and a gracious representative of the American people. A former teacher and librarian, she has dedicated herself to advancing education and promoting the well-being of women and families worldwide.

Mrs. Bush was a key advocate of the President’s historic education reform – the No Child Left Behind Act – and a staunch supporter of NCLB’s Reading First program, which is the largest early reading initiative in American history. Early in the President’s first term, she launched “Ready to Read, Ready to Learn,” an education initiative that promoted best practices in early childhood education and raised awareness of innovative teacher training programs. Inspired by her success with the Texas Book Festival, Mrs. Bush founded the National Book Festival to introduce tens of thousands of Americans to their favorite authors each year.

In 2003, Mrs. Bush answered the call to take her education agenda global, as honorary ambassador for the United Nations Literacy Decade. In this role, she has worked with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to promote global literacy programs with measurable outcomes. She convened world leaders for annual summits that inspired successful practices, beginning with the first-ever White House Conference on Global Literacy in 2006. Mrs. Bush has visited schools and met with students in nations from Afghanistan to Zambia, with a particular focus on encouraging girls and women to pursue their education.

As the leader of President Bush’s Helping America’s Youth initiative, Mrs. Bush oversaw 10 Federal agencies in a groundbreaking partnership that realized the vision of the President Bush’s Management Agenda. Through a national conference in Washington and six regional conferences, Helping America’s Youth taught more than 1,000 community members new strategies to address the needs of at-risk youth.

Since the attacks of September 11, Mrs. Bush has been an outspoken supporter of the women of Afghanistan. In November 2001, she became the first First Lady to give the President’s weekly radio address, speaking out against the Taliban’s oppression of women and children. She has traveled to Afghanistan three times and served as honorary chair of the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council.

Mrs. Bush has been a leading advocate for the cause of human rights in Burma. She drew global attention to the ruling junta’s oppression with a 2006 roundtable at the UN headquarters. After Cyclone Nargis devastated Burma in May 2008, Mrs. Bush held an unprecedented press conference in the White House Press Briefing Room and urged the regime to accept international aid. Mrs. Bush also traveled to the Thai-Burma border and met with refugees who fled the abuses of Burma’s military regime.

Mrs. Bush has traveled to all 50 States and more than 75 countries. She has made five trips to Africa alone in support of President Bush’s life-saving global health initiatives, including the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). In visits to 10 of the 15 countries targeted by the PMI and 12 of the 15 PEPFAR countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, she witnessed first-hand the success of these historic commitments. In 2006, she joined President Bush to co-host the first-ever White House Summit on Malaria, which helped raise awareness of malaria and support grassroots efforts to eradicate the disease.

Mrs. Bush has helped thousands of women take charge of their health by raising awareness of breast cancer and heart disease. As Ambassador for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Heart Truth campaign, Mrs. Bush traveled the country to educate women about the symptoms of heart disease, which is the number one killer of American women. In addition, Mrs. Bush helped launch the U.S.-Middle East Partnership for Breast Cancer Awareness and Research and the Partnership for Breast Cancer Awareness and Research of the Americas, which unite the resources of researchers and advocates in the United States and around the world.

Mrs. Laura Bush was born on November 4, 1946, in Midland, Texas. She earned degrees in education and library science and worked for several years as an elementary school teacher and children’s librarian before marrying George Walker Bush. They have twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, and a son-in-law, Henry Hager. The Bush family also includes two dogs, Barney and Miss Beazley. Prior to becoming First Lady of the United States, Mrs. Bush served as the First Lady of Texas.

Sarah Palfrey Danzig Cooke enjoyed a storybook tennis career, both in how she played the game and how she comported herself as champion and sportswoman. She won an astounding 18 major titles and played in 29 total major finals. Her clever playing style and accomplished net game combined with her class and gracious personality to make her a popular doubles partner. She won 11 women’s doubles titles with four different teammates, Alice Marble being the beneficiary of six of those victories – four straight coming at the U.S. Championships from 1937-40. She won four U.S. National Mixed Doubles Championships, three with tennis demigods Fred Perry, Don Budge, and Jack Kramer. She played on the Wightman Cup team ten times and won nine consecutive titles (1931-1939).

“Sarah certainly had all the elements of grace and charm and played a very stylish game,” said Virginia Wade.

Palfrey had an auspicious beginning, winning the National Junior Championship three straight years (1928-30). Her game, particularly in doubles, prospered in large part to the coaching she received from Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman, who helped the 5-foot-4 Danzig grow her net prowess. She won nine U.S. Doubles Championships from 1930-1941, a streak of success unmatched in that event. During those years, Danzig collected seven more doubles titles, two with Marble at Wimbledon (1938-39) and five others in mixed play at the French and U.S. Championships.

While Palfrey’s doubles success came relatively quickly, it took her 13 attempts to win her first major singles championship, a 7-5, 6-2 victory over American Pauline Betz in the 1941 U.S. Nationals final. She won another U.S. title in 1945, again defeating Betz in a tighter match, 3–6, 8–6, 6–4. At 33 years, 11 months and 16 days, Palfrey ranks as the third oldest female singles champion in history. That same year, Palfrey nearly became the only female to win a men’s doubles championship. World War II created a shortage of male players, so she and her husband Elwood Cooke (her 1939 French National Mixed Doubles partner) were allowed to play in the men’s doubles event at the Tri-State Championships in Cincinnati, losing in the final to Hal Surface and Bill Talbert. The husband-wife team did prevail at the 1945 U.S. Clay Court Mixed Doubles Championship – over Talbert and Betz, 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 – making them the only married couple to win a U.S. title.

Along with partner and friend Marble, Palfrey lobbied the United States Lawn Tennis Association to remove the color barrier and allow Althea Gibson to play at a whites-only tournament in 1950. In 1947, Palfrey turned professional and went on a “barnstorming” tour of one-night matches with Betz Addie. Reportedly, they earned about $10,000 each.

Palfrey ranked among the world’s Top 10 women six times from 1933-39 (no rankings were issued from 1940-45 due to the war) and rose to No. 4 in 1934. Following her retirement, Palfrey worked for NBC television as a sports editor from 1956-57. In 1965 she became an advertising consultant for World Tennis magazine. Palfrey authored two instructional tennis books, “Winning Tennis and How to Play It” in 1946 and “Tennis for Anyone” in 1966.

Although she had a 50-year career as a character actress in films, on the stage and on television, you almost certainly know her best as the Wicked Witch of the West in the MGM film classic, The Wizard of Oz. But an important component of Margaret Hamilton’s early career in acting came in children’s theatre programs sponsored by the Junior League of Cleveland, where she was a member. Children’s theatre programs were an important community outreach for many Junior Leagues in the 1920s and 1930s, including Cleveland.

While her role as the Wicked Witch seemed designed to traumatize younger viewers, Margaret Hamilton, who was trained as a teacher, gained recognition for her work as an advocate of causes designed to benefit children and animals, and retained a lifelong commitment to public education. “It’s so ironic: I don’t think there’s anybody who loves children more than I do, and now I’m famous for being the woman who scared thousands of them half to death,” Hamilton told the Toronto Telegram in 1969.

Her strengths as a character actor served her well in movies like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and My Little Chickadee and, later on TV, where she played Morticia Addams’ mother, “Hester Frump,” in three episodes of The Addams Family and soap operas like CBS’ The Secret Storm. Among her many TV appearances was an episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, where she explained to children that she was only playing a role and showed how make-up transformed her into the witch.

Living in Manhattan after retirement, as a member of the Veterans Hospital Radio and Television Guild, she used her acting skills to work with disabled veterans and the blind, and appeared locally in television ads for groups that promoted companion animals for the blind and other disabled people. And, working under the auspices of the New York City Parks Department, she would often read stories to children gathered at the Hans Christian Anderson statue in Central Park.

Margaret Hamilton died in 1985.

Quite a life – and not just for the cinematic moment when she threatened Dorothy by hissing: “I’ll get you, my pretty — and your little dog, too!”

Actress; women’s issues activist; member, The Junior League of Hartford

Junior League of Greater Lakeland, FL

Marilyn Carlson Nelson has long been one of Minnesota’s most influential and powerful businesspeople, female or male. So it’s worth noting that wasn’t always the case. After graduating from Smith College and studying in Paris and Geneva, Nelson came back home to Minneapolis and found just about every door closed to her. She finally was hired at a securities firm as a securities analyst, a job she had to fight to keep.

In 1998, when she took over the travel and hospitality company her father, Curt Carlson, had founded, she resolved to make it an inclusive organization. “I would make certain that it would be a meritocracy,” Nelson says.

Nelson has made a career of overcoming naysayers. She led successful efforts to bring the Super Bowl to Minnesota in 1992, despite arguments that her home state was too cold to host it. She overcame doubters in the 1990s that her family business could successfully unite with a European travel firm. More recently, she helped lead the battle against the anti-gay marriage amendment to the Minnesota Constitution in 2010.

And Nelson has made Carlson into a company where both men and women can thrive. One of the women leaders to whom she has provided help and support is Trudy Rautio, who became Carlson’s CEO and president in 2012 after serving as the company’s CFO and in other senior executive roles since 1997.

Though Nelson stepped down as CEO from Carlson in 2008, she remains one of its directors while serving on numerous nonprofit boards–. And she continues to inspire future business leaders. For the past five years, Nelson has co-taught a course at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management on corporate responsibility with Myles Spicer, professor of strategic management and entrepreneurship.

“She has very much encouraged students to think about leading and taking command on tough issues,” Spicer says. Students were impressed with how accessible Nelson was, he adds, noting that she “instilled in them the importance of being analytic and thoughtful in these issues.”

Nelson calls her teaching “one of the most rewarding things I’ve done,” adding that “it’s renewed my hope in the future to see how much these young people believe that business can be a power for good.” She speaks from experience.

First experience as a leader: “I was asked as a junior in high school to edit the school paper . . . . I learned that leadership is about communication, it’s about a vision, and that you can’t do it alone. ”

Hardest lesson: Finding a good job after college, and resistance from male colleagues. “I was so convinced that this was wrong—that my human right to work, to use my mind and my talent and my education were going to be limited only by my gender.”

Greatest current challenge: “Our companies have become so large and global. The competition has become so keen. [And we’re] more vulnerable to geopolitical disruption.”

Best mentor: “My husband, [surgeon and health care leader] Glen Nelson. He really helped me take an entrepreneurial culture and make it more process-oriented. . . . [Carlson] became technology leaders in the travel business.”

Best habit: “I tend to be very present. I’m pretty much in the moment. ”

Worst habit: (Related to her best habit:) “I’m often late for the next appointment.”

FROM THE MOVIES TO THE WHITE HOUSE

Junior League of Los Angeles

Causes/Issue Area(s): drug abuse prevention, historic preservation, stem cell research, foster care, the arts

Honors/Achievements: First Lady of the United States, national spokesperson for the prevention of drug abuse

Nancy Reagan was many things—a glamorous movie star in 1950s Hollywood, a member of the Junior League of Los Angeles, a First Lady of the United States, a spokesperson for the prevention of drug abuse, and an ardent supporter of stem cell research.

Nancy’s public life began in Hollywood where she starred in movies at MGM. After her husband Ronald Reagan was elected Governor of California, he appointed her to the California Arts Commission. As California’s first lady, she visited the elderly and the handicapped, and worked with a number of charities, including the Foster Grandparents Program. She was named the Los Angeles Times’ Woman of the Year.

With the election of her husband to the White House in 1980, she began the work that would be her legacy of public service. As First Lady, she championed the national movement to prevent drug abuse, serving as the spokesperson for the “Just Say No” campaign, and raised private funds for a badly needed renovation of major portions of the White House, including the family wing.

When she returned to California home in 1989 after the presidency, Nancy devoted herself to the care of her ailing husband, who was later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, until his death in 2004. She remained active in public life, both in support of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and in advocating for embryonic stem cell research.

Nancy Reagan passed away on March 6, 2016.

FROM JUNIOR LEAGUER TO FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES

Junior League of the City of New York

Causes/Issue Area(s): civil rights, human rights

Who was Mary Harriman’s most famous friend?

It’s a good bet she was Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

While credit for the founding of The Junior League rightly belongs to Mary Harriman, she was supported in its early days by a remarkable group of young New York women—all from prominent local families—who shared her commitment to voluntarism and civic leadership. One of those women was Eleanor Roosevelt.

Long before she came to the nation’s attention as a First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt joined the Junior League of the City of New York and began to find her voice as a leader. For her, the League was the start of an illustrious career that extended well beyond her White House years.

In her 1937 autobiography, This is My Story, Mrs. Roosevelt wrote, “I had grown up considerably during the past year and had come to the conclusion that I would not spend another year just doing the social rounds . . . I began to work in the Junior League. It was in its early stages. Mary Harriman, afterwards Mrs. Charles Cary Rumsey, was the moving spirit. There was no clubhouse; we were just a group of girls anxious to do something helpful in the city in which we lived.”

Along with other Junior League volunteers, Eleanor worked with immigrant children in the settlement houses of New York’s Lower East Side, then an environment of intense poverty. Years later, her husband Franklin Delano Roosevelt would credit her and The Junior League with showing him a side of New York he had never seen before.

Of course, the rest really is history. Eleanor was three times a First Lady, the first U.S. delegate to the newly established United Nations, and a forceful advocate for the rights of workers, women, and children. In 1961, during President John F. Kennedy’s tenure, she chaired the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women.

Julia McWilliams Child

Long before Food Network, there was Julia Child.

When The French Chef debuted in February 1963, it was more than just one of the first cooking shows on American television. The French Chef introduced Julia Child – a true American original – to a wide American audience that, looking back, was eager to embrace a more sophisticated approach to cooking. Until her death in 2004, Julia Child remained one of the best-known and loved women in America, and the kitchen from her home in Cambridge, MA, is now on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.

The oldest of three children of a socially prominent couple in Pasadena – land manager John McWilliams, Jr. and his wife, the former Julia Carolyn (“Caro”) Weston, a paper-company heiress – Julia Child was a member of the Junior League of Pasadena, where she worked on a children’s theater project, both acting and writing several children’s plays.

As lovingly detailed in the 2009 movie Julie & Julia, Julia Child was always a larger than life character. A Smith College graduate, she worked as an advertising copywriter in New York City and California until the U.S. was drawn into World War II. She then joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) – the wartime predecessor to the CIA – after finding that she was too tall to enlist in the Women’s Army Corps (WACs) or in the U.S. Navy through the WAVES. She also found her husband, Paul, in the OSS and, after the war, lived with him in Paris, where she…

Well, you probably know the rest already.

Julia Child is a member of an elite but always growing cadre of women who whetted their appetite for civic leadership in The Junior League and then moved on into public life to achieve on a wider scale. Just a few examples include:

• Eleanor Roosevelt – First Lady; social reformer; humanitarian; author. As U.S. Delegate to the United Nations, she chaired the Human Rights Commission during the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights–adopted 1948; member, New York Junior League
• Sandra Day O’Connor – First female U.S. Supreme Court Justice, appointed 1981; member, The Junior League of Phoenix
• Eudora Welty – Author; Pulitzer prize for The Optimist’s Daughter, 1972; member, The Junior League of Jackson
• Shirley Temple Black – Child actress; Delegate to the United Nations (1969); U.S. Ambassador to Ghana; Czech and Slovak Republics; member, The Junior League of Palo Alto
• Katharine Hepburn – Actress; women’s issues activist; member, The Junior League of Hartford