Living History by Unknown (the lemonade war series txt) 📗

I also continued my work in child advocacy through my law practice. Beryl Anthony, an attorney in El Dorado, asked me to help him represent a couple who wanted to adopt the foster child who had lived with them for two and a half years. The Arkansas Department of Human Services refused, citing a policy against permitting foster parents to adopt. I’d encountered the same policy in Connecticut when I was working as a law student at legal services. Beryl, married to Pence’s older sister, Sheila, had heard from Pince about my interest in such issues. I jumped at the chance to work on the case. Our clients, a local stockbroker and his wife, had the means to fund an effective challenge to the policy.

The Arkansas Department of Human Services had its own lawyers, so I didn’t have to worry about going up against the Attorney General.

Beryl and I presented expert testimony about the stages of a child’s development and the degree to which a child’s emotional wellbeing depends on the presence of a consistent caregiver in early life. We persuaded the judge that the contract the foster parents had signed―agreeing not to adopt―should not be enforceable if its terms were contrary to the child’s best interests. We won the case but our victory didn’t change the state’s formal policy about foster children’s placement because the state didn’t appeal the decision.

Thankfully our victory did serve as a precedent that the state eventually adopted. Beryl was elected to Congress in 1978, where he served for fourteen years, and Sheila Foster Anthony became a lawyer herself.

My experience on this case and others convinced me that Arkansas needed a statewide organization devoted to advocating for children’s rights and interests. I was not alone in thinking that. Dr. Bettye Cald well, an internationally recognized professor of child development at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, knew of my work and asked me to form one with her and other Arkansans concerned about the status of children in the state. We founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, which spearheaded reforms in the child welfare system and continues to advocate for children today.

While I was working on lawsuits at Rose and taking on child advocacy cases pro bono, I was also learning about the expectations and unspoken mores of life in the South.

Wives of elected officials were constantly scrutinized. In 1974 Barbara Pryor, wife of the Governor-elect, David Pryor, had drawn withering criticism for her newly permed short hairdo. I liked Barbara and thought the public attention to her hair was ridiculous. (Little did I know.) I assumed that as a busy mother of three sons she was looking for an easy style. In a show of solidarity, I decided to subject my stubbornly straight hair to a tight permanent that would, I thought, replicate Barbara’s. I had to have the permanent applied twice in order to get the desired effect. When I showed up with my frizzed hair, Bill just shook his head, wondering why I had cut off and “messed up” my long hair.

One of the reasons Vince and Webb became such good friends is that they accepted me for who I was, often poking fun at my intensity or explaining patiently why some idea of mine would never fly. We made it a habit to escape from the office for regular lunches, often going to an Italian restaurant called the Villa. It was a checkered-cloth-and-candle—

in-the-Chianti-bottle sort of place near the university, where we could avoid the usual business crowds. It was fun to exchange war stories about our battles in the Arkansas court system or just to talk about our families. Of course, this too raised some eyebrows.

In Little Rock at that time, women did not usually have meals with men who were not their husbands.

While being a politician’s wife as well as a trial lawyer occasionally got people talking when I stepped out in public, I was not usually recognized. Once another attorney and I chartered a small plane to fly to Harrison, Arkansas, for a court appearance, only to land at the airstrip and find there were no taxis. I walked over to a group of men standing around the hangar. “Is anybody driving into Harrison?” I asked. “We need to go to the courthouse.”

Without turning around, one man offered, “I am. I’ll take you.”

The man drove an old junker stuffed with tools, so we all crammed into the front seat and headed for Harrison. We barreled along with the radio blaring―until the news came on and the announcer said, “Today, Attorney General Bill Clinton said that he would be investigating judge So-and-so for misbehavior on the bench…” All of a sudden our driver shouted, “Bill Clinton! You know that son of a bitch Bill Clinton?”

I braced myself and said, “Yeah, I do know him. In fact, I’m married to him.”

That got the man’s attention, and he turned to look at me for the first time. “You’re married to Bill Clinton? Well, he’s my favorite son of a bitch, and I’m his pilot!”

This was when I noticed that our Samaritan had a black disk over one eye. He was called One-Eyed Jay, and sure enough, had been flying Bill in little airplanes all over.

Now I just hoped old One-Eyed Jay’s driving was as good as his flying, and I was grateful when he delivered us to the courthouse safe and sound, if a bit rumpled.

The years 1978 through 1980 were among the most difficult, exhilarating, glorious and heartbreaking in my life. After so many years of talking about the ways Bill could improve conditions in Arkansas, he finally had a chance to act when he was elected Governor in 1978. Bill started his two-year term with the energy of a racehorse exploding from the gate. He had made dozens of campaign promises, and he started fulfilling them in his first days in office. Before long he had delivered a thick,