Excerpts
from Grassroots Women
taken from Meg Grier's Grassroots Women: A Memoir of the Republican
Party of Texas
"I went back one time and looked at my high school
yearbook. One girl wrote, 'She's a lot of fun even though she is a Republican.'
At that point in Texas, everyone was a Democrat."
- Ann Wallace, Forth Worth & Austin
"If you look at the men I have had to deal with in the business
over the years, everything is either a war or a football game. You just
have to work not to giggle when they get their big map up and say, 'We've
got a frontline down here and this coming in.'" - Carol Reed, Dallas
"Many times there would be a Republican Women's Club before there
was a county chairman or a county organization. They would form because
they wanted an alternative to the Democrats, who had been running the
state or the county for years and years. Without the Republican Women's
Clubs we would never be where we are today." - U.S. Senator Kay
Bailey Hutchison, Houston & Dallas
"We held the Pachyderm Polka. A union leader called me and said
he was upset because we hired a nonunion band. I said that was too bad
because that was the price and the kind of band we wanted. He said,
'We just may come out there and picket you.' I said, 'Please do. It
would help us.' But he didn't do it. That dance was a huge success."
- Mary Bodger, Corpus Christi
"Rita Clements was Rita Bass then. She was very, very active in
the early days. We used to do car caravans. She and I were pregnant
at the same time and could barely squeeze behind the steering wheel."
- Martha Crowley, Dallas
"As a couple we give, but I sign the checks. My husband lets me
decide whom we should support. I have gotten thank you notes back several
times to my husband. Not even to me. I signed the checks! The very least
they could do is figure it was from both of us and send a thank you
note to both of us. I would write this nice little note and say, 'If
you ever want to get money from me again, you ought to thank the person
that sent you the money.'" - Cathy McConn, Houston
"He said, 'Ma'am, I have never voted for a Republican in my life,
and I have never voted for a woman in my life, but neither has ever
come asking me for my vote. I'm going to vote for you.' I won six of
the eleven counties a Republican had never won. It is because I went
to them and said, "This is what I believe."" - State
Senator Jane Nelson, Flower Mound
"Congressman Jim Collins was down from Dallas when Tom Loeffler
was running for Congress in 1978. He was making a speech to a Republican
Women's Group. He said, 'The Republican Women are the best street walkers
in the world.' I don't think it came out quite like he meant for it
to." - Teddy Peterson, San Antonio
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