Lurleen B. Wallace (September 19, 1926 – May 7, 1968), born in
Tuscaloosa, AlabamaTuscaloosa is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in the west central part of the U.S. state of Alabama. Located on the Black Warrior River, it is the fifth-largest city in Alabama with an estimated population of 90,221 in 2008. Tuscaloosa is named after the Choctaw chieftain Tuskaloosa...
, was the
Governor of Alabama from 1967 until her death in 1968. She was the first wife of
AlabamaAlabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States of America. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its...
Governor George WallaceGeorge Corley Wallace, Jr. , was a governor of Alabama for four terms; 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T...
, whom she succeeded as governor. She was Alabama's first, and to date, only
female governor. She was also the first and so far only female governor in U.S. history to die in office.
Early years
Lurleen Brigham Burns was born to Henry and Estelle Burroughs Burns of Fosters, Alabama in Tuscaloosa County. She graduated from Tuscaloosa County High School in 1942 at 15 by taking summer classes. She then worked at
KresgeKresge may refer to:*Sebastian S. Kresge, noted merchant and philanthropist, founder of Kmart, formerly known as the S. S. Kresge Company*The Kresge Foundation, a philanthropic organization established by Sebastian S...
’s Five and Dime in Tuscaloosa, where she met George Wallace. At the time he was a member of the U. S. Army Air Corps. They were married on May 21, 1943 when she was 16.
Over the next 20 years, she focused on being a mother and a homemaker. She and her husband had four children. They were Bobbi Jo (1944) Parsons, Peggy Sue (1950) Kennedy, George III (1951), and Janie Lee (1961) Dye, who was named after
Robert E. LeeRobert Edward Lee was a career United States Army officer, an engineer, and among the most celebrated generals in American history. Lee was the son of Major General Henry Lee III "Light Horse Harry" , Governor of Virginia, and his second wife, Anne Hill Carter...
. George Wallace's political career and neglect of his family resulted in his wife filing for divorce in the late 1950s; she later dropped the suit.
Mrs. Wallace assumed her duties as
First LadyFirst Lady or First Gentlemanis the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state. In the United States, it is also used for the spouse of the governor.-Origin:...
of Alabama in 1963 after her husband was elected governor. She opened the first floor of the governor's mansion to the public seven days a week. She also refused to serve alcoholic beverages at official functions.
Governorship and illness
George Wallace had become very popular during his first term as governor (1963–1967), largely due to his opposition to racial
desegregationDesegregation is the process of ending racial segregation, most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in Brown v...
. He could have easily won a second term in 1966 had he been eligible to stand for one. In Alabama (as in many states at the time), governors were not allowed to serve two consecutive terms. This provision was incorporated in the
current state constitutionThe Constitution of the State of Alabama is the basic governing document of the U.S. state of Alabama. It was adopted in 1901 and is the sixth constitution that the state has had....
in 1901.
Wallace attacked this problem on two fronts, First, Wallace worked for the repeal of the term limiting provision. Second, Wallace devised a plan in which his wife, Lurleen, would run for governor while he continued to exercise the authority of the office behind the scenes, duplicating the strategy in which Ma Ferguson won the 1925 election for governor in
TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
.
Wallace's attempt to change the succession rule before the 1966 campaign failed. He eventually succeeded in getting the term limit repealed, however, and would go on to serve three more terms, two of them consecutive. However, using his wife as his electoral surrogate succeeded, and Mrs. Wallace won the
DemocraticThe Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. It is the oldest political party in continuous operation in the United States and it is one of the oldest parties in the world. In the U.S...
nomination for governor in 1966. In those days, the Democratic nomination was tantamount to election in Alabama, and she was inaugurated in January 1967. To assuage voters who might have been concerned about the transfer of power, she stated that her husband would be her "#1 assistant".
Mrs. Wallace made her gubernatorial run carrying a tragic secret: she had been diagnosed with cancer as early as April 1961, when her surgeon biopsied suspicious tissue he noticed during the cesarean delivery of her last child. As was common at the time, her physician told her husband, not her. George Wallace insisted that Lurleen not be informed. As a result, she did not get appropriate follow-up care. When she saw a gynecologist for abnormal bleeding in 1965, his diagnosis of uterine cancer came as a complete shock to her. When one of her husband's staffers carelessly revealed to her that Wallace had discussed her cancer with them, but not her, during his 1962 campaign three years earlier, she was outraged.
In order to facilitate his plan to use her as a surrogate candidate in 1966, Mrs. Wallace cooperated with a campaign of dissimulation and misdirection as she began
radiation therapyRadiation therapy is the medical use of ionizing radiation as part of cancer treatment to control malignant cells . Radiotherapy may be used for curative or adjuvant cancer treatment...
in December, 1965. This was followed by a hysterectomy in January 1966. Despite her ill health, Mrs. Wallace maintained a brutal campaign schedule throughout 1966 and gave a 24-minute speech her longest ever at her January 1967 inauguration.
Early in her term, Mrs. Wallace's condition began to deteriorate. In June 1967, an
abdominalIn vertebrates such as mammals the abdomen constitutes the part of the body between the thorax and pelvis. The region enclosed by the abdomen is termed the abdominal cavity...
growth was found. During surgery on July 10, this proved to be an egg-sized malignancy on her colon. She endured a second course of radiation therapy as a followup. In January 1968, after extensive testing, she informed her staff (but not the public) that she had a cancerous pelvic tumor which was pressing on the nerves of her back down through her right hip. Even with the prior surgeries on her uterus and colon, and despite the radiation treatment, the
cancerCancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth , invasion , and sometimes metastasis...
spread.
Her last public appearance as governor was at the 1967
Blue-Gray Football ClassicThe Blue–Gray Football Classic was an annual American college football all-star game held in Alabama usually on Christmas Day. It was begun in 1939 and held annually through 2001 at the Cramton Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama. The game was not contested in 2002 and was subsequently revived in 2003 in...
, followed by a campaign appearance for her husband's presidential bid on the
American PartyA political party by the name of the American Party has existed several times in the United States:*The American Party was established in Connecticut to oppose the Federalist Party...
ticket on January 11, 1968. Her illness was obvious and worsening. The pelvic tumor was removed in late February. This was followed by surgery to treat an abdominal
abscessAn abscess is a collection of pus that has accumulated in a cavity formed by the tissue on the basis of an infectious process or other foreign materials...
, and in late March 1968, more surgery to dissolve a blood clot in her left lung. By April, the cancer was in her liver and lungs, and she weighed less than eighty pounds.
Her husband, George Wallace, persistently lied to the press about her condition, claiming in April 1968 that "she has won the fight" against cancer. He continued to make campaign stops nationwide during her last weeks of life, but her doctors warned him she was in unstable condition on May 5, the day he was to leave for a Michigan sweep. At her request, he cancelled a television appearance May 6, when she was too ill to be moved back to the hospital. Lurleen Wallace died in Houston,
TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
, at 12:34 a.m. May 7, 1968, with her husband beside her and the rest of her family, including her parents, just outside her room.
on
Lurleen Wallace laid in state in the Capitol building May 8, and 21,000 mourners waited as long as five hours to view her silver casket. Despite her emphatic pre-need planning request for a closed casket, her widower insisted that her body be on view, with a glass bubble over the open part of the coffin. The day of her funeral, May 9, all public and private schools closed, all state offices closed, and most businesses closed or had abbreviated hours. She was buried in Greenwood Cemetery.
At the time of her funeral, George Wallace had moved out of the governor's mansion and back to a home they bought in
MontgomeryMontgomery is the capital, second most populous city, and the fourth most populous metropolitan area in the Southern U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. The city population was 201,568...
in 1967. He did not take his children, ages 18, 16, and 6, with him. They were sent to live with family members and friends. (Their eldest daughter had married and left home.) George Wallace had two subsequent marriages to the former
Cornelia Ellis SnivelyCornelia Ellis Wallace, previously Cornelia Ellis Snively , was the First Lady of Alabama from 1971-1978, the second wife of Democratic Governor George C. Wallace, Jr. . A dark-haired beauty, Mrs...
and Lisa Taylor, both of which ended in divorce.
Mrs. Wallace's most notable independent action as Governor was her attempt to get her husband to increase appropriations for the Bryce Hospital and the Partlow State School, a residential institution for the developmentally disabled. She had visited them in Tuscaloosa on her own initiative in February 1967 after reading a news story about overcrowding and poor staffing. She was horrified by what she saw in the filthy, barracks-like settings.
Mrs. Wallace was succeeded by Lieutenant Governor
Albert BrewerAlbert Preston Brewer is an American politician who was the governor of Alabama from May, 1968 until January, 1971.Brewer was born in Bethel Springs, Tennessee. Prior to his election as lieutenant governor, he served three terms in the Alabama House of Representatives from Morgan County from...
, a one-time ally of her husband who soon showed a strong interest to govern in his own right and retain the office in the 1970 election. Brewer gained a seemingly unlikely ally in this quest in
PresidentThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
Richard NixonRichard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States and is the only president to resign the office. He was also the 36th Vice President of the United States ....
, who wanted to neutralize Wallace as a Presidential adversary in 1972. Wallace beat Brewer in the Democratic primary and returned as governor in January 1971, remaining in office for two consecutive terms. George Wallace won and served a fourth term from 1983-1987.
Counting Lurleen Wallace's term as his surrogate, George Wallace had the remarkable achievement of winning five terms distributed over three decades to Alabama's governorship, totaling over seventeen years in office (1963-68, 1971-79 and 1983-87). It would have been twenty if Lurleen had served four full years instead of the 17 months she survived. This record is approached, but not matched, by the fourteen-year tenures in consecutive terms attained by Governor
James R. ThompsonJames Robert Thompson, Jr. , also known as "Big Jim Thompson", was the 37th and longest-serving Governor of the U.S. state of Illinois. A Republican, Thompson was elected to four consecutive terms , and held the office for 14 years...
of
IllinoisIllinois , the 21st state admitted to the United States of America, is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation...
and Governor
Tommy ThompsonTommy George Thompson , a United States politician, was the 42nd Governor of Wisconsin and the 19th U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Thompson was a candidate for the 2008 U.S...
of
WisconsinWisconsin is one of the fifty U.S. states. Located in the north-central United States, Wisconsin is considered part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the...
.
Legacies
Among her major accomplishments during her brief tenure were major increases in expenditures for Mental Health including modernization of Partlow State Hospital for children and a big funding increase for State Parks.
Lake LurleenLake Lurleen is a public reservoir located in Tuscaloosa County, in west central Alabama. It is named after Lurleen Wallace, the only woman elected Governor of Alabama to date. It is also the location of Lake Lurleen State Park....
in central Alabama is named in her memory.
Since Alabama was lacking adequate cancer treatment facilities at the time, Mrs. Wallace had to travel to the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in
Houston, TexasHouston is the fourth-largest city in the United States and the largest city within the state of Texas. As of the 2008 U.S. Census estimate, the city has a population of 2.2 million within an area of 600 square miles . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of...
for diagnosis and treatment. This underscored the need for improved cancer care in the state. Following her death, the Lurleen Wallace Courage Crusade was spearheaded by her successor, Gov.
Albert BrewerAlbert Preston Brewer is an American politician who was the governor of Alabama from May, 1968 until January, 1971.Brewer was born in Bethel Springs, Tennessee. Prior to his election as lieutenant governor, he served three terms in the Alabama House of Representatives from Morgan County from...
, leading to fundraising for building a new cancer center. The
University of Alabama HospitalThe University of Alabama Hospital , is a Level I trauma center hospital located in Birmingham, Alabama....
at the
University of Alabama at BirminghamThe University of Alabama at Birmingham is a doctoral, public research university covering 83 blocks in the heart of Alabama's largest city Birmingham, Alabama, USA...
was selected as the site for the cancer center, and a formal cancer center program was begun in 1970. Funding was received from the
National Cancer InstituteThe National Cancer Institute is part of the United States Federal government's National Institutes of Health. The NCI is a federally funded research and development center, one of eight agencies that compose the Public Health Service in the United States Department of Health and Human Services. ...
, and the center became one of the first eight NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers. Dr. John Durant served as its first director. Construction of the Lurleen B. Wallace Tumor Institute at UAB was begun in 1974 and was completed in 1976. The Wallace Patient Tower, an addition to University Hospital, was built in her honor, as was Lurleen B. Wallace Community College in Andalusia, Alabama.
External links