[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 30, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S3857]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    EDITH PRATT ``PATTY'' MASTERSON

 Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I rise today to note the passing of 
Edith Pratt ``Patty'' Masterson. She died Sunday, April 20, 1997, at 
the age of 75.
  Ms. Masterson was very active in Virginia politics, and her 
contributions to Virginia were noted in the Virginia Pilot newspaper in 
Norfolk. I ask that a February 16, 1997, article from the Virginia 
Pilot be included in the Record.
  As the article indicates, for the past 6 years Ms. Masterson was 
active in public life as the chief lobbyist for Virginians Against 
Handgun Violence. Her most prominent victory with that organization was 
the passage of the one gun per month law in Virginia in 1992. Gun 
violence is a scourge that threatens the lives of our young people, and 
simply for her efforts to end gun violence, Ms. Masterson deserved 
recognition and high praise.
  But Ms. Masterson's lengthy and remarkable public life, which began 
more than half a century ago, also deserves recognition. In the 1940's 
Ms. Masterson became the first woman to argue a case before the South 
Carolina Supreme Court, and she won her case. She also raised five 
children and later she went on to teach for 35 years. John Casteen, now 
the president of the University of Virginia, stated Ms. Masterson was 
the ``best teacher I've ever seen.'' Ms. Masterson's participation in a 
variety of civic and educational organizations continued during her 
last years, and in 1991 she was named Hampton Roads Pioneer Woman of 
the Year.
   Mr. President, I commend to this body and the American people the 
life and public service of Ms. Edith Pratt Masterson.
  The article follows:

     [From the Virginian-Pilot and the Ledger-Star, Feb. 16, 1997.]

               Patty Masterson: a Virginia-Made Activist

                           (By Margaret Edds)

       The volume is thick as a phone book and appropriately 
     covered in red. ``Only in Virginia--1996,'' the title reads, 
     calling to mind the state's proud promotional slogan, ``Made 
     in Virginia.''
       But the handiwork recorded in this fresh-off-the-copying-
     machine document is no cause for civic pride. The 200-page 
     compilation is of 1996 Virginia newspaper clippings that 
     feature guns and bloodshed. The sampling of Virginia murders, 
     woundings, accidents and suicides is representative but 
     incomplete.
       Pages contain up to five clippings each, gathered by 
     volunteers across the state. Virginians Against Handgun 
     Violence oversaw the project. The League of Women Voters 
     helped. The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence in Washington 
     contributed. It is a chilling work.
       ``When it was clear last year that we were going to have 
     absolutely nothing (in terms of gun-control legislation), it 
     occurred to me that if you could clip all the events 
     involving bloodshed by firearms, not the burglaries or the 
     robberies, it might make an impression,'' said Patty 
     Masterson, a retired Norfolk Academy English teacher who 
     conceived the volume and last week helped distribute it 
     around Capitol Square.
       She was right. The page-after-page drumbeat of tragedy is 
     first startling, then compelling, then exhausting. One of the 
     women who provided clippings from the Richmond area recently 
     quit. It was too disspiriting an exercise, she said.
       This is the sixth winter since Masterson, then newly 
     retired from the classroom, adopted the cause of handgun 
     control and moved from Virginia Beach to a Richmond hotel 
     room for a two-month vigil. As a volunteer lobbyist for 
     Virginians Against Handgun Violence, she has become a fixture 
     in the legislative halls, brightening committee rooms with 
     her white hair, knit sweaters and welcoming smile.
       In this role, Masterson has brought to bear all the skills 
     that have sustained her through an adventurous 74 years--
     creativity, passion, good sense. The combination helped make 
     her one of the first female attorneys in South Carolina, a 
     Navy wife and enthusiastic mother of five, a popular teacher 
     for 35 years and the force behind a series of seminars on how 
     children learn.
       But those characteristics have yet to penetrate the mass 
     consciousness in the Virginia General Assembly. Masterson's 
     most thrilling moments in Richmond were among her first. In 
     the 1992 session, with then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder leading 
     the charge, lawmakers limited over-the-counter handgun sales 
     to one per person per month.
       ``We did nothing to create it,'' Masterson said recently of 
     the law, ``but we had the fun of surfing in with it.'' Since 
     then, Masterson and her gun-control colleagues have learned 
     both the importance of having a governor in your corner and 
     the frustration of going up against a lobby as entrenched as 
     the National Rifle Association. Last year, all of the major 
     legislation they supported died. This year, two of the three 
     bills Masterson cared most about were not even heard in 
     committee.
       Her response, like a schoolmarm with a class of sluggards, 
     has been to search for new ways to make lawmakers sit up and 
     take notice. ``Only in Virginia'' is one result. Masterson 
     believes anyone who takes time to peruse its headlines--
     ``Father Shot on Way Home,'' ``Boy, 5, Shoots Mother With 
     Father's Rifle,'' ```My Only Son,' Mother says after 
     Slaying,''--must be moved to act.
       Her commitment does not blind her to the limitations of gun 
     control. ``Even if the sale of handguns to civilians were 
     stopped here and now, we'd still have problems because of the 
     millions of handguns out there,'' Masterson acknowledged. But 
     she also recognizes the consequences of inaction. ``It can 
     only get worse if we do nothing.''
       Not surprisingly, the shootings that Masterson most 
     deplores are those involving domestic violence and children 
     who accidentially set off guns. Such deaths or woundings 
     ``seem so unnecessary,'' she said. ``To me, they are products 
     of a proliferation of handguns.''
       At a minimum, she believes, gun sales should be limited to 
     storefront transactions or--with private sales--to law-
     enforcement offices; purchasers should be required to take 
     gun-safety courses, and trigger-locks should be required on 
     guns.
       As a student of human development, she also believes that 
     society should do much more to guard against the eruption of 
     violence. Gun-control advocates are ``dealing with the 
     tippity, tippity, tip of the iceberg,'' she said. Those 
     working with preschool education and domestic relationships 
     are closer to the core of the problem.
       Legislative victories or no, what keeps her going is ``a 
     passion for living, for learning, learning, learning,'' she 
     said. It's an attitude that qualifies Masterson as a state 
     treasure, Made In Virginia.

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