[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 167 (Thursday, November 21, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1750-E1751]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         HONORING THE LIFE OF CORINNE CLAIBORNE ``LINDY'' BOGGS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MARCY KAPTUR

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 21, 2013

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today, with great affection at this 
Thanksgiving season, to honor, remember, and celebrate the life of 
Representative ``Lindy'' Marie Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs, of New 
Orleans, Louisiana, who passed from this life earlier this year on July 
27, 2013, but whose accomplishments and legacy continue to inspire her 
family, her constituency, her colleagues, and all whose lives she so 
generously influenced.

[[Page E1751]]

  ``Lindy'' was born in Pointe Coupee Roads, Louisiana, on March 13, 
1916. She was the only child of Roland Claiborne, a wealthy sugarcane 
plantation owner and prominent lawyer, and Corinne Morrison. Her nurse 
nicknamed her ``Rolindy'' because she thought Lindy resembled her 
father more than her mother.
  Following her father's death when she was only two years old, Lindy 
and her mother went to live in New Orleans with her maternal 
grandparents. The Morrison family's roots can be traced back to the 
Mayflower. Lindy's grandmother Morrison had a great influence on her 
and lived to be ninety-seven, as did Lindy.
  Her mother remarried when Lindy was six to a man who owned a cotton 
plantation. This is where Lindy said she was introduced to politics, as 
the plantations controlled much of the politics of the state.
  This is also where Lindy was introduced to enduring, gracious, hard-
working women. She said, ``The women on plantations were absolutely 
remarkable. They had an autonomous situation. They had to do everything 
in the house . . . and everything had to be done in time for a huge 
mid-day dinner. Then, in the afternoon . . . they created their own 
cultural environment. They had musicals, and they had book reviews . . 
. it all occurred within those houses.'' With no work these women 
weren't willing to do, it never occurred to Lindy that women couldn't 
accomplish whatever they set their mind to.
  Lindy matriculated at Newcomb College in New Orleans, the first 
women's college in Louisiana and the sister school to Tulane 
University, where she majored in history and education. During her 
freshman year at Newcomb, she met Thomas Hale Boggs, who was the editor 
of the Tulane University newspaper where Lindy served as women's 
editor.
  In January 1938, at age twenty-one, she married Hale and, through 
university connections, Hale and Lindy embarked on a political career 
as part of the grass-roots reform movement that took place in Louisiana 
in the late 1930s. With Lindy's indefatigable support and help, Hale 
was elected to Congress in 1941, eventually rising to majority leader.
  When Hale's plane tragically crashed in 1972 on a campaign trip in 
Alaska, not only did Lindy find herself raising their three children 
alone, but she also found herself running for his vacant seat, saying, 
``I woke up and just found myself running one morning; I never made a 
conscious decision to run.''
  Later, she would reflect: ``When the various people were trying to 
persuade me to run . . . Lady Bird Johnson [wife of President Lyndon B. 
Johnson] . . . called and talked to me for a long time about how I had 
an obligation and all of these things. Then when she thought maybe she 
had convinced me, she said `But darling, do you think you can do it 
without a wife?' I've told her many times, it was very hard without a 
wife.''
  In March 1973, Lindy Boggs was elected to the House of 
Representatives in a special election. Her victory made her the first 
woman to represent Louisiana in the House and the first Catholic 
elected from a State that had never elected a Catholic to any major 
state office.
  Lindy was at first appointed to the Banking and Currency Committee, 
where she played a key role during the markup of the Equal Credit 
Opportunity Act of 1974. She cited her experience as a newly widowed 
woman seeking credit as her motivation to add ``sex or marital status'' 
to the provision barring discrimination on the basis of ``race and age, 
and their status as veterans.'' Without informing the other committee 
members, Lindy added those words and made copies of the revision for 
her colleagues, saying, ``Knowing the Members composing this committee 
as well as I do, I'm sure it was just an oversight that we didn't have 
`sex' or `marital status' included.'' The bill passed unanimously.
  It was this persistence and skill at indirect pressure that marked 
Lindy's style as a progressive southern woman working to advance the 
cause of humanity, acting as a champion of civil rights in her diverse 
district.
  In 1976, she became the first woman to preside over a national 
political convention. In 1977, she was elected to the House Committee 
on Appropriations. At her retirement she remained the longest serving 
female member of that committee after serving 12 years. That same year, 
she helped to co-found the Congressional Women's Caucus, later serving 
as its secretary. When Lindy was elected to Congress, only 16 women 
were serving in the House out of 435 members; by her retirement, there 
were 29.
  In the early 1980's, Lindy helped create, and served as a member of, 
the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families. From 1985 to 
1989, she served as the chair of the Bicentenary of the U.S. House of 
Representatives.
  In January 1991, at age 75 and after 18 years of service, Lindy Boggs 
retired from Congress to care for her daughter Barbara who was dying of 
cancer. In July of the same year, the House named a room off the 
Rotunda in her honor: The Lindy Claiborne Boggs Congressional Women's 
Reading Room.
  In retirement, Lindy remained politically active, writing her 
autobiography Washington Through a Purple Veil in 1994. In 1997, 
President Clinton appointed the 81 year old as the first woman U.S. 
Ambassador to the Vatican, a position she proudly served until 2001.
  Of the accomplishments she was most proud of, she cited bills she co-
sponsored on behalf of minorities, women, and children; her efforts to 
improve education from the elementary to the college level; her work on 
the children's task force on crisis intervention; her efforts to open 
the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.; establishing 
the Office of Historian of the House of Representatives; and achieving 
Margaret Chase Smith's dream of making the rose the national flower.
  Lindy Boggs's gracious southern charm, strong faith, sense of humor, 
quiet persistence, deep social conscience, and firm belief in what's 
right made her one of the most influential and extraordinary women of 
our time. She is dearly missed by all who knew her, and by all who have 
benefited from her extraordinary work.
  Personally, I hold many wonderful memories of Lindy and her unending 
kindness. When I was first elected to the Appropriations Committee, as 
the only other woman on her side of the aisle, she made sure I sat next 
to her to coach me on the unique rules of the Committee. She always 
took the time to say hello and give an encouraging word. She offered 
Members rides home, she invited them to participate in Caucus functions 
of which she was a part, and she worked hard to bring people together 
across the aisle in every way she could. She made the House a more 
human place.
  May her surviving children--Cokie Roberts and Thomas Hale Boggs--as 
well as their spouses, children, grandchildren, family and friends draw 
strength at this time of bereavement from her incredible life and 
accomplishments. Truly, this was a woman for all seasons, a woman of 
extraordinary measure. Personally, she endured the loss of her father 
and husband, and then two of their children, Barbara Boggs Sigmund, who 
had been elected Mayor of Princeton, New Jersey, and infant William 
Robertson Boggs. Always, Lindy kept her eyes on the horizon and 
endured. She assumed responsibility after her husband's passing for 
continuing their brilliant partnership as progressive, elected 
Representatives from the State of Louisiana during times of enormous 
social change and broadened civil and human rights. And, she raised her 
young children on her own. Lindy's ascension to key Congressional 
Committees, often as the lone woman, carved a swath forward for gender 
equity in our nation. Her appointment as the first woman Ambassador to 
the Vatican in the last quarter of her life mark her total service to 
the people of the United States as one of the longest and most generous 
in the history of our nation, extending well over half a century. She 
was a patriot of the first order. Her legacy will live on in the 
legislation she passed and in the inspiration and encouragement she 
imparted to all those whose lives she touched so selflessly. May God 
bless her and place her among the stars that shine from the highest 
points in the cosmos. And to her family, a most sincere thank you for 
sharing her with the nation, and with the Congress, these many decades.

                          ____________________