Interview with Elizabeth Bradley Heffelfinger Interviewed by James E. Fogerty October 1978 - February 1979 JF: Today is October 25, 1978. I am James Fogerty of the Minnesota Historical Society, and the following interview is with Mrs. F. Peavey Heffelfinger. Mrs. Heffelfinger is a former Republican National Committeewoman. The interview is taking place in her home in Wayzata, Minnesota. EH: I'm taking my first trip away for months and months and months on the seventh of November, for a week, so I thought maybe you could come out the weekHeffelfinger before that. JF: Surely. I don't know how long this will take. It may take us quite a number of sessions in order to make sure we get everything. Bradley EH: Yes. Everything is "I, I, I." It's embarrassing. Society JF: Well, that's what we want, because you're the person we're interested in, so there's no other way to do it. Elizabeth EH: Yes, I guess not. with Historical JF: Beginning in the beginning-- EH: Don't ask which date I was born in. I don't like to be-- JF: I have no intention. interviewBut I would like to know where you were born. Where were you born? Minnesota EH: Would you like me to go back to my grandparents? JF: Surely. Thathistory would be wonderful. Why don't you just start and talk about your family. EH: I wasOral born in Lafayette, Indiana. I was dropped there, incidentally, by mistake, and since I was conceived in Tennessee, my father always called me a Southerner. However, when I had my first of five children, I didn't dare not tell the truth or I thought I might be stricken, so I had to admit that I was born in Lafayette, Indiana, instead of Tennessee. My grandmother was quite a person, full of life, humor, and had the art of living down pat. She came over here from Rotohe, County Meade, Ireland, at the age of almost two years old--her mother having died on shipboard due to childbirth. Accompanying my grandmother was her father and some other brothers and sisters. They took a covered wagon and went out to Lafayette, Indiana, where they settled. 1 There was nobody like her. I had her here to visit me one time, and warned her not to go down into the first floor level because she might fall. I'd no sooner turned my back than she did fall and broke her hip, and then she said, "But the light was so pretty coming up, Betsy dear, I had to look at it." She was excommunicated when a girl because she married outside of the church, and during the time of her illness, from which we thought she would never recover, she kept calling the doctors "Father," and the nurses "Sister." I asked her if she'd like to see a priest, and she said "Yes." When the priest came--he was there about a half hour--with the doctor outside--she had no pulse at all. When the priest came out, when she'd been given extreme unction, her pulse was like a young girl's and she said to me, "Thank you, Betsy. Now I know who I am." Her daughter's name was Ella, my aunt, and she didn't have much of a sense of humor or sense of people, and she [Grandmother] said, "Ella won't ever bury me in a CatholicHeffelfinger cemetery, but I know who I am, and it doesn't make any difference where I'm buried. I'm back home again." I was very touched by that, myself. On my father's side--he was from Tennessee, and his motherBradley was Margaret Houston of the Houston clan from Lexington, Kentucky. His great-great-grandfather, name of Houston, was the brother of the famous Sam Houston, of Alamo fame in Texas.Society Sam Houston sought notoriety and fame, and my grandfather obviously settled in Tennessee, where members of his family still lived until a few years ago. Elizabeth JF: Did your grandparents live in Kentucky all their lives, or most of their lives? with Historical EH: No. I have a book of Houston, and they moved from different places. It was really quite--it was mostly around Kentucky--Lexington, Kentucky--and then they fanned out to nearby states. I'm really not too well acquainted with that. JF: Did your grandparentsinterview live in Kentucky, though, at the time of their deaths? Minnesota EH: Oh, no. No, no. My father...I was very proud of my father. He was a self-educated, self- made man, one who sought the better things of life for himself and his children. He was obviously veryhistory talkative, because after he married my mother, who incidentally was, I think, the first graduate of Purdue University, which is in Lafayette, Indiana. I asked her did she graduate in homeOral economics, and she said, "Heavens, no. I graduated in engineering." JF: My goodness. EH: However, after she was married, she taught. She worked in the field of education, and went to Paducah, Kentucky, where she met my father; and together they made a very wonderful life. My father was sent from place to place as his competence was noted. JF: What field was he in, Mrs. Heffelfinger? 2 EH: He was in public utilities. He was sent...his different jobs working up to the top, his final job that he was sent by the Chase Bank to attempt to negotiate the sale of the public utilities which the Chase Bank was interested in, in the Philippines, to the Philippine government. However, the Philippine government was too smart for him, because they saw war coming and they did not want to put down the money that they knew that they would need to defend themselves later, is what happened. I remember, as a baby, that I was taken to Utah. What my father did there, I don't know. But he tells the story that he came home at night and always found me crying, and his heart would sink. He didn't know, if there was no crying, whether I was dead or asleep. Finally, I got thinner and thinner, cried more and more, and so they took me fifty miles to a veterinarian, who told them to coat my stomach with white of egg, and then keep me alive on whiskey. JF: And it worked? [Laughter] Heffelfinger EH: It worked. [Laughter] JF: That's interesting. Just to clarify one thing. When you were talking about your grandparents, you were talking about your mother's family orBradley your father's? EH: I'm talking about both of them. Society JF: Both of them. Your Kentucky grandparents, though? Elizabeth EH: Lexington, Kentucky, was the Houston family, and that was my father's side. Houston, Margaret Houston, was his mother, butwith that was Historical about the third generation back. He was the brother of Sam Houston. So Sam Houston was my great-great-great--how many great-- grandfather's brother. JF: And your Irish grandmother that you talked about, was that your mother's side of the family? interview EH: That was my mother's side.Minnesota JF: That was your mother's mother. history EH: Yes. Oral JF: Okay. Your father was involved in...you said public utilities. Was it largely electric utilities? EH: Yes, it was. Well, at that time, it was electricity and it was what they called streetcars and any way of transportation run by electricity. But he lived, and I, of course, went along, tagged along, as a baby or a young, very young child, to Tacoma, Washington, where he had charge of building an inter[urban], as they were called, between Seattle and Tacoma. 3 He was sent to Pottsville, Pennsylvania. I forget what he was there. He was only in these places two or three years. Matter of fact, if he wasn't moved every two or three years, my mother thought he was a flop, was afraid of his future. We were sent to Galveston, Texas. That's where I first really remember what was going on clearly. And then to Dallas, Texas, and to Houston. He was in charge of the entire Southwestern United States. Later on, after I left home, he was sent to Virginia. [Unclear]. He then went with Electric Bond & Share, another utility company, and was sent to Buenos Aires, where I joined him after I was married, for a few months. My mother was ill, and he wanted me down there with him. My husband, very nicely, allowed me to go. He wanted me to. In Virginia, I was told by a woman...he always had believed in youth, andHeffelfinger he has had a number, five or six secretaries--and they were secretaries, male secretaries--whom he advanced. At the time of his death, about six of his erstwhile secretaries were heads of big public utility corporations themselves, like Pacific Gas & Electric and other things. So his belief in young people, pushing them, giving them the opportunity, was quiteBradley outstanding. I remember, it was in the days when the early pioneers were Society working West and there was no what you might call [unclear] ethics, as we say we have today-- but I don't think we have. When I told him, when I became interested in politics, and I told him that I thought I'd go into politics, he died laughing.Elizabeth He said, "Betsy, who'd want you?" He said, "In the first place, you haven't got a price.