Not just anyone can say they are from a long line of trailblazers, but writer Rebecca Boggs Roberts is not just anyone.
The author is the daughter of journalist Cokie Roberts and the granddaughter of Lindy Boggs, the former member of Congress and ambassador to The Holy See.
WTOP spoke to Rebecca about her mother and grandmother at The Woodrow Wilson House in D.C.’s Embassy Row neighborhood.
“I’d say the best advice my mom ever gave me was actually, don’t take your jewelry off in the bathroom, because it can slip down the drain,” Rebecca said. It’s excellent advice.
Describing her mother as an extraordinary human, Rebecca said she believes the reason her mother did so well on television during a time when there weren’t a lot of women in front of the camera was not only because she was really smart, did her homework and was never caught unprepared.
“She wasn’t scared to let her personality show at a time when a lot of women felt that they needed to be this sort of plastic Barbie-type person,” she said. “She got fan mail from people saying ‘I feel like we’re best friends.’”
Rebecca said her mother led by example.
“Her example was you can do absolutely anything, which is a pretty extraordinary message to any daughter,” she said.
In 1972, a twin engine plane carrying Rebecca’s grandfather, Rep. Hale Boggs, crashed in Alaska as he campaigned for a fellow House member. The plane was never found.
The search for the then House majority leader was so extensive that the map of Alaska’s coastline was rewritten.
“I think about that time now — when they were searching for that plane in 1972. My mother was 28 years old. She had two little kids,” Rebecca said. “It’s just heartbreaking.”
Rebecca’s grandmother would later run for the late representative’s seat, representing downtown New Orleans and serve for nearly 20 years before becoming the ambassador to The Holy See.
She said her grandmother’s political motto was that you can get anything you want done as long as you don’t have to take the credit for it.
“First of all, it’s really female, right?” she asked. “You can’t imagine any man saying that.”
There are times Rebecca hears her grandmother’s voice.
“When I just want to get something accomplished, and if somebody else wants to brag about it, it’s fine. The doing of it is what is most important,” she said.
Lindy Boggs, according to her granddaughter, was practical, a feminist and the original steel magnolia.
“She called everyone ‘darling’ and made them all feel wonderful and special while she went about picking your pocket and getting exactly what she needed for her district,” Rebecca joked.
Women all across the country owe Lindy a debt of gratitude.
“Women couldn’t get a credit card in their own names in this country well into the 1970s, which is astonishing,” she said, touching on her grandmother’s work.
Decades ago, when there was a bill being drafted in Congress to assess equal credit, the language in the legislation said credit would not be denied on the basis of race, religion or ethnic origin.
Rebecca said her grandmother — with a pencil — added the words, “or sex or marital status,” to the bill and had copies made and handed out to members of the congressional committee working on the legislation.
“She said, ‘Darlings, I know it was just an oversight. I know you all absolutely intended to include this language all along,’” Rebecca recalled. “That’s why I can get a credit card in my own name.”
One of the books authored by Rebecca is about the Congressional Cemetery, which is where her grandparents and mother are buried.
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