Word: oveta
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Young to Vote. When Ike Culp won a seat in the Texas legislature in 1919, Oveta went with him to Austin, never missed a day's session. A solemn-eyed child of 14, she sat beside her father in the turbulent House of Representatives, picked up the nuances of politics and law like a prairie hen picking up seeds. Ike vacated his seat in 1921 and Oveta returned to the life of a schoolgirl, but after Austin, school was a big bore. She frequently skipped classes at Temple High School, though she managed, nevertheless, to lead her class...
...mother think she was taking a degree at the University of Texas law school, but actually Oveta got herself a job at the capitol codifying banking laws for the State Banking Commission. Later, Oveta was appointed a clerk in the legislature's Judiciary Committee, and in 1925 was selected by the speaker of the house as legislative parliamentarian for the new session. She was not yet old enough to vote. She soon became such a knowledgeable expert on parliamentary procedure that she wrote a book on the subject...
...Austin, Oveta Culp grew to dark and serious young womanhood. She went to dances and basketball games with the rising young men of Austin (among her beaux: Silliman Evans, now a Nashville publisher, James Allred, who became governor of Texas (1935-38), but most of the time she was too busy for the flapperish goings-on of the day. Old Ike Culp took to carrying a long-bladed, switchback knife in his pocket, ostensibly to pare his nails, but word got around the legislature that he intended to use it on any young man who attempted to get smart around...
Between sessions of the legislature, Oveta lived in Houston with Florence Sterling, sister of Ross Sterling, an oil millionaire and soon-to-be governor of Texas. Through Miss Sterling, who had been a leading suffragette in her younger days, Oveta got an off-session job as secretary to the new Texas League of Women Voters (inevitably, she became president of the League in later years). In 1930 Oveta decided to run for the Texas House of Representatives, was roundly defeated by a rival who campaigned against her by thundering that Oveta was a "parliamentarian and a Unitarian." It was Oveta...
...Ross Sterling bought the Houston Post-Dispatch (later the Post) and installed as president Will Hobby, a successful Beaumont publisher and one of the most popular governors Texas ever had. Oveta went to work as a clerk in the circulation department. Ike Culp and Hobby were old friends. After the death of Hobby's wife, Oveta and Will began to see each other after office hours. In 1931, when Oveta was 26, Hobby 53, they were married...