Evening star., 1939-01-15
Florence Bunkheod Has Made
Home-Moking Her Career
Wife Of Speaker
Devotes Life
To Family
BY JESSIE FAINT EVANS.

AL SAAAo Aoy Va So4 CC1o 4O1 WOll1Cll,
Florence Mcclure Bankhead, wife
of the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, has definitely de-
voted herself to one. 1t is that of
marriage and of home e-making, with
her distinguished husband who is
the powerful Representative of the
sovereign State of Alabama, as the
orbit around which her activities
center themselves.
Those who know Mrs. Bankhead
best say that she works at her
career as hard as any woman be-
hind an office desk. The Bankhead
home, they emphasize. whether it
be in Alabama. in an apartment
hotel in Washington during the
winter months, or in a suburban
one emboWered in flowers during
a prolonged summer session, is the
reflection of her devotion to the
career she has espoused above all
others.
Nor is she, by any manner of
means, merely very lovely decora-
tive person who wears dramatic
clothes quite as effectively as her
gifted stepdaughter Tallulah, for
whom she is often mistaken.
Warm Friendship Abounds.
Judson College, at Marion, Ala,
Mrs. Bankhead's alma mater, has
long been famous for its emphasis
upon the cultural arts. Her Kappa
Delta Sorority sisters, whose friend
ship for her is as warm as it was
In their college life together, tell
you life and living have only ac-
cented for her that fundamental
sense of values which has always
been instinctively hers. In the days
when with vim and vivacity, and
slneWy grace she played basket ball
on the college team, with unerring
sureness, she almost invariably
made her goals, they stress, be
cause she never stumbled when
quick decision hung trembling in
the balance"
Behind the low, soft-spoken voice
and innate breeding and charm
which are so nominantly part of
the personality which is Florence
Bankhead's, there is, they empha-
size, "a fine, trained intelligence
which quickly evaluates the prob
lens of life into the cubbyholes of
their relative degrees of Importance
and of unimportance."
To her career of wife and home
maker they believe she contributes
those intangible attributes which
since the world began have made
real homes treasure houses of peace
and refuge, as we'll as well-springs
OF renewed strength and courage
and of abounding hope.
Leaves Politics to Husband.
AS superstitous as daughter OF.
the deep South often is, Mrs. Bank
head sees no point in running
counter to such liabilities as walk
ing under ladders, failing tc pick
up new pins, or knowing that you
are going to have bad luck if a
black cat runs in front of your path.
Friendly and gracious to people,
and genuinely interested in them
and the world about her, she never
thelesS leaves the field of politics,
State and national, entirely to her
husband. Last session though, she
made two trips to the Capitol daily
when Congress was sitting. One
was to bring specially prepared
luncheon for her husband who was
from a serious illness,
during which his life had been at
stake. The other was in midafter-
noon to see that his physicians
directions were obeyed in regard to
few minuteS rest from the pres
sure of official business.
No matter what the heat of a
Washington summer. or the length
of congressional session. Mrs.
Bankhead has never been known
to leave her husbands side until
the final day of adjournment has
been reached.
Incredible as it may seem, the
Bankheads play golf and fish to-
gether without family discord as
to who gets the lowest golf score
or who catches the biggest fish.
More incredible still, socially
minded as they both are, is the
fact that in this city OF dinner
giving and of entertaining without
end, the evening diversion they en-
joy most in common is reading aloud
to each other.
Stage Lost Fine Actor.
Speaker Bankhead's youthful
aspirations included a yearning for
the stage, and Mrs. Bankhead
thinks that in his eschewal of it
for politics the stage lost fine
actor, although the country thereby
gained statesman and Alabama
one of its most eminent represent
atives in Congress-
Mrs. Bankhead is not only
particularly delightful example of
the fact that successful marriage
is an uneXcelled career in itself.
but she has also in two very famous
instances outmoded the belief
that it is impossible to be a sue
cessful stepmother.
Today she is the fast friend
and confldante. not only of the
beautiful, oft-married Eugene, but
OF the glamorous Tallulah, heroine