Her Honor: Rosalie Wahl and the Minnesota Women’s Movement

Foreword

x vii Foreword U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar Inever saw a woman judge,” Rosalie Wahl once said. “I never had a chance to practice in front of one.” These are remarkable words to come from the first woman to serve on the Minnesota Supreme Court. But what’s truly remarkable is that this reality never fazed Rosalie Wahl. For Rosalie, the lack of any women role models, like all the challenges she overcame, was not an obstacle in her path, it was the path—a path she marched down with an uncanny combination of grit and grace. Rosalie truly paved her own way, laying each flagstone of her distinguished legal career on her own. In doing so, she built a foundation, not just for women in the law, not just for working mothers, but for all women. Like so many women in law and politics in our state, I stand on Rosa­ lie’s sturdy, sensible shoulders. In fact, the very year that Rosalie was appointed to serve on the Minnesota Supreme Court, my own political career began—albeit modestly—leading a Life Saver lollipop drive to salvage our high school’s prom. But as Rosalie’s life has shown us, you have to start somewhere. In Rosalie’s case, she grew up in Kansas during the Depression. Her mom died when she was three. She and her brother went to live with their grandmother on the Kansas family farm. At age seven Rosalie lost her brother and grandfather in a train accident, and her family couldn’t sue the train company because the lawyer required $100 in advance. The farm was sold. A fiancé died in the Army Air Corps during World War II. She went to college in Kansas and didn’t enroll in law school until 1962, when she was thirty-eight years old, the mother of four, only one of two women in her class. “ viii x Rosalie Wahl and the Minnesota Women’s Movement Ask anyone who crossed Rosalie’s path and they will tell you that she was tough as nails. She learned to “lean in” decades before the phrase became cool. She decided to enroll in law school because she was “tired of sitting outside doors waiting for the men inside to make the decisions .” After defeating three men in her reelection to the state’s highest court, she heard countless cases, argued persuasively in judicial conference , and tackled gender discrimination and racial bias in our judicial­ system—and she did all of this with uncommon humility and an unerring commitment to justice. As I walk that path forged by Rosalie, I think of what life was like for her, both as the first woman elected to the state’s supreme court and as a mother who put herself through law school, taking just one week off after giving birth to her fifth child. As the first woman elected to serve as Hennepin County attorney and the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Minnesota, I find solace in knowing that whatever trials I face in balancing my family and my job and in navigating a male-dominated political world, Rosalie faced them first and against even greater odds. It’s no surprise that the legal tradition lives on in Rosalie’s family. I was fortunate to have her daughter, Sara Wahl, working with me as an accomplished civil litigator and manager in the Hennepin County attorney ’s office. And Rosalie’s legacy extends beyond her family. When Rosalie was the first woman to don the judicial robes on Minnesota ’s highest court, did she ever imagine that one day there would be a majority of women on the Minnesota Supreme Court? Did she envision that three women would sit on the U.S. Supreme Court? Despite the fact that there were no women in the Senate when she was sworn in as a judge, did she foresee a Senate with a record twenty women senators serving as we have today? The answer to these questions is simply yes, she did. She understood. She had the vision and faith to see far into the future, imagining that one day women would fill boardrooms, classrooms, locker rooms, and labs. One day they would orbit the earth, scale our highest peaks, and explore our deepest seas. She knew that other women, like herself, would never take no for an answer. In this book, Lori Sturdevant captures the trials and triumphs of one of...