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VERA
KLINGENSMITH SCHULTZ
by Ms Sally Hauser & Vera K. Schultz
" Vera Klingensmith Schultz,
the very
prototype of
a modern woman, began life
in the male-dominated
world of the Old West. Born in 1902 on a cattle
ranch in southeastern
Nevada, she was the
youngest of
eight children. The descendants of pioneer settlers, her parents shared the
ranch with
her father's twin brother
and his family. "Between
our two families, we had enough children to fill a school."
Vera remembers, "So we
built one right on the ranch and a schoolteacher was hired."
Vera's father died before she was five and after a brief period in Cedar City, Utah, Mrs.
Klingensmith took her
young family to Tonopah, Nevada,
where her
elder sons had jobs in the
mines. They stayed there until 1917
when Vera's brothers were drafted for service in World War I.
An older
sister, Patty,
whom Vera adored, decided
the family should move to Reno where she was working.
"My first heroine was Patty who
was eighteen years older than I."
recalls Vera, "She was a born teacher.
She loved
to teach
and I
loved to be taught, ..she
was a tremendous influence on my life."
During her high school years in Reno, the Vera
Schultz we know today began to emerge.
She became
interested in
the woman's suffrage movement, then entering its most crucial
phase. It gave young Vera
new heroines
- Susan
B. Anthony,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton - as
well as Aurelia
Henry Reinhart, then president of Mills College.
Dr. Reinhart spoke to the
women of Vera's 1920 high
school graduating
class about
responsibilities and
opportunities that awaited them now that they could vote.
In 1920, Vera entered the University of
Nevada determined to be a writer.
She majored in English and
journalism and minored in history, receiving her B.A. in 1924. During her sophomore
year in college, Vera met
Ray Schultz, a commerce student who was to become her husband.
The fact that
Ray was
a Californian and
returning to
school in
Berkeley was
influential in
Vera's entering a masters
program in
English at
the University of
California. She
received a teaching
fellowship there and also got her first job as a reporter on the
Oakland Post Inquirer.
One of the Hearst chain, the Post
Inquirer had a
strict policy against hiring married
women. "William Randolph Hearst believed that a married
woman's place was in the home,"
Vera remembers. in spite
of this,
Vera and
Ray were married in 1926 and she continued to work for the paper
as "Miss Smith".
She became women's editor and
children's page editor and very involved with women's organizations such
as the League of Women Voters.
During this period Vera and Ray made their first trip to the Mill Valley
area of Marin County. She remembers it as a "sea of blue forget-me-nots and
iris". They fell
in love with the
area and Vera took
a two-month
leave of
absence from the paper to do creative writing while camping out
in Mill Valley. Deciding
this was where
they wanted
to live, the Schultz's
bought a lot on Ethel Avenue. In
1928, Vera resigned from the Post Inquirer and they began building their
first home, "Hollybush House".
For seven
years, until
1935, Vera worked for the
Mill Valley Superintendent of Schools
as district
secretary. Her first venture into politics
came at this time when she petitioned the Mill Valley City Council to
have a wading pool filled in Old Mill Park.
This led
to her
appointment to the city's
Parks and Recreation Commission.
Meanwhile she became active in the newly-formed
Marin branch of the League
of Women Voters, which launched an intensive study of Mill
Valley's city government. The League put
out a brochure entitled "Your
City and Its
Government" asking the
Mill Valley Council to call for election of a board
of freeholders to study
and improve government. The Council agreed and Vera was elected to the
fifteen-member board. The board then recommended
that a city manager form of
government be adopted by ordinance voted on by the people.
This was done and, in
1940, Mill Valley adopted the
form of government it has today.
As president
of the
Marin League of Women
Voters in 1940 and 1941, Vera also became active as resident lobbyist
for the state legislature at two
sessions of the California State Legislature in Sacramento,
in this capacity,
she studied and reported
on hundreds of bills introduced in the legislature and interviewed all 120 legislators as to
their stands on various issues. Vera and Ray's only
child, Joyce, was born in
1942 and for a time Vera's
civic activities dropped off.
In 1946, Vera decided to run for
the Mill Valley City Council.
Gaining 86%
of the
vote - the candidate receiving
the largest number of votes - she should
have been named mayor. But faced with the
prospect of
a woman mayor, the male
Council members quickly changed the rules.
This was Vera's first overt encounter with sexism.
At this
time, Vera
became active in the
movement to create a county hospital district.
When this was
successful, she served as co-chairman with
Roger Kent on the campaign
to raise bonds for the construction of Marin General Hospital.
When Vera's term on the Mill Valley City
Council ended in 1950, she
became a
candidate for the
California State Assembly, the first Marin
woman to
enter that
arena. She
received the Democratic Party's
nomination, but
lost the
election to the Republican incumbent,
Richard McCollister.
She learned many valuable
political lessons in this election and as a
result of her campaign, was urged by the editor of
the Mill Valley Record to
run for the County Board of Supervisors.
The June, 1952 ballot found Vera
Schultz' name listed twice - as a Kefauver delegate to the Democratic
National Convention and as a
candidate for County Supervisor
from the Third District. In
a field of six candidates Vera, the only woman, came in first.
She still faced
a "run-off"
election with
her nearest opponent, dairyman Stephen Balzan, in
November. She
returned from the Chicago
Democratic National Convention
to find that the losing
candidates in the June primary election had massed
their support behind Balzan.
A tough campaign lay
ahead. Although Vera won,
the election results were questioned, her opponent
demanding a recount. Vera
was triumphant, and
began an eight-year stay on the Marin County Board of
Supervisors. Vera had campaigned on an eight-point platform
which included adoption of
a county
administrator form of
government and construction of a county civic
center. Friends
and foes alike agree that she was a central figure in achieving
these ends - a principal architect of
the county's future.
She also achieved the following:
-
Creation
of a County Counsel's Office
-
Establishment
of a public works/road commissioner
-
Reservation
and development of Marin City
-
Development
of Richardson Bay master plan
-
Development
of Parks and Recreation Commission
-
Development
of a flood control plan
The
accomplishment which gives
her the most
satisfaction, however, was the selection of master architect
Frank Lloyd Wright to design the Marin County Civic
Center, it
became the last public
building designed by Wright and
is a world-renowned
landmark.
As Vera recalls, the accomplishment
of the Civic
Center was not easy. She
was opposed
every step of the way by
Supervisor William Fusselman and County Clerk
George Jones.
She lost her bid for re-election
in 1960 to J. Walter
Blair, who called the Civic Center an "expensive
luxury". Vera says this
defeat was "the cruelest
disappointment I have
ever had.
It followed thirteen years of service dedicated to the public
interest".
The
newly constituted Board of
Supervisors took office
in January, 1961, and
voted to stop
work on the Civic Center.
A civic uproar followed and the Board backtracked.
Then, when the new Board voted to abolish the County
Administrator's Office, the Marin Council for Civic Affairs came into
being to save the Civic Center. At
the same time a recall move against Blair began.
So, Vera was vindicated - Blair
was recalled
- the
first County Supervisor in the
50-year history of the state recall ordinance to be recalled; the vote to
scrap the administrator's
office was rescinded and
work on
the Civic Center
proceeded. Today the
magnificent Marin County Civic Center stands as a monument to one
woman's far-sightedness and tenacity.
As one reporter wrote, (speaking of Vera's many accomplishments
in public service) "she
hauled her county into the twentieth century".
In recent years, Vera Schultz'
activities have been curtailed by loss of vision.
However, she
maintains an
avid interest in politics
and civic
affairs and
is consulted
as a
"senior stateswoman" on many occasions.
In looking back over her long and fruitful life, Vera says:
"I
would like to be remembered as an American citizen who was born into an
era when there was no equality - or very little - for women, and would
like to have the women who come after me make it a point to inform
themselves of the history of the
suffrage movement, not only here but in England,
in found in 1950 when I tried to run for the Assembly that women
were totally disinterested in politics. And politics is the only route
through which to achieve change. The
only one. You must sit where you cast the vote in order to be really
effective."
Her personal
credo, adopted from the words of suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt in a speech to
women voters in 1920, is: "Women have suffered agony of soul that
you can never comprehend in
order that
you and
your daughters
may inherit political freedom.
Our hope has been that you
will aim higher than
your own selfish ambition to serve the common good."
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