Alice Rankin discusses life with Ron

In Huckleberries Gone Wireless this week, D.F. Oliveria reminisces with Alice Rankin, the grande dame of the North Idaho conservative movement and widow of property tax reform activist Ron Rankin. You can read the entire interview this morning on Oliveria’s blog, Huckleberries Online.

D.F. Oliveria: How long were you and Ron married?

Alice Rankin: 55 1/2 years (until his death on Oct. 12, 2004).

DFO: What attracted you to Ron?

AR: His persistence. He was so gallant and southern gentlemanly type. It wasn’t immediate. I was going steady with his best friend when I met him. He grew on me. It did ruin the beautiful friendship between Ron and (my boyfriend). It came to blows.

DFO: Aren’t your birthdays back-to-back?

AR: Yes. He was born on April 19, and I was born on April 20. He loved being born on Patriots’ Day. For the first 30 years of our marriage, he’d be the one who had the cake. All my candles would be put on what remained of the cake the next day. However, he never forgot my birthday.

DFO: Weren’t you the one who got Ron involved in Republican politics?

AR: I was a conservative Republican when we got married. My parents were Taft Republicans. His father was an FDR Democrat. I didn’t learn this until later. In California then, you register by parties. When we registered, I was asked my party, and I said Republican. Ron said Democrat. I almost fell over.

DFO: Why did you move to Idaho (in 1965)?

AR: We wanted a quieter form of life. I was (U.S. Sen.) George Murphy’s Orange County campaign coordinator. Ron was out speaking almost every night. Our kids (five of them, ages 4 to 14) were suffering.

DFO: What was your role in your domestic partnership?

AR: Ron saw the big picture and was the strategist. I was the detail person – the researcher, the fill-in-the-blank person. We complemented each other well. I didn’t have the recall he did. But he missed nuances. I’d prompt him about detail.

DFO: What’s worse? A moderate Republican? Or a Democrat?

AR: Ron’s philosophy was that Democrats were honestly portraying themselves the way they believed. He could get along with a liberal Democrat easier than a Republican who was flying under false colors.

DFO: What would be one thing that people would find surprising about you and Ron?

AR: Maybe that he was a logger at one time. The day after Father’s Day 1973, he was working at Fighting Creek, felling a tree when it hit another one that had been partially cut. He was hit on top of his safety helmet by a big limb of the second tree and got a spinal column injury. He was in the hospital for three weeks. He couldn’t move his arms and legs. The doctors thought he was going to be paralyzed. But he was determined to walk again. He did.

DFO: Can you tell me the story about meeting Ron at the ship when he returned from the Korean War?

AR: I was standing at the docks with my youngest child and Ron’s parents wondering how many hours it’d be before Ron got off the ship. There were thousands of sailors. No one had come down that gangplank yet. Then, I saw him salute the sergeant of guards at the gangplank, throw his duffle bag to a buddy, and come down that gangplank first. He grabbed me and planted a kiss on me like that famous war photo. The press was taking pictures of us, wondering who this famous person was. He was only a corporal. He was goal-oriented. When he wanted something, no one stood in his way.

DFO: Didn’t you run for office once?

AR: Yes (as an Independent against state Rep. Freeman Duncan in the 1990 general election). He was a Republican who voted Democrat. I hadn’t been on the front lines for a while. Ron just about fainted when I told him that I was willing to run. I got about 8,000 votes. (Freeman Duncan) got pretty upset with me.

DFO: Did you ever feel overshadowed by Ron?

AR: Never. We were halves of the same whole.