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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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monument to his father and mother which had never been there before. It was put up because it was thought that it would look bad politically if it appeared that this rich son had never erected a monument over the graves of his father and mother. At any rate, a picture of Willkie and all his family was taken, standing and looking at the gravestone. That was supposed to mark him as a nice, simple, home town boy from Indiana who loved his parents and his home, all that kind of thing. I never knew whether he just put it up or not.

Certainly he had not been a home town boy. From the time he got away from Indiana he apparently never gave it another thought. He was called the “barefoot boy from Wall Street.” That was a good political phrase. He began right away making out that his heart had always been in Indiana, Iowa, and other such places, whereas all of his adult life he had been a very active and aggressive lawyer practicing in the business world, and had graduated to being the attorney for very big corporations and industries - Commonwealth & Southern, and others. He was known as a very able corporation lawyer.

He revealed himself as having a warm-hearted personality, which most people hadn't known. He had been a Democrat. To this day I don't know how it was he happened





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