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Jurist broke tradition for law career, too

July 12, 1981

ITEM DETAILS

Type: Newspaper article
Author: New York Times
Source: The Arizona Republic
Collection: The Kauffman-Henry Collection
Date is approximate: No

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New York Times

Judge O’Connor was born Sandra Day on March 26, 1930, in El Paso, Texas, but she spent her earliest years on her family’s 162,000-acre ranch, the Lazy B, which her grandfather founded a century ago near Duncan in southeastern Arizona.

Because there were no schools in Duncan that suited her parents, Harry and Ada Mae Day, as a young girl Judge O’Connor was sent to live with her maternal grandmother in El Paso and attend school there.

She did well, graduating from high school at age 16. She then entered Stanford University, with which she has maintained a lifelong affiliation, most recently as a trustee.

At a time when most women at Stanford were majoring in education, Judge O’Connor won a bachelor’s degree in economics, awarded with great distinction, and a law degree. She obtained both in six years.

Her sophomore roommate, Marilyn Brown, remembers her as a “very shy” young woman who spoke with the soft accents of western Texas but who seemed more than equal to university life.

…

Although Judge O’Connor’s biography lists her as an Episcopalian, a
friend said neither she nor her husband are active churchgoers.

…

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