Oral Histories

O’Connor House Today is February 29, 2016. We are interviewing Brian Day O’Connor at the O’Connor House in Tempe, Arizona. What are your earliest memories of this house? Brian O’Connor Oh, this house. We had a little wading pool, just outside the living room, dining area here. And it probably measured, maybe, eight feet across by about 16 feet long. And a relative of ours, our plumber, who is a relative, wonderful fellow, Phil Billingsley had created a really interesting fountain and sculpture that was in the middle. And that was, we had no swimming pool back then. So that was our little wading pool when we were that tall, we would wade in that little pool. And then from there, just all the fun times we had as a family. I mean, my parents for many Halloweens, my mom dressing up as a witch, my dad dressing up as a hunchback, and, and then the three boys, we would, we would have a, a haunted room down the hall, and we’d bring all kinds of kids through here. And so, just lots of fun things like that. O’Connor House So what was it like living here when your mother became the senate majority leader? Brian O’Connor Well, I did some school visits. When I was in grade school was when my mom made it as majority leader in the senate. And so we would do some some grade school visits. She was always good about making sure her boys actually got to see things firsthand. And why not include our classes with that. And then, relative to the house, of course, there were always lots of people

Carl Kunasek My name is Carl, C-A-R-L, and I usually insert my middle initial J, and last name Kunasek, K-U-N-A-S-E-K. Today’s date is November 13 2014. O’Connor House Terrific. All right. Well, I just want you to know that your granddaughter Elizabeth worked with us to develop some of these questions, so keep that in mind. Tell us, how do you know Sandra Day O’Connor? Carl Kunasek Well, she was in the legislature when I was elected. My election was in 1972. She was in the senate, I think she had been there. I don’t, I really don’t know when she was first elected. But I know she was in the Senate up until about 1976 or 78, something along that line. Then she was appointed to the Superior Court in Arizona. She had been in the Senate all those years and was in Senate leadership. Unfortunately I never got to know her that well while she was in the Senate. I was in the House at that time. And of course, we had separate responsibilities. I don’t think the committee she was on in the Senate ever paralleled any of the committees I was on in the House. I, in the House, since I’m a pharmacist, was on the Health Committee and I had worked in the city of Mesa on various committees. So I was on the Government Committee. I was also on the Transportation Committee. And so I was never on Education, Judiciary, and so, if there was any overlap in committee work, I was, I do not recall that. O’Connor House Now, what was your impression of then-Senator O’Connor when you started working with

Michael Rooney October 30th, 2014. And I feel as if I’m in a deposition, I’m feeling as if this is the start, but, but my name is Michael Rooney. And I’m here to answer and talk about the O’Connor House project. O’Connor House Alright, so tell us about the first time you personally met Sandra Day O’Connor. Michael Rooney Well, the first time I met Justice O’Connor was probably 30, 35 years ago. I was a young cub lawyer, and I had a chance to appear before her all by myself, ex parte, in her office, which was in the old, old, old courthouse, downstairs in her chambers. In those days, if a lawsuit was filed and you didn’t answer within the prescribed time, 20 days, the case was over and it was done. And there was nothing you could do. So if you missed the deadline, and you had a really good reason that you missed the deadline, then you could ask for an order to excuse you from that judgment that had already taken place. And if you had good cause, the courts would allow that. Well, as the young cub lawyer, one of our clients had missed the deadline, and I was sent down to explain the reasons to the judge, who turned out to be Justice O’Connor, and I recall being a little intimidated. It was in her chambers, it was a old, old, old courthouse, old courtroom. It looked like something out of the 40s or 50s. And there I was in Justice O’Connor’s chambers, just the two of us. And I recall giving my argument, and I recall she looking over the desk at me, peering right at me, listened

Gay Wray Gay Firestone Wray, G-A-Y, last name W-R-A-Y. October the 28th, 2014. O’Connor House All right, so, to get started, tell us about the time when you first met Sandra Day O’Connor. Gay Wray I can’t remember the first time. Our family moved here in the early 60s. And I remember playing tennis with Sandra. I remember mostly the children going to school together, her three, my three at different ages and stages. And I remember the ranching part of it. My then-husband went into ranching and agriculture and cattle. And Sandra, of course, is exactly where she’d come from. So during the 60s and the 70s, we would meet once in a while for dinners for, for benefits, for school activities. And Sandra was just one of the girls. A very good girl, because she was a good tennis player, good golfer, good fisherman. She was an everything girl. She went to, of course to, the state government. So we were all very reverent. I met a lot of people had gone to school with her. And so that’s how I knew her best.

Then, in 19, early 80s, Sandra, of course, was tapped by Ronald Reagan to go to the court. And that’s when she called me seriously and said, “I need you to take a position on the Smithsonian National Board, which I am on and have to give up because of my Court responsibility.” More importantly, I said, “Oh, Sandra, I’m not sure I’m the person for that.” She said, “You are.” And because I had seen her on TV, doing such a great job with the Senate hearings, I said, “Okay, I’ll do anything

Lucia Howard Lucia Fakonas Howard. October 28, 1914–1914, 2014! (laughs) 1914. O’Connor House Alright, so Lucia, tell us about the first time you met Sandra Day O’Connor. Lucia Howard I believe the first time I actually met her was at a meeting of the Arizona Women Lawyers Association, which was yet to be formed. It was 1976. And I and maybe two or three other women had come from out of state. I had lived here, you know, before, but I had gone to school out of state to practice law. And we were really surprised that there was no Women’s Bar, there was no women’s section of the Arizona Bar, we were told that the Arizona Bar didn’t want a women’s section of the Arizona Bar. And so we decided to invite all of the women lawyers that we could find, to have lunch to talk about, shouldn’t we have some kind of a women’s association? And we invited Justice O’Connor, who was not on the Supreme Court, obviously, then. We invited a couple other women, jurists, we invited a number of women lawyers, and out of all of that, we all fit into the back room of a Chinese restaurant on Camelback and 16th Street.

And we talked about how we would get started in having an organization where, not that the law practice was any different, but it, we were such a minority in the practicing bar, that it was just good to be able to meet every once in a while and talk about things that we were encountering.

And Justice O’Connor was one of our first members to show up. And she regaled us with these stories

O’Connor House So Mr. Day, tell us what was it like growing up on the Lazy B Ranch with your sister? Alan Day I had two sisters. I was actually closer in age and closer in school and closer to and than I was Sandra because Sandra was 10 years, my senior and so When we were in first grade Sandra was in 10th. And so we were all together every summer. And so we were we were not strangers but we were not. We didn’t do that much together. I was the the baby of the family and the little brother that everybody kind of took care of and I thought I was a tough little cowboy and didn’t want to be taken care of. But Sandra was always busy with all kinds of projects. She always was self starter and had a number of things going and and then quite often would have her girlfriends from El Paso come up and spending time so it would be Radford girls school for a while at the at the ranch every summer but we all, we all lived in the same house and ate at the same table and, you know, shared, shared our parents who were pretty unusual and had quite good parents. My dad was the patriarch of his empire. And my mother was the sweetest, just most supportive, loving mother that you could ask for.

So they gave us a very loving good cocoon, if you would, and, but kind of the rules were that if you thought you were big enough to do something on the ranch, then you were free to do it. And so a lot different than parenting today. Give you an example. If you were big enough to saddle your own horse get

Ruth McGregor I’m Ruth McGregor. And it is September 22, 2014. O’Connor House So, Justice McGregor, tell us about the first time you met Sandra Day O’Connor. Ruth McGregor The first time I saw Sandra Day O’Connor, I didn’t actually meet her. She was the majority leader of the Senate. And she chaired an evening session for, on the, a hearing on the Equal Rights Amendment. And we went down, I wasn’t even a law student yet. And saw her convene that meeting and manage the meeting and left so impressed with this woman we had just seen. Then about five years later, I was hired to work as a summer associate at Fennemore Craig. And John O’Connor was a partner there. And the O’Connors were always very good about having new lawyers and summer associates come to their house and, of course, entertain and get to know all of us. So that was the next time that I met her. O’Connor House Wonderful. So tell us about your time at Fennemore Craig and how that segued to the Supreme Court and being her first clerk.

Ruth McGregor Okay. Alright. It’s amazing how decisions that you can’t foresee will matter in your later life. I went to work at Fennemore Craig as the first woman that they had hired, and really liked all of the people at the firm. They had a practice of assigning one of the senior partners as a mentor for each new associate. And it so happened that John O’Connor was assigned to be my mentor. And so I worked a lot with John. And as the years went by, of course, we got to know all

Barbara Barrett My name is Barbara Barrett, and I’m proud to be associated with the O’Connor House.

O’Connor House Great. Ambassador Barrett, tell us about the first time you met Sandra Day O’Connor. Barbara Barrett Meeting Sandra Day O’Connor was one of those life-changing occasions. But I never, I didn’t know it then, but what a big impact this woman has had on me. I was a student at Arizona State University. I was in my senior year, and they started some new program that year for university students, mostly graduate students to work as interns at the Arizona State Legislature. It was an experiment, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to continue or not. I was working at the time, I had, had a summer internship at the highway department. Back then there wasn’t a transportation department. And they had asked me to apply for the internship. And when I was accepted in the internship, I continued on the payroll of the highway department, and they asked me to go to watch a topic. Most interns work for a person. I was asked to work for a topic. The topic was the possible creation of a Department of Transportation, taking what had been the highway department, moving buses and trucks and cars to a transportation department. Moving people and packages and, and the product being not cars but packages and people.

And so I was asked to manage the legislation on the creation of a Department of Transportation. So, I was accepted into the legislative internship program. I was assigned

O’Connor House We are interviewing Senator Alan Stephens on September 5, 2014. First of all, what years did you serve in the legislature? Alan Stephens I served from 1985 to 1992.

O’Connor House And tell us how you met Sandra Day O’Connor. Alan Stephens Actually, of course, she left the legislature long before I came on board. And so I, when I first met her, she was actually doing a presentation at Valley Leadership. I was in the first class. And she and her husband, John, were in charge of the way they they ran the program. There was a full day program every once a month on Friday. And so one of the Fridays, she and her husband basically ran a session on Arizona government civic participation, some of the things that she’s now engaged in. O’Connor House So what was your impression of her at the time? Alan Stephens Well, obviously, this was before she had been appointed to the Court. But she had a quite a history at the legislature and I think she finished as senate majority leader and then became a judge. And so she was, and she was on the, I believe the, the court here in Maricopa County during that period, and she was, she had a very fine reputation. O’Connor House Did you have a chance to interact with her any capacity? Alan Stephens Just, you know, as one of the 40 people in the class. But her husband, her husband also was very active. And he was a senior partner, founding partner, I guess, with O’Connor Cavanagh, which was a major law firm here at the time. O’Connor