Saturday, April 20, 2024
For her first day of campaigning door to door, Tonna Trumble donned a power dressing staple for professional women: a top with shoulder pads big enough for a linebacker.
The year was 1990, and shoulder pads were still a thing.
During the ‘80s, they were embraced by the likes of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and immortalized by Melanie Griffith in 1988’s “Working Girl.” The trend was seen as a way for women to compete with men by literally taking up more space.
The only space that Trumble, now Hitt, was interested in occupying was the district clerk’s office. The 29-year-old paralegal had written her thesis about that elected post. For some reason, the job fascinated her.
Women were winning elections back when Hitt entered the political arena, but she was nevertheless thankful that her opponent wasn’t a man.
If she lost, it would likely be because she was a Republican in a county full of Democrats, not because she whacked her head against a glass ceiling.
Hitt was faced with the formidable tasks of wooing Democrats away from her blue-party opponent and campaigning all over the county.
“It was tough,” she recalled of that election three decades ago when she and her mentor, Democratic Justice of the Peace George Smith, literally fought off dogs with big sticks.
Hitt won the race with 58% of the vote. In doing so she became the first Republican ever elected to a county-wide office in Hood County with a Democratic opponent.
The election was noteworthy in another sense as well: According to Hitt, it was when Hood County swung from blue to red. It is solidly red today.
Hitt has long since retired her shoulder pads, but she has not retired as Hood County’s district clerk. She plans one more run before doing that.
After winning the office in 1990, she won it seven more times. She had challengers in five of those elections.
During her first run, when she was “green as a gourd,” Hitt felt that some people paid little attention to her because of her gender. But over the years she has watched as other women have been elected or appointed to positions of authority.
“Judy Watson was elected JP, and then a couple more (women) and maybe a couple more the next election,” said Hitt, who has spoken to local civic organizations about women in politics.
Hitt’s longevity has given her a keen eye for what has changed in county government and what hasn’t.
Although Linda Steen served as county judge from 1998-2002, no woman has ever been elected county commissioner. At least three have tried.
Hitt suspects that some people still view county commissioners as men who operate road graders.
They don’t. County Road Ops does that under the Commissioners Court’s supervision.
These days commissioners oversee multi-million-dollar budgets and work with state and federal authorities on critical emergency responses.
Hood County might still have some residual gender inequalities, but there have been times in its history when it seemed ahead of its time.
Certainly some of its women have been.
AN ABLE WOMAN
At the turn of the 20th century, it was a man’s world, but Nellie Gray Robertson learned at a young age how to make her own way in it.
Born in 1894, Robertson’s father walked out on the family shortly after her birth, leaving his wife Arminda and six children destitute. Nellie’s mother depended on her older sons to help support the family.
Poverty did not deter Robertson from pursuing an education. After graduating from Granbury High School in 1912 she headed to law school at the University of Texas at Austin.
At that time, there were no women in Texas who were licensed attorneys. The first women to pass the bar exam did so the following year, in 1913.
Even though she had to put herself through school, Robertson made time to serve as an officer in every women’s organization on campus except one, according to local attorney Lori Kaspar, who once wrote an article about Robertson for the Texas Bar Blog and has played her in reenactments.
After earning her law degree, Robertson returned to Hood County and in 1918 ran for county attorney. She was just 24.
Women in Texas were allowed to vote in party primaries at the time Robertson ran for public office, but it would be another two years before the passage of the 19th Amendment would make it legal for women to vote in all elections nationwide.
The young lawyer in skirts was carried to an overwhelming victory by Hood County’s male voters. They gave Robertson all but two of the 448 votes cast, according to Kaspar.
The election made Robertson the first female county attorney for Hood County and also for the state of Texas. (Kaspar became the second female county attorney for Hood County when she was elected in 2012. She served one term and is now in private practice.)
Robertson ultimately served three terms as county attorney.
In 1925, she again achieved notoriety – and captured national headlines – when Gov. Pat Neff appointed her to serve as the first female chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court. He also appointed three other women as justices.
The all-female panel was appointed to hear a case that involved a tract of land owned by the Woodmen of the World. Almost every male lawyer and judge, including all three members of the sitting court, were members of that all-male organization.
Neff felt that “the only sensible thing to do was to appoint an all-woman court,” according to Kaspar.
The national press dubbed the move “petticoat justice.”
Kaspar wrote in her 2014 article that not everyone was pleased by the governor’s groundbreaking move.
“The clerk of the court reportedly refused to ‘play nursemaid to a bunch of women’ and declared he would go fishing,” her piece stated.
Robertson and one of the other women ultimately discovered that they were a few months shy of meeting the seven-year requirement for practicing law. They were disqualified from serving because of it.
In her personal life, Robertson enjoyed playing tennis, baseball, football, golf and poker. During her tenure as county attorney, she lived with her mother.
In her article, Kaspar related a time when Arminda, annoyed that her daughter had arrived home late for dinner several nights in a row, marched to the courthouse, where she found her daughter playing poker with a group of men.
Arminda scooped the money and poker chips into her apron and marched right back home with them.
“According to Arminda, that cured Nellie from being late for supper,” Kaspar wrote.
Robertson may have never grown too old for her mother’s discipline, but her prowess in a male-dominated profession earned her respect a well as a place in history.
A headline for an article about her in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram read “Woman serves ably as Hood Co. attorney.”
Robertson, ever the independent woman, never married. She died in 1955 from complications of diabetes, and is buried in the Granbury Cemetery.
In 2015, a historical marker honoring her was dedicated at the Hood County courthouse.
A LIFE IN PARENTHESES
According to local historian Karen Nace, there were a couple of times when a Commissioners Court appointed a widow to serve out her husband’s unexpired term, thereby providing her with a means of support.
It was that act of kindness that resulted in Hood County having its first, and so far only, female sheriff.
The first incident of a Commissioners Court appointing a widow was in February 1908. Laura Williams was appointed to serve as both county and district clerk following the death of her husband, Thomas Jefferson “TJ” Williams.
At the time of his death, two of the couple’s four children were still living at home.
The other incident happened 40 years later, in 1948.
Oscar L. Campbell, the county’s sheriff as well as its tax assessor-collector, had been elected to a third term but was not in good health. He died shortly before completing his second term, leaving his wife Celia, 10 biological children, and a niece and two nephews that he and Celia had taken in after their mother passed away.
As was typical of that era, Celia had spent their married life running the household.
Under her supervision, the family produced all of its own food, including meat, on the Campbell homestead in Lipan. Celia churned every day, and sewed clothing for every member of her large family.
Her toil came with no paycheck, though, so when Oscar died, she and the children were left with no income.
To help her, the Commissioners Court appointed Celia to serve as sheriff and also tax assessor-collector for the remainder of her husband’s second term, which was about a month and a half.
On Jan.1, 1949, a newly sworn Commissioners Court (with the exception of one commissioner) voted on whether to allow the widow to serve out what would have been her husband’s third term, or shift the appointment to Dick Umphress.
The vote was a tie, and County Judge R.S. “Dolph” Long broke it. The job went to Umphress.
Long’s vote in that matter proved costly.
When he and his daughter later campaigned in Lipan, they were met with a chilly reception. Long ended up losing his bid for re-election.
As for Celia, she was offered a consolation prize: the job of jail matron. She later thwarted an escape attempt, alerting a constable and the deputy sheriff after hearing two male prisoners sawing on the bars of their cell.
Relatives supplemented Celia’s modest pay, though at that point there was one less mouth in her home to feed.
Oscar and Celia’s 15-yearold son, feeling that he was too much of a financial burden on his mother, disappeared. Years passed before the family learned that he had joined the Army.
Celia died in 1980 at the age of 89. Her obituary listed her as Mrs. Oscar Campbell. Her own name, Celia, was entrapped by parentheses.
In a 1984 HCN article about Celia’s brief time as sheriff, one of her daughters made a comment about her that was perhaps indicative of how society oftentimes diminishes the contribution of homemakers.
“She had never worked,” said the daughter.
LIVES IN PUBLIC SERVICE
There were a couple of other times in Hood County’s early years when women were appointed to posts, but not because they were widows in financial straits.
In September 1921, the Commissioners Court appointed Emma Morris to fill the unexpired term of District Clerk Roy Hightower, who resigned to take another job.
Morris’ father, Burr Morris, had served five terms as sheriff.
The young woman had assisted the county clerk and was considered “well qualified” for the district clerk job, according to Nace.
In 1923, Morris won the position outright through an election.
Annie Mae Holmes became the county’s first female treasurer in 1925. She ran for that seat.
According to Nace, records show that Holmes’ first husband died of the flu in 1918, leaving her with six children. In 1920, at age 25, she and her kids were living with her parents, and she had no job.
Nace said that Holmes appears to have run for the seat because she needed income to support her children. She eventually remarried, but not until 1936.
Holmes served as treasurer until 1937 and was succeeded by Virginia Mitchell, who served more than 10 years in that post.
Mitchell, in turn, was succeeded by another woman – Clarice Lanham.
According to Nace, more women have served as county treasurer than in any other elected office in the county.
In January 1978, 19-year-old Granbury High School graduate Rita Cargill became the youngest justice of the peace in the state when she was appointed to replace George Cook, who resigned the Precinct 3 position to take another job. Cargill had worked in county government, including in Cook’s office.
According to an article in the HCN, the teenager’s appointment received “national and world publicity by the news media.”
Cargill remains the youngest peace justice in Hood County’s history. She resigned the post after six months to allow Democrat George Smith to take office early. He had won the primary and was unopposed on the November ballot.
Smith served as Hitt’s mentor during her first district clerk race in 1990 and walked with her as she knocked on doors.
Supporting a candidate of the opposition party got him kicked off the Democratic ballot when he ran for reelection that year, Hitt said, but he ran as a write-in candidate and won.
LONGEST-SERVING
Currently, women occupy six of the county’s 22 elected posts.
In addition to Hitt, those women are: County Clerk Katie Lang; Tax Assessor-Collector Andrea Ferguson; Treasurer Leigh Ann McCoy; Precinct 3 Constable Kathy Jividen (who is retiring at the end of the year); and Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace Kathryn Gwinn.
Hitt holds the distinction of being the longest-serving female elected official in the county.
In September of last year, she received a letter from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton thanking her for the role her office played that year in helping to collect more than $578,000 in child support payments in Hood County.
“I love what I’m doing,” the longtime district clerk said. “I’m never bored with this job because there’s always something new every two years. Every time the Legislature meets, there’s something new.”
Hitt’s responsibilities are also impacted by the county’s rapid growth. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Hood County is the ninth fastest-growing county in the country.
Despite the breadth of her responsibilities, Hitt noted that she earns less than commissioners who are elected to represent just one precinct.
She earns $72,955 while commissioners are paid $77,043.
n her view, there is progress still to be made in county government.
“I still don’t think we have quite the respect that a man has at all,” Hitt said about women in local government. “And you would think in this day and time we would.”
kcruz@hcnews.com | 817-573-7066, ext. 267
During her first run, when she was “green as a gourd,” Hitt felt that some people paid little attention to her because of her gender. But over the years she has watched as other women have been elected or appointed to positions of authority.
