BOOK REVIEW
By ANNA J. MERRITT

A legislative woman speaks on her past

Bernice T. Van der Vries Memoir,
prepared for the Illinois Legislative Council by the Oral History Office of Sangamon State University, Springfield (December 1980), 3 vols., 421 pp.

STUDENTS of Illinois political history owe a debt of gratitude to the Illinois Legislative Council's General Assembly Oral History Program for making available the transcripts of a series of interviews with noted legislators from the recent past. To date three have appeared: the first was with Martin B. Lohmann of Pekin who served in both the House and the Senate between 1922 and 1953. As this review is being prepared on the second, a third set has appeared focusing on former Rep. Walter J. Reum, who served from 1952 to 1962.

The Bernice T. Van der Vries Memoir is the result of 20 taping sessions, in itself a giant effort. But Horace Waggoner, the interviewer, did more than simply turn on a tape recorder. Time and again he raises thought-provoking questions, reintroduces material from earlier sessions for clarification, steers the discussion in new and profitable directions. Moreover, the enterprise was conducted with a great deal of humor and frequent notations (in parentheses) of laughter.

Bernice May Taber was born in Holton, Kansas on February 14, 1890 ("I'm a Valentine") to Otis Gaius, a banker, farmer and member of the Board of County Commissioners, and Ella May Thomas, described by her daughter as "very active in church affairs. . . . head of Red Cross in the county. She was quite an organizer." Soon after entering the University of Kansas, Bernice Taber met John Van der Vries, a mathematics professor. They were married in 1910. From the advent of World War I until his death in 1936, Mr. Van der Vries worked with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, first in Washington, D.C. and later in Chicago. Mrs. Van der Vries was active in the League of Women Voters, was elected to the Winnetka Village Council, and then in 1934 was asked to run for the Illinois House seat being vacated by Mrs. Harold Ickes, whose husband had been appointed secretary of the interior. During her 22 years in the legislature, Mrs. Van der Vries was especially active in the areas of health, welfare, municipalities and interstate governmental cooperation. After her retirement in 1956 she was named to the Chicago Transit Authority Board and was a lobbyist for several special interest groups.

Two themes that run through the transcript provide a measure of the woman, wife, mother and legislator, Bernice Van der Vries: her strong sense of fair play and reasoned judgment, and her belief that women have an active part to play in our society. As she says in her concluding remarks, "My forebears were pioneers in the Midwest. . . . They recognized the need for better living than in covered wagons. They founded towns and worked for their betterment. This drifted down through the decades to me."

This sense of destiny propelled her into the political arena and shaped her legislative interests. Surely it was also this sense of destiny that helped her overcome the very real limitations placed on women in politics as well as her own frequently mentioned sense of inadequacy. An early encounter is suggestive:

I don't think our attorney, although he always was friendly enough, really approved of a woman going to Springfield. . . . He said to me, "Well, it's fine that you got elected but you will really never know what happens there because it's all done in some little room with a small group of people. You'll never know what's going on." And I said, well, I'd try to learn and I said, "I can tell you one thing. I will have a clearer mind in the morning than some of those people who were working in those small rooms."

This three-volume memoir stands as a shining tribute to a great lady, and it is to be hoped that a future history of the state will use it to place her contributions into the greater context of events that have shaped the lives of all Illinois citizens.

Anna J. Merritt is the editor and a staff associate at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois, Urbana. She is also a member of the Urbana School Board.

August 1981 | Illinois Issues | 5