Now That's Political Dedication

[mabfan]

I found this item in "The Classes" section of the March-April issue of Harvard Magazine, and thought I'd share it:

***
Class of 1926
Dorothy "Dot" (Shorey) Estabrook Holbrook celebrated her centenary on January 9 at Heartland Place, the assisted-living facility in Epsom, NH where she retired three years ago. She admits that the "next hundred will be harder." Always interested in liberal causes and advancing women's rights -- she became the first woman Realtor in Saugus, Mass. -- she is proud to have cast her first presidential vote for W.E.B. DuBois and her latest for John Kerry.
***

The only thing that confuses me here is that I don't recall DuBois being a presidential candidate. Assuming that Ms. Holbrook voted in the 1920 election, perhaps she meant to say she voted for Eugene V. Debs.

Still, that's an incredible voting streak. I'm proud to say that I voted in my first presidential election when I was 18, in 1988, and so far I have voted in five of them. I hope I get to vote in as many as she did.

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

Maybe she wrote DuBois in?

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Possibly. I've emailed Harvard Magazine's Class Notes to ask for more information.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

That was the same year I was able to cast my first presidential vote (I was 19), and I voted absentee from Spain. Didn't seem to help Dukakis much, though.

But I got to tell him that story on my flight to WisCon last year. He was in my row, on the window (I was on the aisle), and I was good and left him alone until we landed, when I shook his hand and told him his was the first presidential vote I'd cast. He thanked me and said, "If there'd been more people like you, the country would be in a much better situation right now."

The guy sitting between us had no clue who he was until I told him. :)

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I met Dukakis in 2001 and told him that I had the privilege of voting for him in my first presidential election. I then told him that I was running for Brookline Town Meeting and about to be elected, since the race was uncontested. He told me to give him a call when I became governor. I asked him what he meant, and he explained that his first elected office was in Brookline Town Meeting.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

LOL! Well, I hope you're good at time management, because I suspect it's hard to find time to write short stories when you're the governor.