Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 17, 1993 TAG: 9310170150
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CRITZ LENGTH: Long
Here at the base of the Blue Ridge, where the road dips and twists like a ride at the county fair and the fall air is tinged with the scent of apples, some longtime friends are as likely to remember Mary Sue Terry's first statewide political campaign as her last.
The year was 1964. The Beatles were hot. Villager blouses and A-line shirts were in, and at tiny Hardin Reynolds Memorial School, the eldest of Nannie Ruth and Nat Terry's three girls was running for statewide secretary of the Beta Club.
It was a family affair. Mary Sue enlisted support at Patrick County's largest school, Stuart High, and set up an organization. Her mother - who taught chemistry, trigonometry, senior English and anything else Hardin Reynolds needed to keep its accreditation - typed out letters to Beta Club advisers on her Underwood. Nat Terry worked contacts he'd made as principal and agriculture teacher.
Mary Sue won - a moment as astounding to some as her later victories: student body president at the Westhampton College of the University of Richmond, member of the House of Delegates, attorney general, and - perhaps - governor on Nov. 2.
Three decades later, Terry's arena has changed; her techniques have not. She remains methodical, careful, organized - qualities that led her to pace-setting statewide wins in 1985 and 1989 and turned a rural schoolgirl, one of two students in her high school class to attend college, into the second woman in the nation's history to be a state's top lawyer - its attorney general.
For the first time, however, that planning does not appear to be enough. Once considered a shoo-in for governor, Terry is locked in a close contest with Republican George Allen.
Part of the problem, analysts say, is that the tightly controlled public demeanor that has served Terry well strikes many voters as cold. While she may score high on trust and competence, what is missing is the passion, the improvisation, the spark of genius - even whimsy - that could ignite imaginations and form a bond.
The criticism puzzles Terry's close friends. Richard Rogers, a former law partner in Stuart, says his image of Terry is in blue jeans, ordering people around her kitchen - somebody make the salad, somebody else cut the meat - her whinny-like laugh rising over the din, the face that can be stern and frowning on television now smiling and relaxed.
Others recall how she visited day-by-day the bedside of a young attorney who had cancer, how she gives engraved Bibles as a personal gift, how she dotes on her niece and four nephews, how she resists speaking ill of people behind closed doors.
But the private side is closely held.
That is perhaps because Terry is an acknowledged introvert - far from shy or unconfident, but happiest in small groups, comfortable even alone, puttering in the back yard or recording personal reflections on the word processor in her cozy, straight-out-of-Southern-Living home in Richmond.
Perhaps the image stems in part from a mistrust of the media that is deep - and, at some levels, mutual. Reporters have created a one-dimensional sense of who she is, Terry says.
And perhaps it is the result of 20 years on a political tightrope in which to be too much or too little of a stereotypical woman is to risk a fall.
In the media, "I tend to come across as humorless, rather clinical . . . the personality equivalent of monosyllabic," Terry said recently as she sat in a living room alive with patterned fabrics, framed family photos and fresh flowers. "I'm not. I'm really a very warm, caring, interesting person with a sense of humor."
Of all the adjectives routinely applied to Terry, "cautious" is her least favorite. "I wish you would take that word `cautious' and drop it over the bridge," she said, even though moments later, after carefully screening her response to a question, she burst into laughter. "I guess I'm too cautious," she said.
Terry's complaint is that "caution, as it's applied to me, has always been a pejorative. . . . I feel like I've spent my whole life fighting stereotypes," in this case the idea that women are timid.
"I find it absolutely incredulous that people would look at a 46-year-old woman from rural Virginia, being the second woman in the history of the country elected attorney general, and think of her as cautious. It blows my mind.
"If I have a chance to make a thoughtful decision, I'm going to make a thoughtful decision. . . . But I'm not a processor by nature. I'm a" - she snaps her fingers - "by nature. The challenge for me is to make sure that I don't arrive at premature cloture on an issue."
This is not to say, Terry adds more softly, that she may not at times be too remote, too impatient, even on occasion too cautious. But it also is wrong not to credit her with growth, she said.
"There are some old tapes and there's some validity to 'em, but you know, I'm a different. . . . You know, you unfold, I unfold."
The starting point for that evolution is Critz, a rural crossroads a couple of miles off U.S. 58, about 20 miles west of Martinsville. Before the Depression, Critz boasted five stores, a bank (Terry's grandfather was the president) and a Danville & Western railroad stop. By the time Mary Sue and her sisters came along, the town had dwindled to a couple of dozen residents, a store or two, and Hardin Reynolds Memorial School.
It is the sort of setting that once routinely spawned Virginia statewide candidates. With urban areas now dominating the electoral landscape, Terry could be among the last of a breed.
She spent her first half-dozen years living in an apartment in one of the school's buildings; then the family built a white, ranch-style home on a hillside outside town. The 500-acre farm and water-powered mill that the Terrys ran when they were not teaching school or coaching basketball or helping their daughters show horses has been in the family for more than a century.
The parents were acknowledged workaholics, and all three girls say they have strained in adulthood to leaven similar tendencies.
"It's just a lifestyle when you do two jobs," Terry said. "The business was a real struggle. Mama did the books, she had us, she had teaching, and the cows and pigs on weekends. It never ended. . . . It took a while for my sisters and me to realize that not everyone lived that way."
At haying time, Mary Sue drove the tractor and Ruthie (now a certified public accountant in Martinsville) and Sally Ann (an elementary school principal in Henry County) tossed bales on the wagon. Sunday mornings, Mary Sue helped her father clean out the pig house. The girls mowed the acre-plus lawn without a riding mower. And they obeyed - mostly - a legion of 1950s-style rules.
"You didn't sleep late on Saturday mornings. You didn't watch cartoons. You didn't eat sugar. You only got one glass of juice," Sally Ann Rodgers recalled. "We had fun, but we had it on our own."
Social life revolved mostly around the white-steepled Critz Baptist Church, school and, for the younger girls, horse shows. All three played basketball - Mary Sue was the aggressive guard, Ruthie the star shooter and Sally Ann the ball handler - and the school won district championships seven of the eight years a Terry girl was in high school.
In a painting of the family farm commissioned by Mary Sue for her den, Nannie Ruth Terry - who died in 1986 - is pulling weeds. As a gardener, she grew vegetables, not flowers. A pretty woman whose first-born inherited her vibrant brown eyes, she had little time in later life for frivolity. Her waist-length hair, which turned white when she was in her 40s, was always worn plaited and pinned on the back of her head. She loved books, but her daughters can scarcely remember her sitting down to read.
"Mama always overdid it," her namesake, Ruthie Dickerson, recalls. "Sometimes she'd work so hard she'd get irritable. . . . She was not a friend-friend, like mothers on TV."
What she was, her daughters and others say, was extraordinarily kind, devoted to her community and its youth. She would spend hours at the typewriter, pecking out recommendations for promising students or searching out offspring of Hardin Reynolds, the father of North Carolina tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds.
Nannie Ruth Terry is credited with almost single-handedly saving the Reynolds homeplace in Critz, which has been restored and is at the center of a research station operated by Virginia Tech. Her appeals to the Reynolds family also produced a $100,000 gift for construction of a state-of-the-art gymnasium at Hardin Reynolds School in the 1950s.
"When she saw a need, she was very persistent," Rodgers said.
If Nannie Ruth Terry was viewed as the backbone of the family, Rodgers recalled that Nat Terry "ruled the roost." An avid reader with a wry sense of humor, Terry - now 80 - had strong ideas about discipline, order and his daughters' futures. His prescription was that each should get a teaching certificate, specializing in math.
Ruthie and Sally Ann at least started in that direction; Mary Sue rebelled. The civil disorders of the 1960s bypassed Critz but the generational gap did not. Ruthie recalls that Mary Sue's decision to enter law school (lawyer had come in second only to mortician on a test gauging Mary Sue's aptitude) caused a family firestorm. Mary Sue prevailed.
Both the University of Richmond and the University of Virginia in the 1960s were havens from the national upheaval. The Westhampton College basketball team, which Terry joined, still played in belted jumpers. Gum-chewing during games was an unladylike taboo.
Jim Raper, editor of the University of Richmond student newspaper during part of Terry's tenure as student body president at Westhampton, recalled their first meeting at a faculty-student retreat. He was surprised that Terry was sitting with the faculty, and that she seemed to take personally his criticisms of the school.
"She seemed to be one of them; she even looked like one of them," said Raper, a former managing editor of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star in Norfolk. At that early stage of life, "I found her totally without humor."
Others who spent time with Terry in less formal settings recall a different side.
"If you were anywhere that Mary Sue was going to be, you knew you were going to have fun," said Elizabeth Trimble, an assistant attorney general in Maryland who was one of the 15 or so women in Terry's law school class. Trimble particularly recalls Terry's tooling around the grounds in a Volkswagen Beetle that was perpetually running on empty.
"Some of the rest of us were a little daunted by the prospect" of being stranded, Trimble recalled. "I was very envious" of her confidence. (Terry says her gas-buying was motivated by economics. "I bought gas a dollar at a time," she said.)
`My life's unfolding'
Back home in Patrick County, with degrees in law and government, Terry bought a house and joined the office of Commonwealth's Attorney Martin F. "Fill" Clark, who also was the local Democratic political boss.
Clark found Terry "highly ambitious, structured and organized," all traits he admired. A story that she once cried in a courtroom is true, he said, but the tears reflected anger, not weakness.
Clark's recollection is that Terry was handling a driving-under-the- influence case that seemed airtight. But because she forgot to introduce the county ordinance under which she was proceeding, the case was dismissed.
"She does have emotions like any other person. She can cry. Anybody that doesn't have emotions is ruled by them," Clark said.
One of the pivotal turns in Terry's life came in 1977, when a local delegate decided to retire from the General Assembly, and Clark was tapped to fill his slot on the Democratic ticket. Wearied by the long drive to Richmond to meet with legislative leaders, however, Clark - a crusty, bow-tied honcho - slammed on the brakes.
"I came to the decision at a gas station down below Amelia," he recalled. "And I said, `To hell with this.' "
He decided that Terry, who was set to replace him as commonwealth's attorney, would run for delegate instead. House Majority Leader A.L. Philpott of neighboring Henry County, who also ran in the three-person district, was not keen on the idea of a female running mate.
"I told 'em that was who we were going to pick, and they told me it was my job to sell it," Clark said.
There are strong resemblances between the starched young woman who arrived in Richmond in 1978 and today's candidate. But there are differences as well.
"I'm stronger, more balanced. My life is fuller. I'm happier. I'm more hopeful," Terry said recently. "A lot of it is a confidence and perspective and maturity that comes with time, with age."
She still drops the "g" from words such as "votin'." Her face is still mercurial, snapping from a frown to a smile with shutter-like speed. The distinctive laugh she shares with her sisters is intact. ("Maybe we didn't have good role models on what a laugh should be," sighed Rodgers, before displaying her own version of the whinny.)
Overall, Terry's look has grown both more sophisticated and more feminine. Her slice-the-knee dresses are likely to be silkier and less tailored. Her hair style ("Yes, I dye my hair. No, I haven't had any nips or tucks.") is softer.
In a political sense, Terry's life may have progressed upward steadily, but she denies that it has been without the crises and turmoil that build character. "I've never lost an election, but defeat and struggle and loss have many faces and can take place in many different ways," she said.
"My gains have not been easy gains."
Terry describes her decision to run for attorney general in 1985 as perhaps the most difficult of her life. She was setting herself up to leave home, leave her sisters' children, and - if she lost - leave politics. She also knew that statewide office would likely have profound bearing on her chances of marrying and raising children.
"I haven't given up on marriage. My life's still unfolding," said Terry, who has had a number of boyfriends, but none currently. "But I knew the likely consequences of that decision. It was just wrenching."
Fair or not, Terry always has been judged by her stands on women's issues. Her tentativeness on such matters as the Equal Rights Amendment and the admission of women to the Virginia Military Institute has dulled the enthusiasm of feminists - many of whom appear ready to vote for her nonetheless.
She eventually came to endorse both issues, but not without prodding. Her conversions have left her open to charges that she puts politics above principle.
Her switch on the ERA came after Democratic women, including former state Sen. Emilie Miller and former Fairfax County Democratic Chairwoman Jane Vitray, argued to Terry that she could never carry Northern Virginia in a statewide race while opposing the ERA.
Miller recalls being part of a group of a half-dozen or so women who for several weeks telephoned into Terry's district to poll on the amendment. What they found, Miller said, was that "there weren't a lot of people dead set against the ERA."
Backed by that informal poll, Terry announced that her constituents had changed their minds on the ERA, and that she was joining them.
In interviews, two of Terry's political advisers suggested that her about-face on VMI also reflected changed political circumstance. The office's legal strategy, defending an all-male VMI on grounds of encouraging diversity in the state's college system, was drafted when Terry's likely gubernatorial opponent this year appeared to be former state Sen. Eddy Dalton.
When Dalton lost her 1989 bid for lieutenant governor and Terry's more immediate political challenge came from fellow Democrat Donald Beyer, those advisers suggest, Terry moved as circumstance allowed to a more liberal position. Politics was a factor, though not the driving factor, one said.
Terry dismisses that claim. At the outset of the case, she was obligated as attorney general to defend the state's position on VMI, she said. That changed after Gov. Douglas Wilder dropped his support of the school. Later, after she left office, she was free to disclose her personal view, she said.
`Life goes on'
She has long been aware of the impact of gender in society, Terry said. Part of her decision to attend a woman's college was that "I just liked the concept that folks had an even shot."
But "if you were to ask me how do I think of myself, [feminist] would not be among the top five words," Terry said.
In politics, she added, gender stereotypes both help and hurt. "Being a woman has always given me a level of visibility. On the other hand, there's still a tentativeness in terms of the confidence."
It is a subject Terry generally avoids. But a prominent Democratic adviser added: "She is much more cognizant of the barriers to her doing what she's doing than she lets on in her public persona."
As attorney general, Terry brought to the office a penchant for up-to-date management theory and personal development techniques. Phrases such as "work smarter, not harder," "highest and best use [of personnel]" and "total quality management" became commonplace. There were regular training seminars and semiannual staff retreats.
Decisions about filing suits or settling cases that once were left to deputies or senior attorneys had to be channeled through Terry's office - a change prompting praise from some and charges of micromanagement from others.
She oversaw an extensive prosecution of a fraudulent fund-raising scheme linked to political extremist Lyndon LaRouche; fought bitter battles over rate-making and deregulation of the insurance industry; led a recall of Ford ambulances; formed a coalition called CADRE to fight drug abuse in schools; worked to toughen the point at which drivers are considered legally drunk; and pushed solid-waste management standards that were tougher than the federal government's.
Critics said office morale was low and decision-making unduly prolonged. "Everything had to be checked through three levels before you did anything," complained one attorney formerly in the office.
There was remarkably low turnover among Terry's senior staff, however. And Patrick A. O'Hare, who left the attorney general's office recently after 18 years, said morale was no lower under Terry than other attorneys general.
The only exception, he said, was in her first year in office, when she was surrounded by deputies new to state government and there were several well-publicized missteps.
Terry's penchant for running decisions through a circle of people is well-known. But intimates insist that in several pivotal matters she acted either against her advisers' recommendation or without consultation.
For instance, they said, advisers were skeptical of decisions to take on LaRouche; to go to court against Wilder over a dispute involving the state pension fund; and to fire an employee, James E. Laws, who had accepted an appointment to the Richmond School Board.
In an interview, Laws charged that the dismissal was in part political, a reflection of the white establishment's unhappiness with his selection. Terry said that she needed to set precedent for the office about outside activities. Laws filed a lawsuit that has been dismissed in federal court. He is appealing.
Those who have watched Terry through 16 years of political life say she approaches the November election as a more self-assured, introspective person. At least away from campaigns, she carves out time for herself; she takes naps. "She's more relaxed. She accepts things as they happen," Sally Ann Rodgers said.
It is part of her makeup - the part that led to her to score well as a possible future mortician - that she can be calm in a storm, said Terry. "I'm peaceful about outcomes."
"Life goes on and my life will be vastly different Nov. 3. I have a pretty deeply felt sense of which direction the election will take. But even if it doesn't, there's another exciting path."\ \ NEXT SUNDAY: A profile of Republican candidate George F. Allen.
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