“Lurleen Wallace was inaugurated as Alabama’s first female governor–and only the third nationwide–as an estimated 150,000 look on. Wallace succeeded her husband George C. Wallace, who was barred by law at the time from serving consecutive terms. She died in office of cancer on May 7, 1968.” (Alabama Department of Archives and History)
Lurleen Wallace was the 46th governor of Alabama and served for fifteen months from January 1967 until her death in May 1968. She was Alabama’s first, and to that date, only female governor. She was also the only female governor in U.S. history to have died in office.
“Lurleen Brigham Burns was born to Henry Burns and the former Estelle Burroughs of Fosters in Tuscaloosa County. She graduated in 1942 from Tuscaloosa County High School at the age of fifteen. She then worked at Kresge’s Five and Dime in Tuscaloosa, where she met George Wallace, at the time a member of the United States Army Air Corps. The couple married on May 22, 1943, when she was 16 and she focused on being a mother and homemaker for the next 20 years.” (Wikipedia)
Election Shocks (1966)
The Wallaces had four children: Bobbi Jo (1944) Parsons, Peggy Sue (1950) Kennedy, George Wallace, III (1951), and Janie Lee (1961) Dye, who was named after Robert E. Lee.
ALABAMA FOOTPRINTS Statehood: Lost & Forgotten Stories presents the times and conditions pioneers faced in lost & forgotten stories which include:
- Who Controlled And Organized The New State of Alabama?
- Tuscaloosa Had Three Other Names
- Chandelier Falls & Capitol Burns
- Alabama Throws Parties For General LaFayette
- Francis Scott Key Was Sent to Alabama To Solve Problems