The first woman to sit in the presiding chairs of the U. S. House and Senate

This still lovely lady is one-fourth Native American!

Political ads are claiming that Nancy Pelosi was the first woman to sit in the chair of the Speaker of the House and Kamala Harris was the first woman to sit in the Vice President’s chair in the U. S. Senate Chambers. That is just not true.

These days, I feel like the lead character played by Dustin Hoffman in that wonderful movie, “Little Big Man,” when he described the stages in his life to a reporter. This was the “famous goatherd” phase of my life.

In the spring of 1991, the U. S. Department of Agriculture invited me to participate in its official celebration of National Dairy Month. Farmstead producers of gourmet dairy products were being invited to sample their delicacies to members of Congress and their staffs. I was to bring my goat cheese to the Senate Meeting Room on June 15th. That’s the same place, where the famous Watergate Hearings were held.

As usual, my official wife saw the event as an opportunity to be with someone else, while I was away from the farm. All of our female employees begged off because of previous plans with their families or boyfriends. In desperation, just a few days before the event, I sent a FAX to Vivie the French Courtesan, inviting her to help me sample cheese. I expected her to also decline, because presenting oneself as a goat farmer, was probably not high on the list of sophisticated Parisian actresses.

To my surprise, she returned the FAX in a few minutes with “I would love to be there!” One side of her family had been dairy farmers and cheese makers in Normandy for centuries. In fact, one year while she was at the Sorbonne, she had been selected to be Miss Dairy Princess of Normandy. She could still fit into the traditional Normandy Dairy Maid dress that she wore at official events that year. She could write off the cost of the trip on her taxes, because she needed to find land for her planned vineyard and winery in Virginia.

On the other side of her family, her grandfather was a petroleum engineer, who had worked in Mexico for many years. Her grandmother was full-blooded Tamulte Maya.

U. S. Senate Meeting-Hearing Room

When the coordinators of the dairy food tasting saw me walk in with a beautiful Latin American-looking French lady in a French dairy maid’s dress, they immediately placed us at a booth near the entrance. The entire afternoon, there was a crowd of people around the tables, all wanting to meet the exotic-looking lady at my side . . . even after all the cheese was gone. She wore her former wedding ring at the event and never corrected people, when they addressed her as my wife or me as her husband.

In the middle of the afternoon, in walked First Lady Barbara Bush, surrounded by Secret Service agents, her staff and reporters. To my shock, Mrs. Bush smiled, waved at Vivi, then tried to make her way to our tables. She couldn’t make it through the crowd, without exposing herself to any potential assassin. Vivi then explained that Mrs. Bush had attended an event at the French Embassy, where Vivi sang La Marseillaise and some French folk songs.

After Mrs. Bush left the Capitol, a Secret Service agent came up to our table and looked shocked, when he saw Vivi’s wedding ring. He and Vivi had dated not so long ago in the past. He asked sarcastically how she had gotten hooked up with a goat farmer. Insulted . . . Vivi first told him that I was the Architect of her new winery in Virginia then added that when he was a little boy, playing in the streets of Chicago, Richard had traveled alone through the jungles of Central America, armed only with a knife.

The Secret Service agent was actually there to convey an invitation from Barbara Bush for us to be given a VIP tour of the National Capitol. We enthusiastically said yes. He said that he would have to run a background check on me and have ID’s made for us.

Near the end of the food tasting, Vivi’s ex-boyfriend showed up with ID cards portraying photos taken of us at the event. He was much more respectful. He said, “Geez Vivi! You are an intelligence officer in the Surete’? . . . and your husband is much more than an architect. He has a security classification with the Justice Dept. I did not have high enough a classification to access part of his file from 20 year ago! Both of you have approval to tour any public part of the National Capitol with your guide.”

Those interested can read a full account of the tour in The Shenandoah Chronicles. I will now tell you how a French mestizo woman was the first female to sit in those chairs.

Our guide was a female US Government law enforcement officer in her mid-twenties. When we entered the Chamber of the House of Representatives, Vivi requested permission to sit in the Speaker of the House’s chair. Even in 1992, very few women or people of color ever served in the national governments of nations in the Americas and Europe. UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was an exception.

Vivi sat there for a few seconds then rose to give a brief speech on why all citizens of the Americas and Europe should be potential leaders of the nation, not just white men. Her point was that when all people, regardless of race or gender, can rise to leadership, the combined intelligence and wisdom of a nation expands exponentially. Both our female guide and a black US Capitol policeman, standing in the back of the Chamber, applauded at the end of her speech.

When we reached the Senate Chamber, Vivi asked to sit in the most prominent chair on the podium, not knowing that it was where the Vice President sat. Again, only seated a few seconds, Vivi rose to give an even shorter speech. She announced, “The United States would not have even been born, had not France come to the aid of American patriots. France would now be a province of Nazi Germany had not Americans come to the aid of an enslaved France. The United States and France must develop closer cultural ties, because we are the parents of democracy.”

She hesitated a moment then smiled, “Now I know why all the young women of Versailles wanted to be in the company of Benjamin Franklin!” The female law enforcement and I applauded.

On January 6, 2021 both Vivi and I wept, when we saw hooligans on the TV screen, ravaging the National Capitol. We could not believe that so many Americans had devolved to the point that they would desecrate the Cathedral of Democracy. Although not a place of religious worship, it is indeed a sacred place. It is America’s Notre Dame.

“We have given you a republic, if you can keep it.”

Benjamin Franklin

Guess which lady on the stage is Vivi!