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By Root 1921 0

Elner donated fifteen jars of fig preserves to be raffled off at the VFW bingo game. Norma lobbied all the wives of the men in the Missouri Hardware Association, and Ruby Robinson, who was a bigwig in the Registered Nurses of Missouri organization, brought them in as well. They were easy. Having been pushed around by male doctors every day, they knew how it felt to be bullied by men. Dixie Cahill put on an outdoor show downtown called “Tapping for Dollars” that raised quite a bit, mostly to get them to stop tapping, as Ed the barber claimed. Even Poor Tot, who could not afford it, donated a day of beauty care to raise money. Mother Smith called an old college friend of hers, Juliette Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts, and got them on the march. Verbena did not have a lot of money but she did threaten to lock her husband, Merle, out of the house if he said one more word about how a female had no business in politics. That was something she could do at least and it did shut him up.

The widows of the men who had disappeared with Hamm, Mrs. Seymour Gravel and Mrs. Wendell Hewitt, and even the former Mrs. Rodney Tillman, went on the campaign trail to try to help Betty Raye, and Mrs. Ursa Figgs, mother of the late Cecil Figgs, despite being a lifelong Republican, donated a great deal of money to the cause. Money came in from hundreds of pancake suppers and bake sales and a lot of poor farm women just sent in their egg money, but it added up. The men were now threatened and really started to go after Betty Raye with the most vicious attacks yet.

Finally, Minnie Oatman had had enough. She went to the phone on the wall outside the dressing room in Columbus, Mississippi, and dialed.

“Elvis,” she said. “It’s Minnie Oatman.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” he said, happy to hear from her. “How are you?”

“Honey, my girl Betty Raye is running for governor of the state of Missouri and they is beating up on her pretty bad. I need you to make a personal appearance at one of her rallies. Could you do that for me?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’d be glad to, just tell me when and where you want me. I’ll be there.”

Elvis loved gospel. Although he made his money on rock and roll, it was still in his heart his favorite. Mrs. Gladys Presley, Elvis’s mother, was Minnie’s biggest fan and he’d grown up hearing the Oatman family and had gone to many of their all-night sings in Memphis when he was a boy. Minnie had always been nice to his mother and his daddy, Vernon. That went a long way with him. He would be there if he had to cancel something else to do it.

If one thing could be said about gospel people, it was that they were loyal, or, as Minnie put it, “When the chips is down, gospel people will stand behind you.” Not only did Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and the Carter sisters show up, but every other gospel group in the country came to Missouri at one time or another to help her out. And that went a long way with the voters. As did the hundreds of buckets of free fried chicken at every rally that Bobby Smith, who was now running the entire Fowler Poultry Enterprises, had donated to help out his friend. After all, if it had not been for Betty Raye he would never have gotten out of grammar school.

As her numbers started to rise in the polls, Vita began to worry a little more about Betty Raye’s safety. There were bodyguards, of course, but Hamm had also had a bodyguard and it had not helped save him. But Vita need not have worried. Betty Raye had something Hamm did not: Alberta Peets. Alberta never left Betty Raye’s side for an instant. There was not a man or a group of men alive that could get past her to Betty Raye and live to tell the tale.

As for Betty Raye herself, as time went by she became more confident and sure of herself. She was finally able to speak to groups of people without shaking or dropping her papers. It had happened during one of her campaign stops. Vita knew Betty Raye had turned a corner when, speaking in Clark County, she had remarked to the crowd, “You know, I have a special place in my heart for Clark County. My late husband and