In Montana, where Sen. William Andrews Clark made his fortune and lost his reputation, people had assumed that all his children were long dead. After all, he was born in 1839 and was of age to serve in the Civil War.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
William Andrews Clark was caught in a bribery scandal during a campaign for the U.S. Senate - he was said to describe the Montana legislators this way: 'I never bought a man who wasn't for sale.'
I don't recall exactly when I first began reading about Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery, but I suspect that it was in fourth grade.
Who put their foot in the Missouri River first: Lewis or Clark? Who cares!
I began to see during the civil war, in that part of the states of Missouri and Kansas where the doctors were shut out, the children did not die.
The main threads running through the lives of W. A. Clark and his daughter Huguette include the costs of ambition, the burdens of inherited wealth, the fragility of reputation, the folly of judging someone's life from the outside, and the tension between engaging with the world, with all its risks, and keeping a safe distance from danger.
Too many of Montana's own have fallen in the line of duty fighting radical Islamic terrorists, like 31-year-old husband and father of four, Blackfeet warrior Army Corporal Tony 'Many Hides' of Great Falls.
My father was one of the fortunate wartime servicemen: he made a full recovery from his injuries, was promoted to captain, survived the war, had a satisfying career as a colonial officer and, eventually, died in February 2002, a month before his 85th birthday.
After Huguette Clark died in 2011 at age 104, 19 relatives challenged her will, claiming she was mentally ill and had been defrauded by her nurse, attorney and accountant.
Mum and Dad met campaigning on the Spanish civil war. Both were active peace campaigners. They died in 1986 and '87.
My father passed away a few days before my election. This man, an African American born to a poor single mother in 1936 in the South, would worry in the last years of his life that he had better life chances when he was growing up than a young man born in the same circumstances would have today.