where she worked as a civilian lawyer with the Army’s Quartermaster Corps. Then when her husband was drafted, she accompanied him to Europe. and they were married in December, 1952.īecause she could not find a legal position after graduation, she agreed to work free as a San Mateo, California as a deputy county attorney. A more serious romance was with John Jay O’Connor III, who was a year behind her in school. After graduating in 1950, she then began to attend the Stanford Law School, where a fellow student was future Chief Justice William Renquist (whom she dated for a time). Several years later she returned to the ranch, riding a bus to El Paso where she graduated from high school in 1946 then enrolled in Stanford University in California. To get the best education possible, her parents sent her to El Paso to live with her grandmother and to attend a special girls’ school. 22 caliber rifle shooting jackrabbits, and also began driving a car before she could even see over the dashboard. In that remote area where the nearest paved road was several miles away, and in a home with no running water or electricity until 1937, Sandra grew up equipped with the necessary skills. She grew up on a nearly 200,000 acre cattle ranch near Duncan, Arizona. Sandra Day was born in El Paso, Texas in March, 1930, the daughter of a rancher and his wife. However, some years later she had no difficulty finding a position-as the first female associate justice on the U.S. Then eventually when her legal assistance proved valuable she began to draw a small salary.
#Sandra day o connor children for free#
Finally, she agreed to work for free for a local county agency, sharing an office with a secretary. Even as a recent graduate from a prestigious law school, and even at a time when women were beginning to enter many new careers, she remained unemployed. Sandra Day O’Connor had a problem in the early 1950s. First Female Supreme Court Associate Justice