Edwards, Elaine Schwartzenburg, 1929-2018

<p>Elaine Lucille Edwards (née Schwartzenburg; March 8, 1929 – May 14, 2018) was an American politician from Louisiana. Edwards was a Democratic member of the United States Senate in 1972 appointed by her husband, Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, following the death of Allen Ellender.</p>

<p>She was the First Lady of Louisiana for twelve non-consecutive years from 1972 to 1980 and again from 1984 to 1988, making her the state's longest-serving First Lady. In her later years, she was a small fashion businesswoman and a low-profile soap opera actress based in New York City.</p>

<p>Edwards was born in Marksville, the seat of Avoyelles Parish, to Errol Leo Schwartzenburg and Myrl Dupuy Schwartzenburg. Elaine was baptized Catholic, and had two brothers, Frank (1928–2013), and Ralph (born 1936).</p>

<p>She married Edwin Edwards in 1949. Her own Catholic belief was the impetus for Edwin's reversion to the Catholic faith. An observer noted that Elaine Edwards "wanted the opposite of what Edwin wanted. She hated the fishbowl of politics." Both graduated from Marksville High School. Discussing her marriage in 1984, Edwards said: "All I wanted to do was get married and have babies and keep house."</p>

<p>Senator Elaine Edwards of Louisiana came to Congress by way of her matrimonial connection, traveling a political path frequented by earlier southern women. Rather than succeeding her husband, however, Edwards was appointed to a U.S. Senate seat by her husband, Louisiana Governor Edwin Washington Edwards. Though not unprecedented, the move was controversial. Yet it allowed Governor Edwards to sidestep a thorny political problem in backing other aspirants to the seat. It also provided Elaine Edwards a chance to practice the political craft she first learned as a congressional spouse and the first lady of Louisiana. Though she served only three months during the frenetic end of the 92nd Congress (1971–1973), Edwards counted a number of admirers. Upon her retirement, Senator Michael Joseph (Mike) Mansfield of Montana described her work as “quietly effective.”</p>

<p>Elaine Lucille Schwartzenburg was born on March 8, 1929, in Marksville, Louisiana, to Errol Schwartzenburg, a grocery store owner, and Myrl Dupuy Schwartzenburg. When she was nine years old, she contracted a bacterial bone infection in one leg, underwent several surgeries, and spent five years recuperating. She graduated from Marksville High School and, in 1949, she married her childhood sweetheart Edwin Edwards, a Marksville, Louisiana, native and a lawyer. They raised four children: Anna, Vicki, Stephen, and David. Edwin Edwards embarked on a long political career in which he served as a Crowley, Louisiana, city councilman and a state senator. In a 1965 special election, Edwards was elected as a Democrat to the first of four U.S. House terms as a Louisiana Representative. Elaine Edwards was active in her husband’s political campaigns at the district and state level. She remained at the family home in Crowley while her husband was in the House of Representatives, but she answered phone calls at home on a second line, working with individual constituents to resolve Social Security and veterans’ requests and relaying the information to Congressman Edwards’s Washington office. As her husband’s political career developed, Elaine Edwards participated in a variety of civic and philanthropic pursuits ranging from the Special Olympics to a project that raised $1 million for the Crippled Children’s Hospital of New Orleans. Congressman Edwards left the House in May 1972 to serve as governor of Louisiana, where he remained for a total of four terms.</p>

<p>When longtime Louisiana Senator Allen Joseph Ellender died on July 27, 1972, Governor Edwards appointed his wife to fill the vacancy. The governor claimed that the appointment was a “meaningful, symbolic gesture” against decades of discrimination of women in politics.= It was not the first time a woman had received a U.S. Senate seat in this manner. Almost exactly 35 years earlier, Alabama Governor Bibb Graves named his wife Dixie to fill Hugo Black’s Senate seat after he was appointed to the Supreme Court. Principally, Edwards made the controversial decision in order to avoid the politically tricky endorsement of a successor to Ellender, a 35-year Senate veteran, and the difficulty of finding an interim candidate who would step down shortly after a full-term successor was elected. Among the contenders for the seat were three of his gubernatorial campaign’s top backers and his two brothers.</p>