Reece, Louise Goff, 1898-1970

<p>Louise G. Reece, an inseparable political companion during her husband Brazilla Carroll Reece’s long service as a Tennessee Representative, won a special election to succeed him after his death in 1961. Her brief career in Congress was a direct product of decades of experience in support of his busy schedule—running Brazilla Reece’s re-election campaigns, scouting key legislation, and, in his absence, making important contacts on his behalf. During her 19 months on Capitol Hill, Louise Reece followed her husband’s example as a fiscal conservative and defender of business interests in eastern Tennessee.</p>

<p>Louise Despard Goff was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on November 6, 1898, the only child of Guy Despard Goff, a lawyer who had left his native Clarksburg, West Virginia, for Milwaukee, and Louise Van Nortwick Goff, a graduate of Wells College. In April 1905, her mother died of a paralytic stroke. Born to a wealthy family of bankers and lawyers, Louise Goff was educated at private schools in Milwaukee and at the prestigious Miss Spence’s School in New York City. In 1912 her grandfather Nathan Goff, a former U.S. Representative from West Virginia and a U.S. circuit court judge, was elected to the U.S. Senate. In 1917, Louise Goff moved to Washington, DC, with her family when her father was appointed a special assistant to the U.S. Attorney General. He worked in that capacity intermittently for six years, while also serving as the general counsel of the U.S. Shipping Board and, during World War I, as a commissioned Army colonel in the Judge Advocate General’s Department. In 1924, Guy Goff won election to his father’s old Senate seat from West Virginia. The Goff family lived in Washington, and Louise Goff became immersed in the capital’s social life. She left the comforts of home in 1920, to volunteer for an American relief effort in France spearheaded by Anne Morgan, daughter of financier J. P. Morgan. While in France, Goff drove ambulances through areas of the country that had been ravaged by World War I.</p>

<p>In 1923 Louise Goff married Brazilla Reece, initiating an almost-four-decade-long political union. Brazilla Reece, then a second-term Republican Representative from Tennessee, had been a highly decorated World War I serviceman and university administrator. The couple settled into a home in Washington, DC, and spent their summers and recess breaks in Johnson City, Tennessee, until World War II, when Louise Reece and the couple’s only child, a daughter named Louise, moved back full-time to Tennessee. Brazilla Reece served 18 total terms in the House (1921–1931; 1933–1947; 1951–1961). He represented the formerly Unionist, and safely Republican, upper-eastern section of the state. Reece was deeply conservative and an isolationist, and forged a close political alliance with Senator Robert Alphonso Taft of Ohio. He helped to shape and to amend such measures as the Food and Drug Act and the Federal Communications Act, opposed much of the New Deal, and was a fervent anti-communist during the early Cold War years. Reece also was the acknowledged leader of the Tennessee GOP and the most prominent of southern Republicans. In 1947 he relinquished his House seat to chair the Republican National Committee (RNC), supporting Taft at the 1948 Republican National Convention and resigning his seat after the nomination of Thomas Dewey. He returned to the House in 1951 to serve another decade.</p>

<p>Louise Goff Reece (November 6, 1898 – May 14, 1970) was an American politician and a United States Representative from Tennessee.</p>

<p>Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Reece was a daughter of Guy D. Goff and granddaughter of Nathan Goff, both of whom were U.S. Senators from West Virginia. She was educated at Miss Treat's School, Milwaukee-Downer Seminary, and Miss Spence's School in New York City.</p>

<p>During the long service of her husband, Representative Brazilla Carroll Reece, she regularly campaigned with him, serving as his chauffeur since he didn't drive. She became as well known as her husband.</p>

<p>Reece was elected as a Republican to the Eighty-seventh Congress to fill the vacancy when her husband died. She served from May 16, 1961 until January 3, 1963. She was not a candidate for renomination in 1962 to the Eighty-eighth Congress.</p>