{"id":39897,"date":"2012-05-17T09:15:33","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T15:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=39897"},"modified":"2016-12-13T12:07:45","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T19:07:45","slug":"difficult-childhood-drove-wilson-to-seek-a-better-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2012\/05\/difficult-childhood-drove-wilson-to-seek-a-better-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Difficult childhood drove Wilson to seek a better life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Heather<\/a>

Heather Wilson (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Heather Wilson\u2019s story includes many wonderful moments and people, but it\u2019s also colored by the death of her father when she was 6 years old and her mother\u2019s later marriage to an alcoholic.<\/h4>\n

This is the third of\u00a0four profiles<\/a>\u00a0of the U.S. Senate candidates that seek to tell the stories of who they are and what shaped them.<\/em><\/p>\n

Heather Wilson<\/a> became the first in her family to go to college when she was 17. Her decision to attend the Air Force Academy set her on a path many New Mexicans are familiar with because it included a decade representing New Mexico\u2019s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House.<\/p>\n

Wilson was a Rhodes scholar; she spent seven years as an Air Force officer stationed in England and Belgium; she was the cabinet secretary for the state\u2019s Children, Youth and Families Department; and she was the first female military veteran elected to a full term in Congress.<\/p>\n

The story of what drove Wilson, now a Republican U.S. Senate candidate, to succeed is one she has a difficult time telling. Though it includes many wonderful moments and people, it\u2019s also colored by the death of Wilson\u2019s father and her mother\u2019s later marriage to an alcoholic \u2013 an experience that led Wilson to resolve to live a different life.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a story that is critical to understanding a woman who describes herself as driven, independent, resilient, empathetic toward those whose families have failed them, and, perhaps most relevant to her public life, \u201ca problem solver more than an ideologue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her father\u2019s death<\/h3>\n

Wilson\u2019s grandfather on her father\u2019s side came to the United States in 1922 after World War I. As a teenager in Scotland, he had lied about his age to join the military effort to defeat the Germans. He flew planes and searched for German submarines off the coast at a time when flying wasn\u2019t reliable and many pilots didn\u2019t survive.<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s grandmother, a seamstress, decided after the war to join her grandfather in America and marry him. In the United States, Wilson\u2019s grandfather helped open airports.<\/p>\n

Her father, George Douglas Wilson, exchanged services as a line boy for flying lessons during World War II and earned his pilot license when he was 16. He enlisted in the military in 1947, served three years, and then became a commercial pilot. He and Wilson\u2019s mother, Martha Lou Wilson, once built a plane together.<\/p>\n

When Wilson was 6 years old, her father was killed in a car accident while on his way home from work, leaving her mother a widow with three children. Wilson\u2019s brothers were 8 and 4 years old at the time.<\/p>\n

\u2018My life was going to be different\u2019<\/h3>\n

A little over a year after her husband\u2019s death, Martha Lou married a policeman from the neighboring town in New Hampshire who Wilson said had been divorced and was an alcoholic. Her mother went back to work as a nurse when Wilson\u2019s younger brother started first grade. Wilson said it was still unusual in the 1960s for a woman with young children to work outside the home, and she and her brothers took care of themselves after school. She became quite independent.<\/p>\n

When Wilson was in seventh grade, her stepfather lost his job. He never really had another, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a freelance accident investigator and photographer who\u00a0continued to carry his .38 revolver\u00a0in a hand-tooled holster on his belt,\u201d she said. \u201cHis alcoholism got worse, their marriage deteriorated, and the family conflict between my brothers and my stepfather escalated.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the situation deteriorated at home, Wilson immersed herself in school. She was a good student in middle school; she became a great student in high school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI somehow figured out that doing well in school would give me options and choices that I wanted to have,\u201d she said. \u201cI also knew that I didn\u2019t really like things at home. So, I made my life at school. I studied very hard and was rewarded for it with good grades.\u201d<\/p>\n

He extracurricular activities included the debate team, band, choir and the drama club. \u201cWhen other kids drank on the back of the band bus or experimented with drugs, I had a reason not to,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cMy life was going to be different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Wilson\u2019s mother told her children they were not to discuss family problems outside the home. \u201cAt the time,\u00a0even my closest friends did not know\u00a0my stepfather had a drinking problem,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s younger brother struggled in school. He was a high-school freshman when she was a senior (he would go on to repeat his freshman year), had been in trouble a fair amount, and did not get along with Wilson\u2019s stepfather. She described her younger brother as unhappy and angry and said she worried about him a lot.<\/p>\n

One night during the fall of Wilson\u2019s senior year in high school, while Wilson was in the den doing physics homework, her stepfather, who had been drinking, threatened to kill her younger brother during an altercation in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Wilson said she believed her stepfather was serious about wanting to kill her little brother. She left the house, going to a place she often went to be alone \u2013 the swings on the playground behind a nearby school. Here\u2019s how Wilson describes what happened next:<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw my mother driving around the neighborhood looking for me, but I did not want to be found.\u00a0Eventually, I went home.\u00a0My stepfather was sleeping it off and I went to my room, sat down at my small desk, turned on the light and continued doing my physics homework.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother came home and told me to get my things; we were going to stay at my grandparents\u2019.\u00a0I refused to go. She asked me why and I told her, \u2018Because I have physics homework to do.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother broke down, telling me that I blamed her for the problems at home. I did not cry or get angry, but I explained to her that I didn\u2019t need to pick a side and that this was not my problem.\u00a0Eventually, she left the house without me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI finished my homework, went to bed, got up the next day and went to school.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wilson said she and her mother had been growing apart for some time and were never close after that night. \u201cI sometimes wonder whether I should have left the house with her,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n

Her grandfather\u2019s blessing and a full-ride scholarship<\/h3>\n

Wilson earned an \u201cA\u201d in physics that year \u2013 and in every other course in high school. She was also state champion in debate, the student representative to the school board, the tenor sax and banjo player in the band, a singer in the all-state chorus, and president of the 4-H club.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, unbeknownst to my teachers and friends and coaches in high school, I was picking my stepfather off the cellar floor where he fell asleep curled around a bottle of Canadian Club and\u00a0trying to nudge my\u00a0brother\u00a0into believing that life was worth living,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n

While her mother and stepfather were getting a divorce in December of her senior year in high school, Wilson was applying to colleges. Three months later, she was accepted to the Air Force Academy and MIT. She chose the Academy \u2013 a year after it opened enrollment to women \u2013 and left home at 17.<\/p>\n

She tells the story in a recent web video<\/a> of deciding to apply to the Academy. Her grandfather was still alive, and Wilson\u2019s mother told her she should talk with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith his blessing, and a full-ride scholarship, I became the first person in my family to go to college,\u201d Wilson says in that video.<\/p>\n

She went on to a successful career in public service and married Jay Hone, her law professor at the Academy who she described as a \u201cremarkable\u201d man. They have an adult foster son who they adopted and two children still living at home.<\/p>\n

\u2018I realized that day that my life really was different\u2019<\/h3>\n

Wilson and Hone married in a small church in New Hampshire when she was 30. Her father\u2019s best friend gave her away. The perfume she wore was from a bottle her father gave her when she was little. Her grandmother\u2019s wedding ring became her wedding ring.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized that day that my life really was different,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI had made different choices.\u00a0I had a satisfying career, a great education, good friends, healthy relationships, and was marrying an intelligent, great guy who was sober.\u00a0We have built a wonderful life for ourselves and I have been blessed in lots of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her younger brother graduated from high school and went on to be a musician, the owner of a music store in New Hampshire, and a \u201cwonderful, creative, involved dad.\u201d Her older brother is a master carpenter and married.<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s mother remarried again in 1980 to a man who helped care for her as she battled Alzheimer\u2019s, which eventually took her life in 2007. Her stepfather died in his 50s, though Wilson doesn\u2019t know exactly how.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe may have died from complications related to alcoholism,\u201d she said. \u201cThere was some speculation of suicide. Or he may have just died. He was found alone in his apartment several days after his death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson said there are no simple answers to questions about how she became the person she is today. Her \u201chealthy, warm, loving marriage\u201d is part of the answer and gives her strength, as do the positive relationships from her childhood. But, she noted, the \u201croots of who I am are not all pleasant ones:\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI made a choice as a teenager that my life would be different from what I saw at home, and I was determined to make decisions that would arc the course of my life toward the\u00a0barnstormers, the plane builders, toward my father and grandfather, toward the love of a grandmother who always had ginger ale and oatmeal raisin cookies, and away from the tension of alcoholism and unhealthy family relationships that defined my teen and pre-teen\u00a0years at my house.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cCertainly one of the reasons I worked so hard to stay at the Academy was because I did not want to go home,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cFailure was not an option.\u00a0As far as I was concerned, I had no place else to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

A conservative who knows that \u2018safety-net programs matter\u2019<\/h3>\n

Today Wilson describes herself as someone who is driven and has worked hard to succeed; she expects that if she falls down she has to pick herself back up, empathizes with those whose families have failed them, has a finely tuned ability to read people and their emotions, and is stubbornly independent, resilient and strong.<\/p>\n

Somewhere in all of that \u2013 and in this story \u2013 is an explanation of the intricacies of Wilson\u2019s public service. Based on her voting record, she was often ranked as one of the more moderate Republican House members<\/a> during her time representing a swing district.<\/p>\n

Wilson wasn\u2019t always a Republican. When she first registered to vote, she chose to become a Democrat because the man who sponsored her at the Academy was a Democrat. It wasn\u2019t until the 1980s, when she was in her 20s, that she thought more about which party she fit into and switched.<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t know whether her parents or grandparents were Democrats or Republicans. She doesn\u2019t remember conversations about politics at the dining room table. She remembers a commitment to service from the men in her family who served in the military and her mother\u2019s work as a community health nurse.<\/p>\n

Wilson is conservative \u2013 she says frequently that she\u2019s a Republican because she trusts people more than government and believes in free enterprise and a strong national defense. And while she believes individuals should help those in need \u2013 she said she tries to do so and teaches her children to do the same \u2013 she also believes government should play a role in helping people.<\/p>\n

Wilson speaks favorably about what Title IX did for women. She helped rally enough Republicans in 2007 to vote with Democrats to keep the State Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program going<\/a>. She said she knows that \u201csafety-net programs matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got a Social Security check that did make a difference after my father died.\u00a0I know that we need great public schools and that a great education and wonderful teachers can change the course of a life, because I lived that life,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI also know that government is not always particularly competent or well-run. That\u2019s why I trust people more than I trust government. I value freedom and free enterprise.\u00a0I\u2019m a problem solver more than an ideologue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson believes compromise is necessary because solutions from any minority aren\u2019t the best way forward.<\/p>\n

She believes bipartisanship is possible even in these divided times. And while Wilson pledges to \u201cfight passionately for the things I believe\u201d as a U.S. senator, she said she will also seek compromise \u201con the matters most important to New Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly called it Title IV, not Title IX. In addition, this article has been updated to clarify that Wilson\u2019s brother was in his first go-around as a high-school freshman, not second, when she was a senior.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Heather Wilson\u2019s story includes many wonderful moments and people, but it\u2019s also colored by the death of her father when she was 6 years old and her mother\u2019s later marriage to an alcoholic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[156,171,290,227,116],"class_list":["post-39897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2012-election","tag-military","tag-u-s-senate-profiles","tag-u-s-senate-race","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}