Rose Ann Vuich (1927-2001)

“Rose Ann Vuich, a conservative Democrat from the Central Valley who built a reputation for unswerving honesty as the first woman in the state Senate, died Thursday at her home in Dinuba. She was 74…

“It wasn’t until two weeks after the farmer and accountant filed her papers that she learned there had never been a female state senator in California. Of the four women running in state Senate races that year, the no-nonsense, schoolmarmish Vuich was the one pols thought was least likely to win. But the other three women lost while Vuich squeaked to victory, defeating a Republican assemblyman from Fresno who had better name recognition and outspent her 2 to 1.”

“I drove up in front of the Capitol building, and I just sat there a long time, looking up at the dome,” Vuich, then 50, said of the morning she arrived in Sacramento to be sworn in. “And then I took a deep breath and said to myself, ‘Well, old girl, here you are. Give it all you’ve got, because that’s what you promised the people back home.’ ”

Source: “Rose Ann Vuich; First Woman in the State Senate” by Elaine Woo in the Los Angeles Times (9/1/2001)