Sandra O’Connor’s extraordinary final chapter

Sandra Day O’Connor gave up her lifelong tenure on the Supreme Court — a job she loved and a job of extraordinary power — to care for her husband of 52 years as he deteriorated from dementia.

That decision, in 2006, began a poignant final chapter in her extraordinary life. Her choice, at the age of 75, reflected her attempt to integrate the often conflicting demands of professional achievement and family expectations in a country still adapting to changing gender roles and an aging population.

Judge O’Connor, who died Friday at the age of 93, had hoped to care for her husband at their Arizona home. But when that quickly became untenable, she took him to a residential care center. He wasn’t happy about the move, but then something remarkable happened: he found romance with another woman who lived there.

And Judge O’Connor, who had not long before been the most powerful woman in the country, was elated because he felt content and at ease again – even as “a lovesick teenager,” as their son Scott put it. The judge continued to visit regularly, beaming next to the happy couple as they held hands on a porch swing.

This was 2007 and the country was far more polarized than when Sandra Day O’Connor was nominated as the first female Supreme Court justice in 1981. But even those who disagreed with Judge O’Connor on, for example, Bush v. Gore, the hard-fought court case that made George W. Bush president, could recognize and respect her embrace of this new relationship.

At a time when Americans were living longer and increasingly suffering from dementia, “Old Married Couple” could tell a story of emotional richness rather than one of bitterness and bickering.

If Maria Pipher, a psychologist and author, told The New York Times at the time: “Young love is about wanting to be happy. Old love is about wanting someone else to be happy.”

Judge O’Connor’s devotion to her husband was perhaps in keeping with her signature cowgirl grit. She was known for her directness and candor, and her pragmatism that allowed her to be the decisive voice in many of the court’s most consequential decisions.

It also reflected the experience of the rare professional women of her generation. They had to find a compromise and make what may now seem unimaginable sacrifices as they struggled to have a career and still live the full life expected of them as a wife and mother. They often did this without models, let alone on family leave. Because women live longer than men, they often later became the primary caregivers of sick spouses.

Sandra Day and John Jay O’Connor III met when they were assigned to proofread the same article in The Stanford Law Review. She had previously dated William Rehnquist, who later headed the court she joined, but she rejected his marriage proposal after meeting John. Her son Jay said she rejected many; his father “was the one who was the real deal.”

They married in 1952 on her family’s farm, and their marriage and career followed a script common at the time. She graduated at the top of her class but couldn’t find a job. The major firm Gibson Dunn offered to hire her as a legal secretary. Instead, she followed her husband to Germany, where he took a position in the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, and then back to Arizona, where he became a prominent attorney.

She was in a relationship with another young lawyer, but left to raise the couple’s three sons. She couldn’t find a “competent babysitter,” she said, and there were no daycare centers. She volunteered, became president of her local Junior League and was active in Arizona Republican politics. She was a mid-level state court judge when President Ronald Reagan nominated her to the Supreme Court.

After they moved to Washington, the script changed. John O’Connor became known as a supportive husband and a well-known figure at court. He recounted with amusement how people unaccustomed to the idea of ​​a woman at court early on referred to him as Judge O’Connor.

The real Judge O’Connor impressed her colleagues and those who argued before her with her sternness and her determination: When she underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy in 1988 after being diagnosed with breast cancer, she never missed a day on the bench.

When she could no longer leave her husband alone because of his Alzheimer’s disease, Judge O’Connor began bringing him to her chambers. When she decided to retire, according to a biographer, she told a friend, “John gave up his job in Phoenix to come with me, so now I’m giving up my job to take care of him.”

After leaving the bench, Judge O’Connor maintained a busy schedule, serving as an appellate court judge, writing children’s books, and advocating for Alzheimer’s disease research. Testifying before Congress, she warned: “Over the next twenty years, the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease will increase by more than 50 percent. And without some grassroots action in this country, one in two people over 80 will eventually develop this disease. That’s too much.”

Mr O’Connor died in 2009, aged 79. In 2018, Judge O’Connor announced that she was formally stepping back from public life because she too had dementia, most likely Alzheimer’s disease.

When she was 88, she shared the news in an open letter to “friends and fellow Americans,” urging them to “put country and the common good above party and self-interest.” She wrote that she would continue to live in Phoenix, where John had been, “surrounded by dear friends and family.”

“While the final chapter of my life with dementia may be challenging, nothing has diminished my gratitude and deep appreciation for the countless blessings in my life,” she wrote. She hoped she had inspired young people to get involved in society, “and helped pave the way for women who may have faced obstacles in pursuing their careers.”