Having worked alongside her husband, William Frank
Norrell, as his legislative assistant for three decades,
Catherine D. Norrell succeeded him as an Arkansas
Representative in a special election after his death. Her
experience as a congressional wife and aide helped to
prepare her for new legislative responsibilities. But Norrell
was confronted by an almost insuperable barrier to her
re-election, as reapportionment carved up her southeastern
Arkansas district between two powerful incumbents.
Catherine Dorris was born on March 30, 1901, in
Camden, Arkansas. Her father, William Franklin Dorris,
was an itinerant Baptist preacher, and he moved his
wife, Rose Whitehead Dorris, and their family from
congregation to congregation in Texas, Tennessee, and
Arkansas. Catherine attended Ouachita Baptist College
in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and the University of Arkansas
in Fayetteville, training as an accomplished pianist and
organist. Before her 1922 marriage to William Norrell, a
World War I veteran and Monticello, Arkansas, lawyer,
Catherine Dorris was a music teacher and director at the
music department of Arkansas A & M College. The Norrells
raised one daughter, Julia Jean, nicknamed Judy. After
eight years in the Arkansas state senate, William Norrell
was elected to the U.S. House in November 1938—the
first of 12 consecutive terms representing a southeastern
Arkansas district. He would eventually become the
sixth-ranking Democrat on the powerful Appropriations
Committee and chairman of its Legislative Appropriations
Subcommittee.1
During her husband’s tenure in Little
Rock and in the U.S. House, Catherine Norrell worked as
his unpaid assistant, learning the details of the legislative
process. She also served as president of the Congressional
Wives Club and was a close friend of Hattie Wyatt Caraway,
the Arkansas Senator and first woman elected to the
U.S. Senate.
Reapportionment after the 1960 Census cost Arkansas
two of its six House seats. William Norrell’s district
was carved into two parts, the first being lumped into a
northeastern district represented by Wilbur Daigh Mills,
chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. The
bulk of the Norrell’s old district, including his home county,
was placed into the district represented by Democrat Oren
Harris, a formidable, 20-year incumbent who chaired the
Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. Norrell,
who claimed Harris was behind the redistricting effort,
vowed to fight him in the 1962 Democratic primary for a seat in a new district which spanned the southern half of
the state.2
He never got that chance. On February 15, 1961,
William Norrell died a few days after being discovered
unconscious in his office; he had suffered a stroke. Arkansas
Democratic leaders soon approached Catherine Norrell
to fill the vacancy in a special election. Like many widows
running for their husbands’ seats, Norrell campaigned
on the promise of continuing her husband’s policies.
Her daughter Judy, on leave from George Washington
University Law School, managed the campaign. Norrell’s
slogan was direct: “Keep Your Congressional Power Up!
Elect Mrs. W. F. Norrell … the Only Candidate Prepared
to Step In.”3
She faced four Democratic men in the
campaign, including the top contender, John Harris Jones,
a young attorney from Pine Bluff. Jones attacked Norrell
for attempting to claim two congressional salaries, one as
a widow receiving survivor’s compensation and one as a
Member were she to be elected. But his efforts to undercut
wide sympathy for Norrell were to no avail. In the special
election held on April 18, 1961, Norrell prevailed with 43
percent of the vote to 25 percent for Jones and 23 percent
for M. C. Lewis.4
Catherine Norrell took the oath of office on April 25,
1961, and received an assignment on the Committee on
Post Office and Civil Service. Despite her experience as
a congressional wife, her new duties seemed daunting.
She admitted to President John F. Kennedy during a
conversation, “Having the responsibility squarely on your
shoulders is not quite the same as watching someone else do
it.”5
Also clouding the issue was the decision Norrell would
soon have to face about challenging Oren Harris in the
1962 primary, a decision that hinged on her ability to raise
sufficient finances.
Once in office, Catherine Norrell concentrated her
legislative efforts on the promotion of economic prosperity
in her district. She was especially interested in protecting
the area’s clay, textile, and lumber industries through
tariffs and other government controls. In August 1961,
Norrell supported a bill that eased Internal Revenue Service
efforts to collect retroactive taxes from businesses in the
clay brick and tile industry.6
A month later, Norrell joined
with Representative Cleveland Monroe Bailey of West
Virginia in insisting that the Kennedy administration was
not adequately protecting American industry under the
framework of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs.
Norrell complained particularly that the wood product industry in her district suffered from a reduction in U.S.
tariff rates that foreign countries had failed to reciprocate.7
Norrell used her new prominence to acknowledge the
contributions women had made to American political
life. In May 1961, she sponsored a joint resolution calling
for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, a measure
long stuck in the House Judiciary Committee.8
In August
1961, to commemorate the ratification of the Nineteenth
Amendment that gave women the right to vote, Norrell told
colleagues that the Arkansas state constitutional convention
in 1868 considered a measure to grant the vote to “all
citizens, 21 years of age.” Arkansas also had been home to
Catherine Campbell Cunningham, editor of the Woman’s
Chronicle, a weekly newspaper that agitated for women’s
suffrage. “Woman’s place in public life has evolved slowly,”
Norrell observed. The Nineteenth Amendment, which
followed various state suffrage initiatives, “was the result of
a lengthy crusade in which thousands of persons endeavored
to convince the public that the franchise should not be
restricted to men.”9
Norrell also supported the Kennedy administration’s
Cold War policies. She cast her first vote in Congress on
behalf of a foreign aid bill to Latin American countries,
despite feeling that it went “almost against my own
conscience.” Norrell believed her husband would have voted
for the measure, too, though she vowed: “I expect in the
future my vote will be more conservative than liberal.”10 She
sponsored legislation prohibiting interstate and foreign
commerce in goods imported into the United States from
Cuba. In July 1962, she marked “Captive Nations Week,”
recalling her piano idol, the Polish musician-statesman
Jan Paderewski, whose remains were interred at Arlington
National Cemetery until, as he had wished, Poland was
freed from Soviet occupation.11
Even as she was elected in April 1961, Norrell faced the
impending reapportionment. Political, familial, and, most
importantly, financial considerations convinced her not to
challenge Harris. Her decision was influenced, ironically, by
her campaign manager, daughter Judy, who was concerned
about the stress the hotly contested campaign would have
on her mother. Judy Norrell explained that she did not want
“to lose two parents to the political scene of things.… I
was of the opinion she should not run—which I think she
always regretted.”12 Privately, Catherine Norrell told friends
that she could not afford to challenge Harris. Upon her
retirement, Catherine Norrell told her House colleagues, “This has been the most challenging and interesting
experience of my life. Never having expected to serve in
elective office of any kind, I feel a deep sense of gratitude to
the people of the Sixth Congressional District.”13
Shortly after Norrell left Congress, President Kennedy
named her as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
Educational and Cultural Affairs, a post she held from 1963
to 1965. When President Lyndon B. Johnson won election
to a full term, he appointed Norrell the director of the
State Department’s reception center in Honolulu, Hawaii,
where she served from 1965 to 1969. Upon her arrival at
the post, reporters cornered Norrell to remind her that her
husband had voted against Hawaii’s statehood in the 1950s.
“But that was my husband and not me,” she replied. “I’m
delighted to be here.”14 Norrell stayed in Hawaii for most
of her retirement, employed as a church musician, before
returning to her hometown of Monticello, Arkansas. She
died in Warren, Arkansas, on August 26, 1981.15
[ Top ]
