
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, August 1, 1993                   TAG: 9308020364
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

FIRST LADIES FILL MORE THAN SPACE

SCOTT SHELLABARGER'S article on July 18's Commentary page ("Report from the front in war between the sexes`") was astute and a grand comment on life to come in the 90's. But one small phrase was both unnecessary and untrue. When he stated that Mrs. Clinton does not take up space, he added the aside: like her predecessors. I would hope that Hillary Rodham Clinton would take exception to this, and I think she does.

Martha Dandridge Washington ran a large plantation, Dolley Paine Madison did peacemaking negotiations at her parties that would please the United Nations. Although Abagail Smith Adams did not have the opportunity to get the degrees her modern sisters do, she was as valued an adviser as any of the men who sat at the right hand of her husband.

Edith Bolling Wilson spoke for her husband when a stroke rendered him speechless and, if she ran the country as some say she did, she did as well as elected officials. Grace Goodhue Coolidge helped give the deaf a chance to live as equals in a hearing world. Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt's life of service to those who were not blessed with her advantages is legendary. Lady Bird Taylor Johnson was a wild-flower and ecological advocate when nature wasn't "cool," but she perservered. She gave the ladies to follow a step up when they helped their causes.

I am a product of a childhood in which reading was not encouraged. To hear Barbara Pierce Bush tell children how important reading it is finally vendicated my stubborn refusal to "put down that book." SUE COLLINS ROANOKE

by CNB