Fannie Flagg - Standing in the Rainbow

Pretty soon the ladies' auxiliaries of the Elks, the Moose, and the Lions and members of the Eastern Star got behind her. The wives of the Allis Chalmers tractor company took out a full-page ad in the farmers' weekly that went all over the state.

The women of Elmwood Springs jumped in and did their share. Aunt Elner donated fifteen jars of fig preserves to be raffled off at the VFW bingo game. Norma lobbied all the wives of the men in the Missouri Hardware Association, and Ruby Robinson, who was a bigwig in the Registered Nurses of Missouri organization, brought them in as well.

They were easy. Having been pushed around by male doctors every day, they knew how it felt to be bullied by men. Dixie Cahill put on an outdoor show downtown called "Tapping for Dollars" that raised quite a bit, mostly to get them to stop tapping, as Ed the barber claimed. Even Poor Tot, who could not afford it, donated a day of beauty care to raise money. Mother Smith called an old college friend of hers, Juliette Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts, and got them on the march. Verbena did not have a lot of money but she did threaten to lock her husband, Merle, out of the house if he said one more word about how a female had no business in politics. That was something she could do at least and it did shut him up.

The widows of the men who had disappeared with Hamm, Mrs. Seymour Gravel and Mrs. Wendell Hewitt, and even the former Mrs. Rodney Tillman, went on the campaign trail to try to help Betty Raye, and Mrs. Ursa Figgs, mother of the late Cecil Figgs, despite being a lifelong Republican, donated a great deal of money to the cause. Money came in from hundreds of pancake suppers and bake sales and a lot of poor farm women just sent in their egg money, but it added up. The men were now threatened and really started to go after Betty Raye with the most vicious attacks yet.

Finally, Minnie Oatman had had enough. She went to the phone on the wall outside the dressing room in Columbus, Mississippi, and dialed.

"Elvis," she said. "It's Minnie Oatman."

"Oh, yes, ma'am," he said, happy to hear from her. "How are you?"

"Honey, my girl Betty Raye is running for governor of the state of Missouri and they is beating up on her pretty bad. I need you to make a personal appearance at one of her rallies. Could you do that for me?"

"Yes, ma'am. I'd be glad to, just tell me when and where you want me. I'll be there."

Elvis loved gospel. Although he made his money on rock and roll, it was still in his heart his favorite. Mrs. Gladys Presley, Elvis's mother, was Minnie's biggest fan and he'd grown up hearing the Oatman family and had gone to many of their all-night sings in Memphis when he was a boy. Minnie had always been nice to his mother and his daddy, Vernon. That went a long way with him. He would be there if he had to cancel something else to do it.

If one thing could be said about gospel people, it was that they were loyal, or, as Minnie put it, "When the chips is down, gospel people will stand behind you." Not only did Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and the Carter sisters show up, but every other gospel group in the country came to Missouri at one time or another to help her out.

And that went a long way with the voters. As did the hundreds of buckets of free fried chicken at every rally that Bobby Smith, who was now running the entire Fowler Poultry Enterprises, had donated to help out his friend. After all, if it had not been for Betty Raye he would never have gotten out of grammar school. As her numbers started to rise in the polls, Vita began to worry a little more about Betty Raye's safety. There were bodyguards, of course, but Hamm had also had a bodyguard and it had not helped save him. But Vita need not have worried. Betty Raye had something Hamm did not: Alberta Peets. Alberta never left Betty Raye's side for an instant. There was not a man or a group of men alive that could get past her to Betty Raye and live to tell the tale.

As for Betty Raye herself, as time went by she became more confident and sure of herself. She was finally able to speak to groups of people without shaking or dropping her papers. It had happened during one of her campaign stops. Vita knew Betty Raye had turned a corner when, speaking in Clark County, she had remarked to the crowd, "You know, I have a special place in my heart for Clark County. My late husband and I spent our honeymoon a few miles down the road… so you might say that Hamm Junior got his start right here."

Hamm Jr., who was sitting behind her at the time, turned beet red, but she did receive 78 percent of the Clark County vote.

On the morning after the special election, Neighbor Dorothy did her show as usual and at the end, before she signed off, she said, without fanfare, "Well, congratulations to our brand-new governor. We always feel sorry for the other fellow that loses but, as they say, may the best man win. Only from now on we might have to change that old saying to "May the best person win." This is Neighbor Dorothy with Mother Smith on the organ saying have a nice day and remember… you make our days so happy, so do come back and see us again, won't you?"

In 1970, after a long illness, the Smith family lost Mother Smith. That same year, Bobby and Lois had another boy. The world in general had changed very little except that a man had walked on the moon and everyone in Elmwood Springs was elated that America had done it first.

Aunt Elner had been the only one over at Macky and Norma's house that night at the moonwalk party who felt sad about it. When Linda asked her why she was not as excited as everybody else she said, "Oh, but I am. It's just that I can't help but feel sorry for that poor Neil Armstrong."

"Why would you feel sorry for him, Aunt Elner?"

"Because, honey," she said, "after you've been to the moon, where else is there to go?"

She had a point.

Linda Warren, Macky and Norma's daughter, was a pretty girl with reddish-blond hair and although Norma had tried to be different, she wound up saying and doing all the annoying things to Linda that her mother had when she had been a teenager. Her favorite complaint, when Linda did not do what she wanted, was "You're just like your daddy."

However, there was some truth to the statement. Linda, a real daddy's girl, was much more like her father in likes and temperament. She loved baseball and fishing and "was great at sports. And despite all the nagging and pleading by Norma, she had refused to take the course in domestic science in school and much to her mother's horror, had taken shop instead. Linda told her mother that she would much rather learn how to make a birdhouse than bake a cake and, as usual, Macky agreed with her. "I don't know how you expect to raise a child and take care of a husband if you can't even boil an egg or make a bed!" said Norma.

When Betty Raye had been elected for her second term as governor, the first thing she had done was to appoint Vita Green as the state's first female lieutenant governor. So, unbeknownst to most people, Hamm's wife and mistress wound up pretty much running the state. They had the help of Peter Wheeler and other smart people who were brought into the administration. Betty Raye also named her old friend the former short-order cook to an office she had created, as adviser to the governor on disabled veterans' affairs. After the Trolley Car Diner closed, Jimmy moved to Jefferson City and did a good job helping her out with many things. Alberta Peets, what with the murder and all, could not serve officially but she did get an early pardon and stayed on as Betty Raye's private secretary. Earl Finley said he would not live to see the end of the Hamm Sparks era and he was right. He had a stroke in 1969.

But Betty Raye was not the only Oatman doing well. In 1970, the State Department put together a goodwill tour featuring a tribute to American music and the Oatman Family Gospel Singers were chosen to represent southern gospel. They traveled to sixteen countries and had a wonderful time, especially the night of the performance in London at the Royal Albert Hall.