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Between Oveta and her husband, onetime (1917-21) governor of Texas, William Pettus Hobby, there is a deep bond which distances and careers do not seem to disturb. During the war, when Oveta was in Washington, she talked to Will in Houston every night. (Once, when an operator asked him if his long-distance call was necessary. Will replied '"Course it is. I gotta talk to Oveta, don't I?") Last month, when Will celebrated his 75th birthday, Oveta left her Washington desk in time to catch a 10 a.m. plane. She arrived in Houston at 2 p.m., presided over an enormous birthday party, turned in at midnight, turned out again at 3 a.m., and flew back to Washington in time for a 9:30 a.m. Cabinet meeting.
A Girl Named Forget. The Culp family can hardly remember when Oveta was not the successful mistress of her own destiny. When she was a little girl in Killeen, her mother and father had to urge her to go to the movies or on a Sunday afternoon drive. Oveta was usually too busy reading. The Culps liked to fish in the Lampasas River, but Oveta couldn't waste valuable time on such nonsense. She rarely participated in children's games, except for an occasional round of "church," where she could parade her Biblical knowledge (she had read the Bible three times through by the time she was 13).
She was born on Jan. 19, 1905* in a frame house on a quiet street shaded by hackberry trees, the second of Isaac and Emma Hoover Culp's seven children. Her mother named her Oveta (an Indian word for forget) after a character in a romantic novel, and because it rhymed so pleasantly with Juanita, the name of the first Culp daughter. Mother Culp is a remote cousin of Herbert and J. Edgar Hoover; at 72, she still leads an active life in Killeen, fishing, gardening, and driving her own Buick. Ike Culp was a rawboned, fiery-tempered lawyer, a Baptist, a Prohibitionist, a politician and a lover of horses. As a skinny kid, Oveta became Ike's undisguised favorite, absorbed his love of horses and politics. On summer evenings, Ike Culp liked to stand among his horses and, cracking a whip, make them gallop around him in circus-ring precision. The lesson was not lost on Oveta.
Too Young to Vote. When Ike Culp won a seat in the Texas legislature in 1919, Oveta went with him to Austin, never missed a day's session. A solemn-eyed child of 14, she sat beside her father in the turbulent House of Representatives, picked up the nuances of politics and law like a prairie hen picking up seeds. Ike vacated his seat in 1921 and Oveta returned to the life of a schoolgirl, but after Austin, school was a big bore. She frequently skipped classes at Temple High School, though she managed, nevertheless, to lead her class. One year at Mary Hardin-Baylor College was enough for Oveta, and in 1923, when her father was returned to the legislature, she began to spend nearly all her time in Austin.