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It takes a combined 165 years of life experience to put this dog-and-pony show together. They al- ways have plenty of lively materialto amuse or instruct their audienc-es, because Ms. Raggio, 84, andMs. Castleberry, 81, often wit-nessed history being made.Sometimes, they were the onesmaking history.Louise Ballerstedt Raggio broke ground for Texas women inlaw and business, becoming thefirst female assistant district attor-ney in Dallas and spearheadingthe state’s pioneering Family Codelaws, which dealt with marriage,divorce and support of children, in1979.  Vivian Anderson Castleberry transformed the
 Dallas Times Herald’ 
stradi-tional women’spages intonews-featuresections tack-ling childabuse, domes-tic violence, di- vorce, day careand othertough topics of modern wom-en’s lives.“Vivian andLouise bothtook on thingsno one had tak-en on beforethem,” saystheir friend Virginia Whi-tehill of Dallas,alongtime advocate for women’srights. “I often say the two mostimportant women in Dallas areLouise Raggio and Vivian Castle- berry, in my humble opinion. They are both giants.”On Feb. 21, Ms. Raggio and Ms.Castleberry will receive the eighthannual Susan B. Anthony Award,given by First United MethodistChurch’s Council on the Statusand Role of Women, at a luncheonin the Fairmont Hotel’s VenetianRoom. Writer Liz Carpenter, for-mer press secretary to Lady BirdJohnson and a friend of both hon-orees, will be keynote speaker.It’s the latest of many profes-sional and civic honors bestowedon Ms. Raggio and Ms. Castle- berry. Both are in the Texas Wom-en’s Hall of Fame and have wonthe Gertrude Shelburne Humani-tarian Award from Planned Par-enthood of North Texas Inc. They have reached the lofty status of having awards named after them:The Dallas Women Lawyers asso-ciation has its Louise B. Raggio Award and the Association of  Women Journalists its Vivian Cas-tleberry Woman of Courage Award.Ms. Raggio, with her puckishsense of humor, makes light of allthis. “You know why everyone’sgiving Vivian and me so many awards these days?” she likes toask. “Because they think we’re go-ing to die soon.”But, as anyone who has seenLouise & Vivian’s Famous Dog-and-Pony Show can testify, thesetwo are very much alive and kick-ing — and working. They still havelaw cases to win, books to writeand humanitarian causes tochampion.
 Two of a kind 
Together they produced
TexasTornado
(Citadel Press; $24.95),Ms. Raggio’s life story, written with Ms. Castleberry and pub-lished last year. The book’s subtitleis
The Autobiography of a Crusad-er for Women’s Rights and Family Justice,
and it includes a foreword by former Gov. Ann Richards andclosing notes from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Gloria Steinem, JamesMacGregor Burns and others. Ms. Raggio and Ms. Castleber-ry have known each other for de-cades and have much in common.Both grew up poor, as small-townTexas farm girls “with mothers who valued education beyond another thing,” Ms. Castleberry says.“Where we differed was that Lou-ise was an only child, and I was theeldest of three.”Both were valedictorians of their high school classes. Ms. Rag-gio got her law degree at SouthernMethodist University; Ms. Castle- berry got her bachelor’s in journal-ism at SMU. Ms. Raggio managedher career while raising three sons with her late husband and law partner, GrierH. Raggio;Ms. Castleber-ry managedhers whilerearing fivedaughters with her hus- band, CurtisCastleberry.Both hus- bands foughtin the SouthPacific in World War II,though theRaggios wed before PearlHarbor andthe Castleber-rys married af-ter the war. And then, both Ms. Raggio andMs. Castleberry chose professionsthat were traditionally male-dom-inated and — especially in conser- vative postwar Dallas — not terri- bly welcoming to the few womenin their ranks. Thus each of themhad to reinvent the way mothers were expected to work in the1950s and ’60s.They accomplished this with a formidable combination of smarts, tenacity and charm.Ms. Castleberry “used a gentle, but strong influence with the malepublishers and male editors totransform the pages of her news-paper to a very enlightened, is-sues-oriented coverage,” says TomJohnson of Atlanta, who led the
Times Herald
in the 1970s andnow is retired as CNN chairmanand CEO.“As editor and as publisher, Ioften was prodded, persuaded andconvinced by Vivian to make the
Times Herald
a newspaper thatstrongly supported women’srights and civil rights,” Mr. John-son says. “She was a powerful voiceon the editorial board.”Ms. Castleberry wasthe first woman to sit on the
 Herald’ 
s edi-torial board. She remembers beingnervous before her debut, wonder-ing how she would fare in arcane boardroom debates. Thefears weren’t unfounded:Her fellow members’ most spirited topic of discussion was the Cowboys gameabout which she knew nothing.Ms. Raggio likewise used herState Bar offices to help legislatean array of rights for Texas womensomething she believed had to be formalized by enforceable stat-ute law before an equal-rightsamendment could have any realpower. It took her task force twopainstaking years and seven draftsto write a keystone bill, the MaritalProperty Act.Louise Raggio “worked my owncharm and shenanigans,” as sheputs it in
Texas Tornado,
and the bill passed both houses of the Leg-islature almost without opposi-tion. The Marital Property Act wassigned into law by Gov. John Con-nally in June 1967, and Ms. Raggio was there to witness history. The Act gave married women in Texasthe right to conduct financial af-fairs, such as opening a bank ac-count, signing contracts or sellinginherited property, without a hus- band’s permission.Within anotherdecade, Texas achieved its Family Code, a landmark set of laws thatset the pattern for similar legisla-tion ever since.
 Times of trial
Texas Tornado
gives Ms. Rag-gio’s personal life equal time withher legal career, providing star-tlingly intimate glimpses into herlong, devoted but by no means un-complicated marriage.Mr. Burns, the Pulitzer Prize- winning author and Ms. Raggio’sclose friend, told her that if she was to do a memoir, “it had to beabsolutely candid and truthful.” Soeven old friends were floored toread of the Raggios’ private trials,never before disclosed to anyone but their three sons.One anguish was the mysteri-ous blacklisting that divertedGrier H. Raggio from officers’training in World War II, sendinghim instead to Pacific battle-grounds, including Iwo Jima. Hecame home in September 1945,suffering from what now is calledpost-traumatic stress disorderanddepression. The Veterans Administrationfired him for alleged un-Ameri-canism, but eventually he was ex-onerated. Mr. Raggio died in April1988 without knowing why he had been smeared.More than 11 years later, his wife was able to discover the truth,thanks to the Freedom of Informa-tion Act. Early in the war, when Mr. Rag-gio worked undercover with theU.S. Department of Agriculture tonab perpetrators of ration-stampfraud, the secretive nature of his job attracted suspicions in SouthTexas. Ms. Raggio obtained FBI and Army files on her husband, filled with lies and speculation frompeople who had little acquain-tance with him but distrusted hispassion for civil rights.The other major revelation forMs. Raggio’s friends was the dis-closure that for a decade, duringthe same period as her legislativecampaigns for the Family Code,she battled devastating bouts of depression. Homeopathic remedies finally proved to be the solution for her.Ms. Raggio now hopes to promoteawareness of depression and en-courage other sufferers to get help.
Channeling Louise
“This book was supposed to befor my grandchildren,” Ms. Raggiosays. It began as informal audio-taped reminiscences, later tran-scribed by granddaughter JulieRaggio. Ms. Whitehill read the tran-script, “and I kept saying, ‘Louise, you’ve got to write this down.’But Ms. Raggio didn’t think shehad the time or the necessary skillsto construct a memoir. It was Ms. Whitehill who suggested that Ms.Castleberry should tackle the pro- ject.Ms. Castleberry had quotedMs. Raggio in countless
Times Herald
articles over the years. “Ireally felt a debt to Vivian,” Ms.Raggio says, “because she was writing all those stories no one else was writing at the time, about women’s legal and health issues.”Ms. Castleberry wanted to fin-ish writing
 Sarah, the Bridge Builder,
her forthcoming book onpioneer Sarah Cockrell, whom shesays was Texas’ first millionaire. And she didn’t want to “tamper with the friendship” she had withMs. Raggio: “The chemistry be-tween author and subject can beuncomfortable.”But as Ms. Castleberry notes in
Texas Tornado:
“The ‘deal’ wascinched at a Christmas party whenLouise said: ‘You’ve been putting words in my mouth for almost 50 years. Why do you want to quitnow?Though the story is told in Ms.Raggio’s distinctive voice, “I’ve‘been’ Louise for two years, andnow it feels like mine.” Indeed, Ms.Castleberry adds, her greatest ac-colade for
Texas Tornado
camefrom Kenneth Raggio, Louise’s youngest son who, like his brothers Grier Jr. and Thomas, isalso her law partner.“He came up and put his armaround me,” Ms. Castleberry says,smiling at the memory. “And hesaid: ‘You really captured that woman.’
Ms. Raggio and Ms. Castleberry will speakand sign books at The Park City Club at 11:30a.m. Thursday. Tickets are $25, $45 withlunch. For reservations, call 214-665-9401,or e-mail jsweeneypr@aol.com.
E-mail jharris@dallasnews.com
 They were there
Fifty years ago, two young mothers set out to crash the boys’ clubs of law and journalism, and indoing so, they helped ensure a better future for Texas women.
By JOYCE SA ´ENZ HARRIS
Staff Writer
 W 
hen Dallas attorney Louise B. Raggiotakes the podium with her friend and biographer, writer Vivian Castleberry,it’s a good bet you won’t be bored.“Vivian and I have this dog-and-po-ny show,” Ms. Raggio says. “We don’t have a script; we just talk.”
CHERYL DIAZ MEYER/Staff Photographer
Newswoman Vivian A. Castleberry (left) was uncertain about writing Louise Raggio’sautobiography. But her fears were soothed when Ms. Raggio (right) said to her, at a party,“You’ve been putting words in my mouth for almost 50 years. Why do you want to quit now?”
LOUISE HILMA BALLERSTEDTRAGGIO
Date and place of birth:
 June 15, 1919, in Austin
Occupation:
Attorney
My ideal vacation:
ACaribbean island
My hero is:
My deceasedhusband
My favorite presidents:
Harry Truman and Lyndon Baines Johnson
The best advice I could givea 20-year-old:
“No matter howmany times you fail, keep onkeeping on.”
My last meal would be:
Wildsalmon, mixed vegetables, lemonmeringue pie
Guests at my fantasydinner party:
Eleanor Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, JesusChrist, Mary Magdalene, MartinLuther King Jr. and Susan B.Anthony
Favorite city other thanDallas:
New York
I regret:
Not being taller 
Nobody knows I:
Won adancing contest in college
 VIVIAN LOU  ANDERSON CASTLEBERRY 
Date and place of birth:
April 8, 1922, Lindale, SmithCounty, Texas
Occupation:
 Journalist/writer
Favorite movies:
Gone Withthe Wind
because it was my“coming of age”! And
GuessWho’s Coming to Dinner
becauseit opened the door to humansocial equality.
My ideal vacation:
NewZealand, still a virtuallyundisturbed paradise
My heroes:
My maternalgrandmother, my mother and myhusband
My favorite presidents:
Franklin D. Roosevelt and LyndonBaines Johnson, because he didso much for civil rights and for women
The best advice I couldgive a 20-year-old:
“Keepenvisioning a better world andwork like crazy to make it comeabout.”
My last meal would be:
Sliced baked chicken,fresh-from-the-garden sliced East  Texas tomatoes, black-eyed peas,summer squash, corn on the coband corn bread, with fresh slicedpeaches and country cream for dessert
Guests at my fantasydinner party:
Curtis and Iwould invite our children andgrandchildren to a dinner partywith fantasy guests Eleanor Roosevelt, Katharine Graham,Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Shirin Ebadi (2003 NobelPeace Prize winner), Rosa Parks,Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Sanger, Mahatma Gandhi,Winston Churchill, Sacagawea andBill Moyers
I regret:
I don’t! Made up mymind years ago that I would do thebest I can with what I have to dowith and not entertain “what ifs.”
Nobody knows:
How much funI had being Louise Raggio for twoyears while I pulled together thecountless pieces of her life for 
Texas Tornado
“I often say the twomost important women in Dallas are Louise Raggio and Vivian Castleberry,in my humbleopinion. … They areboth giants.” 
Virginia Whitehill,
friend of Ms.Raggio and Ms. Castleberry 
 _ 
The Dallas Morning News
 Sunday, February 15, 2004 Page 3E

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