Dorothy Barkley

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14586645/dorothy-barkley

Wife of Kentucky's senior United States senator Alben Barkley. She helped her husband conduct a successful campaign for his first public office, that of McCracken county attorney. Following his election to Congress as First District representatve in 1913, she went with him to Washington, and much of her time was spent there until 1936. Mrs. Barkley was active in several organizations of Paducah, including the Garden CLub and the Daughters of the American Revolution, and was a member of the First Christian church.

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On June 23, 1903, Dorothy Brower (November 14, 1882 – March 10, 1947) married Alben W. Barkley. They had three children: David Murrell Barkley (1906–1983), Marion Frances Barkley (1909–1996), and Laura Louise Barkley (1911–1987). Laura Louise married Douglas MacArthur II, a U.S. diplomat and nephew of General Douglas MacArthur.

Dorothy Brower became an invalid due to heart disease. Alben Barkley had closed his law practice when he was elected to the Senate, so to pay for his wife's care, he supplemented his $10,000 annual salary with speaking engagements. He was the Democratic Speakers Bureau's most requested orator, surpassing Truman. A Pageant magazine poll of legislators chose Barkley and Republican Robert A. Taft as the hardest-working members of their respective parties. The Barkleys sold their Washington, D.C. home and moved into an apartment to reduce expenses. Marny Clifford, wife of President Truman's Naval Advisor Clark Clifford, nicknamed Barkley "Sparkle Barkle" for his care of his wife, who died March 10, 1947. When Barkley won the Collier Award in May 1948, he donated the $10,000 prize to the University of Louisville School of Medicine in his wife's honor.