Joanne Kemp

May 8, 2009


Peggy Noonan has written a wonderful tribute to Jack Kemp who died of cancer last Saturday at the age of 73. The entire column deserves careful reading because, as Noonan puts it, Jack Kemp “had the power of a happy man.” Something worth remembering in this all-too-cynical age.

The article ends with a glowing tribute to Joanne Kemp. I reproduce it here because, on this Mother’s Day weekend, it points out the life-changing influence of a godly woman.

Kemp was half of one of the most moving partnerships in modern American political history. “Some say Reagan wouldn’t have been Reagan without Kemp,” says Jimmy Kemp. “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this: Kemp would not have been Kemp without Joanne Main.” She was his stability and support as he went “from passion to passion.” She was, is, a citizen, a maker of new communities and supporter of existing ones. She picked their first house because it was near her church, Fourth Presbyterian in Bethesda, Md. For 38 years she’s led a Christian study group that meets every Friday morning at her home. She did the same in Buffalo. “He was the power of political ideas, she was the power of spiritual ones,” says their son. She has devoted her time and energy to friends, neighbors, husband, Prison Fellowship, groups that advocate for the unborn, four children and 17 grandchildren. She is one of those who quietly make it possible for Washington to function, however imperfectly, as a real and coherent community.

Once before I was to give a big speech, I saw her in the audience and told her I felt nervous. “Then we must pray,” she said, and did, unselfconsciously, with focus, in a gray folding chair in a cavernous auditorium with hundreds of people milling about. That’s who was behind Jack Kemp. No wonder he did what he did.

 

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