STRONG, INDEPENDENT WOMAN: Wendy Davis Shows How You Climb the Ladder, Feminist Style.
A major part of the image she’s running on is her self-made single teen mother story, which plays very well to elderly Northeastern Democrats, hence her favorable coverage in media outlets such as the NY Times. It helps, that she also has a degree from Harvard, but until recently the story behind how she got it has remained unchallenged.
The Dallas Morning News helps set the record straight.
First, she never was a single teen mother. In fact, she was married when she had her first child, and divorced her husband at the age of 21. . . .
Very soon after her divorce, her father introduced her to an older man named Jeff Davis. Mr. Davis, a 34-year-old lawyer, began dating her, and married her within a couple years, when she was 24 years old. By this time, she had enrolled at Texas Christian University, and her new husband paid her tuition at the college. After graduating, she was accpeted at Harvard Law School, which Mr. Davis also funded by cashing in his 401(k) and taking out a loan. In the meanwhile, he worked hard and took care of her daughters back in Texas while she worked on her Harvard degree.
In the years after Wendy Davis graduated from Harvard, her husband continued to pay off the loan that put her through Harvard and to be a father to her children.
This is what happened next:
Over time, the Davises’ marriage was strained. In November 2003, Wendy Davis moved out.
Jeff Davis said that was right around the time the final payment on their Harvard Law School loan was due. “It was ironic,” he said. “I made the last payment, and it was the next day she left.”