44 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • March/April 2018 TheCoastalBend.com issy Farenthold’s abil- ity to persevere in the face of tragedy started to develop at age two, following the death of her brother, Sonny, which she at first did not understand. Thir- ty-one years later, the pain of losing Vincent carried a depth unlike anything she had ever experienced, and Sissy was determined not to let it debilitate her life as it had her mother’s. As she had as a girl, Sissy immersed herself in activities and responsibilities, especially the protec- tion of Vincent’s surviving twin, Jimmy, who shared his late brother’s bleeding disorder. Her first effort at political organizing was gathering support among fellow parents for safer playground equipment at Jimmy’s school, which of course, she accomplished. Politics had always been part of her life, since the days when her father would lug her to Democrat- ic campaign events as a girl. In the immediate wake of unthinkable personal pain, Sissy dove into John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign for president, and soon af- ter helped manage her cousin, Dudley Dougherty’s, run for congress, which he lost, after which she took the job as head of Nueces County Legal Aid, in 1965. At the apex of the Lyndon Baines Johnson presidency, and the Great Society promise of a country that cared about the poor, the elderly, minorities, and those dis- advantaged educationally and economically, Sissy saw first-hand the ravaging, generational effects of poverty for so many of her fellow South Texans. Not unlike JFK, whom she admired and mourned, Sissy Farenthold recognized how lucky she really was in life, and that the advantages she enjoyed came with a responsibility to help better the lives of as many of her fellow human beings as she could, starting with the most vulnerable. This was the example set by her father, Dudley, Jr., who gave large sums of money to help people living in places that stretched from Cor- pus Christi, to orphanages in Africa and Mexico. The idea that generosity is a duty taught by Jesus Christ himself, and that the path to Heaven is a life of giving to the poor, especially for those born into great blessings, are values that run through generations of Sissy Tarlton’s ancestors, sustained by their Roman Catholic heritage. Genevieve Tarlton Dougherty, her aunt on her father’s side, like her brother, married a Doughtery, and also like her brother, lived the life of a philanthropist. The Fine Arts Center at the Univer- sity of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio is named in her honor, and for her generosity, and Pope Pius XII bestowed knighthood upon Genevieve, earning her the title, “Dame,” to the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, which was established to defend the Kingdom of Jeru- salem by its first Catholic ruler, French Duke Godfrey of Bouillon, in 1113, commander of the First Crusade. In modern times, appointment to the order is offered to laypersons who provide exceptional financial sup- port to its missions, above all, the protection of Chris- tians living in the Holy Land. Its members include heads of state, monarchs, obscure European royalty— and Sissy’s Aunt Genevieve. After two years at Nueces County Legal Aid, Sis- sy was encouraged to run for the legislature, and in 1968 she was elected to the Texas House, represent- ing Nueces and Kleberg Counties. Frances Farenthold of Corpus Christi joined 149 male colleagues in the lower house of 150 total members, and her one female colleague in the Texas Legislature, Senator Barbara Jordan from Houston, who would later be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Sissy shared the cover of Ms. magazine with Rep. Shirley Chisholm of New York, under the headline, “The Ticket That Could Have Been,” referring to the Democratic presidential primary race of 1972. When Farenthold entered the State House in 1969, Democrats still dominated Texas politics, and conservatives still dominated the Texas Democratic Party—it remained the party of LBJ. While her desire to fix the welfare system originally moti- vated Sissy to run for the legislature, ending corrup- tion, regardless of party, became her mission. left to right: Sissy Farenthold on the campaign trail; on the cover of Ms. magazine with Rep. Shirley Chisholm; endorsed for governor by Rep. Mickey Leland. S