Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Sunday Morning

Former White House Press Secratary Speaks About New Book

Aired July 08, 2001 - 08:43   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A father on his deathbed tells his son a story about a young schoolteacher who was tarred and feathered and of a family member's involvement. Some might be inclined to keep that a secret. But when it happened to former White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, he wrote a book. "Esther's Pillow" is the title and he joins us from Washington now to talk about it. Hi, Marlin.

MARLIN FITZWATER, "AUTHOR, "ESTHER'S PILLOW": Hi, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: OK, so there you were and your dad is saying Jay, Jay. What were you thinking. Who is this guy?

FITZWATER: Well, I thought it might be a neighbor or an old friend or someone he had met in the 76 years of his life and it wasn't really until after he had died that my brother and I got to examining who this might be and discovered it might be a family person and then went back to the little town where my father was born and raised and started going through the court records to find out who it might be.

PHILLIPS: OK, so here the investigation began. You and your brother, you find out who Jay is and this big family scandal. Tell us how it unfolds and what you guys discovered.

FITZWATER: Well, we went to the courthouse in Lincoln County, Kansas and we asked for records starting in 1920 and going back, thinking there must be some criminal reason why our family would banish this fellow from existence and who was my great uncle, it turned out, Jay Fitzwater. And as we got to 1911, there it was, Jay Fitzwater et. al. versus the state of Kansas. And she pulled out the dusty old records and it showed that he had been one of eight or nine town fathers who had actually tarred and feathered a schoolteacher.

PHILLIPS: Unbelievable. Why -- do you have any, do you know why they didn't like the schoolteacher, Margaret Chambers?

FITZWATER: Well, the accusation against her was that she had seduced a student. My conclusion, however, from investigating is simply that that was not the case. Indeed, all of the people who tried to tar and feather her went to trial and were convicted and there was never a shred of evidence that she had done it. But she was attractive. She was pretty. She was independent, strong-willed. And I think the wives of the town put their husbands to it.

PHILLIPS: So whatever happened to Uncle Jay and his descendants?

FITZWATER: Well, we don't know. That's still the mystery of the story, that in the end my great, great grandfather ran him out of the family, told him to leave Kansas and said his name will never be mentioned by the Fitzwaters again. And he supposedly headed north and I still have not been able to find him or any remnant of his family.

PHILLIPS: Wow. So why do you think your dad finally sort of fessed up in a way more than 70 years later?

FITZWATER: I think he just had this bottled up inside of him. The admonition that they could never talk about him, I think, must have weighed on my father because I asked my uncle, the one living relative who's my father's age, why he didn't ask his father about this. He said well, once or twice they tried and he just turned around and walked away. And it was clearly understood by everybody that they were not to mention this name.

So my father must have just worried about it all those years.

PHILLIPS: Marlin Fitzwater. Well, I have to tell you, I definitely enjoyed the book, "Esther's Pillow." Thanks so much for being with us this morning and taking a different type, different types of questions.

FITZWATER: Thank you very much. Nice to be here.

PHILLIPS: All right, Marlin.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com