Sherrill Redmon is the former wife of conservative Senator Mitch McConnell. As the wife of the senator, many people came to know about Sherrill Redmon. She is a former businesswoman and journalist. Redmon was married to Mitch McConnell from 1968 to 1980. Her full name is Sherrill Lynn Redmon and she is born in Louisville, Kentucky USA. She and McConnell were buddies in college. They started to date and married. They had a good relationship but decided to separate because of incompatibility.
Who is Sherrill Redmon?
Sherrill grew up in Louisville with her father named Charles. He was a businessman. The name of her mother is Doris who was a piano teacher. Also, she has two sisters and a brother.
Sherrill Redmon and politics
Redmon is interested in politics and journalism. When growing up she attended Seneca High School. She was a bright student in the class. Also, she organized many programs in her school. She was the best student. Then after her school, she enrolled in the University of Louisville. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965. At the University of Kentucky, she obtained her Juris Doctor degree in Philosophy.
Love life and marriage
In 1962 Mitch and Sherrill met while they were studying at the University of Louisville. They began to date after a year and then got married in 1968. Ten years later Mitch became the judge of Jefferson County. He was away from home most of the time. But their marriage still worked. Sherrill had three girls, Elly in 1972, Claire in 1976, and Porter in 1979.
But a year after Porter’s birth Sherrill and Mitch got divorced. The reason for their divorce is irreconcilable differences. In 1986 Sherrill slept with Harry Reid who was a senator from Nevada. But it is not clear whether they had any actual relationship. Then Mitch married Elaine Chao who is the Secretary of Transportation in 1993. They two do not have any children.
The career of Sherrill Redmon
Sherrill Redmon was mostly a housewife when she was married to Mitch McConnell. She raised her children and also spent some time working at Archives and Records Center. After she divorced her husband she left Kentucky and settled in Massachusetts. At that time she had a Ph.D. in American history. Therefore she started to use her qualifications to get a career.
After her split, she joined Smith College and became a feminist scholar. In 1993 she started working for Sophia Smith Collection from the Women’s History Archives. Then she got promoted to the position of director. She held that position till her retirement in 2012.
During her career in the Sophia Smith collection, she worked hard to expand the collection. She wanted to make it more racially and culturally diverse. Also, she worked with popular journalist and feminist Gloria Steinem.
Gloria Steinem revealed that Redmon rarely spoke about her life with Mitch to her colleagues. She shared that eventhough Redmon was devoted to recording all of the women’s lives she did not talk about the earlier story of her own life. Steinem thinks that Mitch and Sherrill separated because of different political views. She can only imagine how hard it must have been for Sherrill to live and raise children with the democratic Jekyll and then find him turning into authoritarian Hyde.
Life post-retirement and legacy
Mitch McConnell’s ex-wife Sherrill Redmon spent nineteen years of her life managing the Sophia Smith Collection (SSC). Her last day on the job was August 31st, 2012. She influenced the organization through her ideas. The staff of the organization spoke about the legacy she left behind during her last day on the job.
The Collection Sherrill inherited in 1993 was large and very rich. But it only centered and focused on the lives of white women. Many of the women were elite and belonged to the upper class.
The staff of SSC addressed the issue of imbalance but the only person who worked to make it right is Sherrill Redmon. With the aid of Gloria Steinem, Joyce Follet the Collection Development Coordinator, and the financial support from the Ford Foundation, the SSC launched Voices of Feminism. It was an ambitious documentation strategy to help scholars to fill the gaps in the historical records.
They tried to search for the Voices project where the women were asked to offer their papers and/or the records to the organization. Many of the people who were at first skeptical to send their papers decided to send them because of the effort of Voices Staff.
The new collections are currently the important resources of African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Pacific Islanders, and more. These new materials offer strong proof that women of color also took part in the fight for gender inequality in 1963. Also, they participated in the incident considered as the second wave of feminism.
Further, Sherrill made use of the advantages that came in her way. She worked towards the acquisition of incomparable records of YWCA of the U.S.A. They received 6,000 linear feet of new sources. She successfully found funds to make the materials ready for research. She procured grants and donations from large and small places.
Hobbies and interests
Sherrill is a good fan of history. From a very early age, she has traveled to many European countries. She is very familiar with the history of Europe too. Also, she likes to read books in her free time. Some of the popular writers she loves are Edgar Allan Po and Franz Kafka. Her favorite books are “The Trial”, “A Hunger Artist”, “In the Penal Colony” and more.
Further, she likes to watch movies and TV series. Her favorite actors are Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, and Rosario Dawson. Also, the movies she likes are “Devil’s Advocate”, “Scent of a Woman”, “Donnie Brasco”.
Redmon is a fighter of human rights and also equality between men and women. She likes animals and has donated money to several charity organizations.
Conclusion
Sherrill Redmon is a great woman. In her life, she has worked towards many good deeds.