“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the

position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles

which he has overcome while trying to succeed.”

 Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery: An Autobiography

Success is to be measured by what one overcomes. Every time I read this quote it motivates me just as much as the first time. Each and every one of us is to be recognized for what we overcame in our walk-through life. In the case of Bonnie Campbell, she has overcome much.

You might know Bonnie as the Iowa Attorney General. You might know her as the Founding Director of the Violence Against Women Office. You might know her as the Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party back in the 1980s. But not everyone knows or understands the level of poverty she overcame.

I worked for Bonnie in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office as her scheduler. Mostly I worked the phones, the computer and dealt with office traffic but occasionally I was the driver, as Bonnie was all around the state holding forums on various topics.

One time we were driving from Des Moines to one of the many meetings Bonnie held with older Iowans about consumer fraud specifically targeted at older Iowans. The car conversations were always fun, with different situations sparking stories from whomever was in the car with us. I can’t remember the subject matter of the conversation, but I do remember the punch to my gut from this exchange. It was clearly a person we were discussing…

Me: He reminds me of Eeyore, all gloom and doom about everything.

Bonnie: Who’s Eeyore?

Me: You know, from the Winnie the Pooh stories.

Bonnie: No, I never heard of those stories.

That conversation was a gut punch to me, it still is. That someone has a childhood without knowledge of Winnie the Pooh in those preschool days when children learn so much from stories being read and clarified to them, told me so much about the economic realities of her childhood home. There was no extra money for books. And even if there had been, the adults had no time to read the books, with their various workloads from hard physical labor.

Bonnie grew up in the poverty of Appalachia found in central New York state. Her mother was a union worker at a nearby plant and they lived with Bonnie’s grandparents on the family dairy farm. Her grandmother helped take care of Bonnie and her siblings after school and when her mom was working. The farm kept them fed, but luxuries like books were hard. And so was time. Opportunities to talk came when work was being done, but few luxuries.

Bonnie was a good student. She was the first to graduate high school in her family. At 17 she boarded a bus to Washington, DC to work as a secretary -and because her typing skills were so excellent – she became a secretary to the head of the newly formed Department of Housing and Urban Development. She lived in a hotel for young women. Her first taste of what government could accomplish was when she was typing the Secretary’s testimony in support of the federal Fair Housing Act.

Think of the courage of a 17-year-old to get on a bus by herself and ride from rural New York State to Washington, DC. At that time, the bus would have taken a full day for that drive because there were so few interstate highways then.

Work on Capitol Hill attracted her. Bonnie worked on a subcommittee chaired by Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, where she became an admirer of Iowa’s Governor Harold Hughes after hearing his nomination speech for Eugene McCarthy at the Democratic National Convention in 1968. She went to work for Harold Hughes after he was elected to the U.S. Senate where she worked until he chose not to run for re-election. It was there she met her first husband, Ed Campbell. In 1974 they moved to Iowa to join the 1974 campaign of Senator John Culver. They won and Bonnie was appointed as the Director of his Iowa offices, during which time she started classes at DMACC, and later graduated from Drake University and then Drake University Law School in 1985.

I have worked with five candidates who grew up in poverty, three women and two men. Women who grew up in poverty are the best candidates to work for…nothing is ever as hard or difficult as it was in their childhood. Bonnie was the first and she took almost everything in stride. There were only two times I observed her frustration and only one of those was directed at me. And it made me laugh because it was still kindly and respectfully delivered.

So, as you read through the itemization of Bonnie’s work below, remember where she started from. She is an astonishing success! As a human, as a leader, and as someone who does not give up on making this world better. And she is still working in private practice to deal with sexual harassment in the workplace and advising companies on their environmental problems and how to fix those.

Yes, Booker T. Washington, obstacles overcome are exactly what defines success.

Bonnie’s trail of obstacles and firsts:

• Graduated High School at 17

• Hopped a bus to Washington, DC as a good student who was given the opportunity to work in the federal government

• Worked for the first Secretary of HUD

• Worked for Senator Muskie on a senate committee

• Worked for Senator Hughes

• Worked for Senator John Culver in Iowa

• Started college at 26

• Graduated law school at 35

• Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party

• First woman Attorney General of Iowa

• Founding Director of the federal Violence Against Women Office of the US Justice Department

About the author, Julie Stauch:

In the second grade I read every biography in the school library, then my mom walked us to the public library weekly so I could find other biographies to read. Those books began my passion for the power of democracy, my understanding of the opportunities that a functional democracy can offer to people no matter where you start from, and how the people who have led our country over the centuries are just people, none perfect, but seeking to do better. I knew I wanted to be a part of that process. I’ve run campaigns at all levels from city council to US House and Senate, worked in eight different states, and care deeply about how democracy allows us to create opportunities for all people. This is a lifelong quest and will not end until my last breath, which I expect to be a few decades down the road.