The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist once proposed to Justice Sandra Day O'Conner

[RavenSky]

A cool little non-political political story...

...So it is with the story of the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist's marriage proposal to a Stanford Law School classmate in the early 1950s.

When 19-year-old Sandra Day entered Stanford Law School in 1949, her frequent seatmate was 26-year-old Bill Rehnquist, attending Stanford on the GI Bill. The two shared their equally meticulous class notes and eventually were dating regularly. But by December of their second year, she broke up with him while somehow retaining what she called their "study buddy" relationship...

...Rehnquist graduated a semester early and went off to Washington, D.C., for a Supreme Court clerkship...

...in March, just about the time that Day and O'Connor were going out on their 40th date in 40 days, Sandra got a letter from Rehnquist telling her he wanted to see her to talk about "important things." And in a March 29 letter, he popped the question. "To be specific, Sandy, will you marry me this summer?"

The future chief justice of the United States was proposing to the woman who, years later, would become the first woman to serve on the nation's highest court...

Sandra Day would marry John O'Connor, becoming Sandra Day O'Connor in 1952. As for Rehnquist, not long after Sandra said "no," he would start dating Nan Cornell, the woman he would marry in 1953.

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/31/6622...ampaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2059

 

[Derec]

My first reaction to the title was "proposed what"?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Damn. That’s a missed opportunity there. She could have been the wife of a Supreme Court justice.

 

[Toni]

She is ptobably still kicking herself!