NeW is thrilled to have Mary Katharine Ham as the 2019 Empowered Woman of the Year. Want to get to know her better before the National Conference on June 20-21 in Washington, DC? Join us for this 3-part series, “Three Questions with Mary Katharine Ham”.

Who do you believe is the most inspirational conservative woman, past or present, and why?  

My grandmother was born in rural Virginia in the 1920s. She went to a one-room schoolhouse, then to college, and somewhere along the way played competitive basketball. She was a Navy WAVE during WWII. She lived as a single woman in the Washington, DC area doing top-secret clearance work tracking enemy subs based on intel from the Pacific. When her childhood sweetheart came home from the European theater, where he was a bombardier with 32 successful missions, they married and had three kids. She raised them, sometimes on her own, while her husband was deployed, other times moving all of them across the country and the world multiple times. When he died at 48, she soldiered on, later marrying again, and becoming a beloved step-mother to a whole other set of teen-to-grown children. She spent the rest of her life being generally amazing in her hometown in rural Virginia. My first born is named for her.

Inspired by her? Be sure to register to hear more from Mary Katharine Ham at the National Conference.