Carole Kamin Bellows

November 16, 2005; November 30, 2005

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Transcript of Interview with Carole Kamin Bellows (Nov. 16, 2005; Nov. 30, 2005), https://abawtp.law.stanford.edu/exhibits/show/carole-kamin-bellows.

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ABA Senior Lawyers Division

Women Trailblazers in the Law

ORAL HISTORY

of

CAROLE K. BELLOWS

Interviewer: Krista D. Kauper

Dates of Interviews:

November 16, 2005 November 30, 2005

Oral History of the Honorable Carole Kamin Bellows

First Interview

This is the first interview of the oral history of the Honorable Carole Kamin Bellows, which is being

taken on behalf of Women Trailblazers in the Law, a project of the American Bar Association

Commission on Women in the Profession. It is being conducted by Krista D. Kauper on November

16, 2005.

Ms. Kauper: Today is November 16, 2005. This is Krista Kauper and I am in the chambers of

Judge Carole Bellows to take her oral history. Please start by saying your full

name, and your date and place of birth.

Judge Bellows: Okay, I am Carole Kamin Bellows, and I was born on May 24, 1935, in Chicago,

Illinois.

Ms. Kauper: Very good, and we'll start with a little bit of your family background.

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: Tell me a little bit about your grandparents -- were they in this country, were they

immigrants, where did they live?

Judge Bellows: No. All.my grandparents were immigrants from Russia, Ukraine, and that area.

Ms. Kauper: Very good.

Judge Bellows: Actually I know quite a bit about my paternal grandfather, because he wrote an

autobiography up to the age of 10. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Oh. (Laughs)

- 1 -

Judge Bellows; Which is very interesting by the way.

Ms. Kauper: That is interesting. (Laughs)

Judge Bellows: Yes, and he didn't learn to read or write until he was in his 50's.

Ms. Kauper: How interesting.

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: And where did they settle in the United States?

Judge Bellows: You know, I don't know where they originally settled, but they all ended up in

Chicago.

Ms. Kauper: Okay, very good, and then your parents, were they born here in Chicago?

Judge Bellows: My parents were born here, and they grew up on the west side of Chicago, and

they were high school sweethearts.

Ms. Kauper: Great.

Judge Bellows: They were high school sweethearts at Marshall High School. My mom was born

in 1911, and my dad was born in 19.10.

Ms. Kauper: Your father is younger than your mother?

Judge Bellows: No, no, my mother was one year younger.

Ms. Kauper: Oh, right. (Laughs)

Judge Bellows: She was one year younger, and they went to Marshall. Then they went to Craine

College, and then they both went to Kent Law School.

Ms. Kauper: Oh, very good.

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: So your mother was a lawyer as well.

Judge Bellows: Yes.

-2-

Ms. Kauper: Fabulous.

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: Very good, and was she, do you know, the only woman in her class at the time?

Judge Bellows: No. I think she had one or may have had a couple of others. I do have a page

from the Women's Bar Association records from 1934 with all the women

lawyers in Chicago.

Ms. Kauper: Oh, that's fabulous.

Judge Bellows: It was one, open foldout page. It's very interesting. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: That is fabulous.

Judge Bellows: And, actually, there were mothers of other Chicago lawyers on that page. For

example, Katherine Rinella was the mother of a couple of a well known

attorneys, and Charlotte Adelman's mother was in that class.

Ms. Kauper: No kidding.

Judge Bellows: So, there were maybe twenty-something women lawyers in Illinois at that time.

Ms. Kauper: That's 1934.

Judge Bellows: In 1933 or 1934.

Ms. Kauper: Great.

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: And, that makes me want to backtrack just a little bit. Were your grandparents

college educated as well?

Judge Bellows: Oh no. They, I don't know even if they went to grade school. (Laughs) I mean,

they didn't do that in the ghetto. I'll show you, if you're interested ever, the area

where they started out. My paternal grandfather, who I know the most about, ...

- 3 -

Ms. Kauper: He's the one who wrote the autobiography.

Judge Bellows: Wrote the autobiography and had no formal education. I mean zero, because you

had to have money to have a formal education in the Ukraine. And, it was a very

oppressive society -- very oppressive for Jews in the ghetto.

Ms. Kauper: Do you know what led to both your parents being able to go not only to college,

but also to law school?

Judge Bellows: I think it's just the entire social structure of immigrants' children --expecting to

be educated and live a better life than their parents.

Ms. Kauper: That's fabulous. That's great.

Judge Bellows: Yes, but this was the whole culture in the West. I mean, this is where you have

doctors and lawyers and accountants, and this is a free country. And, we had free

or reasonable education, and then that was right in the Great Depression when

they went to law school. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Did you ... I'm sorry.

Judge Bellows: Go ahead. I'm assuming they worked during school, helping put themselves

through school because their parents certainly couldn't afford to.

Ms. Kauper: Right. Did they practice here in Chicago, your parents?

Judge Bellows: My father did. My mother just practiced a little bit. My mother spent most of her

time doing family things, and she was very active in civic life. She founded the

League of Women Voters in Skokie. And, she was very active on the speakers'

circuit for judicial reform and constitutional reform, which lead to the

Constitutional Convention of 1970 or the Constitution of 1970 and the

- 4 -

convention preceding it. So, she was very active politically on good government

kind of things.

Ms. Kauper: Very good, and where did your father practice?

Judge Bellows: He practiced in Chicago, he was a labor lawyer, he worked ...

Ms. Kauper: And with a firm, or ...

Judge Bellows: Well, he really had his own firm most of the time. He started out, in 1935, he

was a corporation counsel for the City of Chicago -- Assistant Corporation

Counsel for the City of Chicago. Then he went into practice for a very short time

with his brother, who was in personal injury law, and he did not like personal

injury law at all. He had a very ... well, he was squeamish. (Laughs) And, that's

not good for a PI lawyer.

So, somehow he got into labor law, representing labor unions. He did some work

for John L. Lewis and the United Mine Workers around the war time, and he did

go to Washington and do work for the United Mine Workers and practiced labor

law. He represented teamsters, he represented grain millers out of Minneapolis,

and he had an interesting career.

Ms. Kauper: He certainly did.

Judge Bellows: And then, in 1957 I believe, he began teaching at Loyola Law School -- he taught

labor law at Loyola Law School.

Ms. Kauper: Very good.

Judge Bellows: So, yes. It was very ... he had a very interesting career.

- 5 -

Ms. Kauper: Sounds like it. You mentioned that your mother was active in civic life. Was

your father politically active as well -- civically active or in office?

Judge Bellows: Yes, yes. My father was a Justice of the Peace in Skokie in the, I think, late 40's

Ms. Kauper:

early 50's. So, yes, he was politically active.

And, you also made a reference to religion. Your grandparents were religious,

were your parents religious at all?

Judge Bellows: Not at all.

Ms. Kauper: No. Oh, okay.

Judge Bellows: Not a bit, not a bit.

Ms. Kauper: And how did they raise you? What kind of environment did they raise you in?

Judge Bellows: It was very unstructured. I guess we were raised without of a lot of direction,

because they believed that you were to take responsibility for yourself. I mean if

it was cold out, my mother would never, never say, "put on a sweater, you're

going to be cold." Never. (Laughs) One day, I asked her when I was in high

school why I never went to summer camp, and she said, "you never signed

yourself up in time." (Laughs) So, we were raised to take responsibility for

ourselves.

Ms. Kauper: That's great.

Judge Bellows: Especially me, I'm the oldest, so (laughs) especially me.

Ms. Kauper: And I assume that would have influenced you in later life, as well, I mean that

early ...

· Judge Bellows: Taking responsibility.

Ms. Kauper: Taking responsibility, yes.

- 6 -

Judge Bellows: Oh yes. I was the older sister, and I did take care of my younger brothers. And,

you know I never expected anybody to really take care of me. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Great. So, you were brought up here in Chicago. You were born in Chicago and

brought up here?

Judge Bellows: I grew up in the community of Evanston/ Skokie. Well, we moved to Evanston/

Skokie in 1941. I was six years old. We lived on the south side before that, in an

apartment. Then, we had a nice house, and it was literally in Skokie, but it was

the Evanston School District. So that was ~he environment that I grew up in.

Ms. Kauper: And what was that neighborhood like in those days?

Judge Bellows: Lovely homes. It was very country-ish when we first moved in, in 1941. I mean,

it had prairies and lots of places for kids to run and play, and not until after the

war did it begin getting built up.

Ms. Kauper: Interesting. You have, you mentioned a sibling. Do you have a sister?

Judge Bellows: No, I have two brothers.

Ms. Kauper: Oh, two brothers.

Judge Bellows: Two younger brothers. They are both lawyers, and they are both married to

lawyers ....

Ms. Kauper: Ooh.

Judge Bellows: ... and all of our fathers-in-law were lawyers. (Laughs) So, we have a lot of

lawyers.

Ms. Kauper: That's some family.

Judge Bellows: I think we had about thirty people in our immediate family at one point..

Ms. Kauper: My goodness.

- 7 -

Judge Bellows: When people were alive, as a matter of fact, I think there's a story, which I could

bring to the next interview, that the Tribune ran on husband and wife lawyer

combination ...

Ms. Kauper: Oh, very good.

Judge Bellows: ... families. I'll have to remember to bring that down.

Ms. Kauper: Very good.

Ms. Kauper: Tell me a little bit about your relationship with your brothers when you were

kids ..

Judge Bellows: Well, I was the big sister and my next youngest brother was about four and a half

years younger than I was. I was born in '35 in May, and he was born in February

of '39. So, you know, I was the bossy older sister, the caretaker. (Laughs) And

then the other one was born in 1940.

Ms. Kauper: Okay, very good. Tell me a little bit about what you were like as a child, your

childhood personality.

Judge Bellows: I, well we, in those times we lived almost between rural and suburban

communities, so we didn't have many organized activities. We played outside all

the time. We rode our bikes, we played baseball, we played football, we went to

the park, and we had no supervision. I mean we just -- the mothers would

(laughs) say goodbye in the morning and call us back when it got dark, and it was

very, very unstructured. As I say, I never went to an organized camp or

preschool or anything like that. We played outside, and we skated and we rode

bikes, and as I say, played ball, and it was a very outdoor life.

- 8 -

Ms. Kauper: Would you say that's what we would call a tomboy these days? Were you a little

bit of a tomboy?

Judge Bellows: Oh, nowadays you would call it a tomboy, sure.

Ms. Kauper: Very good. I was one too. Tell me a little bit about your grammar school, where

you went to school.

Judge Bellows: I went ... well, I had one year of kindergarten in the city, and then I went to

Lincolnwood School in Evanston. It was over a mile from my house, and they

didn't allow kids to stay for lunch. I was this little kid, and I had to get back

home more than a mile and get back to school within about an hour, so I learned

to eat very fast (laughs), and I got a lot of exercise. (Laughs) A lot.

Ms. Kauper: Were you interested in school? Were you interested in studying, learning?

Judge Bellows: Oh yes. I was always a good student, yes, and I always liked books.

Ms. Kauper: What did you like to read?

Judge Bellows: Oz books were my favorite thing. Read the Oz books all the time, multiple times.

And, I still have my childhood collection as a matter of fact.

Ms. Kauper: Well, that's great.

Judge Bellows: I don't know if my daughter ever read it or not, but I still have it. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Very good, and were there other subjects that you were particularly interested in,

or were you interested in everything?

Judge Bellows: No, I wasn't. No, I didn't like .. .I wasn't interested in math. (Laughs) I liked

science though, and I did take piano lessons. I never practiced enough (laughs),

but I did take piano lessons.

- 9 -

Ms. Kauper: Were your parents musical? Did they encourage that?

Judge Bellows: They loved music and they did encourage it, but they didn't play. I mean they

were brought up very, very, very poor. So, they really didn't have that kind of

background.

Ms. Kauper: And what are your recollections of your friends in those days, your childhood

friends?

Judge Bellows: Well, I remember, I had two friends who lived next door to me and they were

Ms. Kauper:

very ladylike, supposedly. They knitted, and they played with their cats. But, the

oldest kid, who was a little girl -- we're talking about probably age ten or eleven -

- and her best friend used to go to the construction sites, because after the war

there were a lot of constructions sites. They used to sabotage (laughs) the poured

cement. I remember that. (Laughs) That was very bizarre, very bizarre.

You've mentioned the war a couple of times. You were quite young during the

war, what year was that when ... ?

Judge Bellows: Yes, I was ten when it was over. I was ten. The war was very much a part of our

childhood, because you know, we had rationing of everything. I mean, your

parents couldn't. .. we did have a car, but they couldn't drive you anywhere

because we had gas rationing. So, they didn't pick me up at the mile away

school, ever (laughs), or just about ever. And, I remember, at the end of World

War II, standing at the end of the street pounding on pots and pans, telling

everyone the war was over. And then we had scrap drives and stamp drives, and

we were very involved, and victory gardens. You know, we all had the victory

gardens.

- 10 -

Ms. Kauper: What was the feeling as a child, about the war itself?

Judge Bellows: We really didn't understand it.

Ms. Kauper: Didn't really?

Judge Bellows: You know, I was ten when it was over. So, we knew it was there, and we didn't

really understand it, but we knew it was good it was over -- that we knew. And,

then of course, my uncles were away and in the service, and we knew that. Just

about every able-bodied man was away at a certain age group.

Ms. Kauper: And what was the influence of that, in those next few years when you were, say,

ten to fifteen of those immediate years after the war? What was that like?

Judge Bellows: Well, when you're ten, you know, you probably aren't that politically aware.

Ms. Kauper: Right.

Judge Bellows: Yes. So I can't say that I was really political until much later.

Ms. Kauper: Was there a feeling of excitement though, about the country, about things moving

forward?

Judge Bellows: Oh very. The one thing that was instilled was patriotism. You know, Americans

were great and the enemies were bad. That we had very much indoctrinated, and

my generation is very patriotic, I think. Very patriotic.

Ms. Kauper: Continues to be.

Judge Bellows: And continues to be, right. Right.

Ms. Kauper: Going back to school, are there any teachers from your grammar school, that

stand out? Any teachers you remember that influenced you?

Judge Bellows: Not so much, grammar school. I had a .....

Ms. Kauper: Maybe too early.

- 11 -

Judge Bellows: .. .I had a really wonderful English teacher in high school that was a tremendous

influence. Mr. Hach. He was an English teacher and he did the journalism

program at Evanston High School.

Ms. Kauper: Oh, good.

Judge Bellows: So I was active in that, and oh yes, I'd say, of all the teachers that I ever had, he

probably influenced me the most in writing and a sense of reporting on current

events and things like that. So, yes, my English teacher probably more than

anybody.

Ms. Kauper: Did he encourage you in your career direction, as well?

Judge Bellows: Oh no, it was way, way too early.

Ms. Kauper: Too early?

Judge Bellows: For that, but I did learn how to write, and I appreciated writing and of course

that's important when you're a lawyer. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Right. Did you travel much as a child? Did you have the opportunity to travel

very much?

Judge Bellows: Oh, I remember my parents did take us on long car trips, yes. (Laughs) Yes,

which I never really liked.

Krista: (Laughs).

Judge Bellows: We left in our '41 Chrysler in 1948, and we drove to California, the southern

California area, went up the coast to Seattle, then drove back in the northern part

of the United States. You know, Yellowstone Park, and that was huge travel. I

know I've been to Canada, driving again, and I had been to Florida during high

- 12 -

Ms. Kauper:

Judge Bellows:

Ms. Kauper:

Judge Bellows:

Ms. Kauper:

Judge Bellows:

school, driving. (Laughs) Niagara Falls, driving. (Laughs) So, we had a lot of

driving trips, and I went on my first plane when I was fifteen.

Oh, very good. And what did those .. .I will say from my point of view, it really

peaked my curiosity some of those driving trips that I took with my family.

Oh, yes.

What was your reaction to those kind of trips?

That I never wanted to drive to California. (Laughs)

I can certainly understand that. (Laughs)

So, I liked the places we went, but I sure didn't like the long drives, because in

those days there were no expressways, you have to remember.

Ms. Kauper: Right.

Judge Bellows: And in those days, we didn't have chains of motels, so we would just look for any

place, and some of them were pretty dreadful. (Laughs) You know, you didn't

call up Holiday Inn or Marriott and make reservations.

Ms. Kauper: Right. (Laughs)

Judge Bellows: You just stumbled along the two-lane highways, and it was an experience.

(Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Well, let's talk a little bit about high school. Tell me just a little bit -- first

starting out, what your strongest recollections are from high school? What was

your impression of high school?

Judge Bellows: Well, we're talking about Evanston. It was a very conservative Republican

community in the 50's, the early 50's -- very conservative Republican. Now it

isn't, but it's totally changed. We had, the social life of Evanston High School

- 13 -

revolved around Y clubs, YMCA clubs. We did that, and did sleepovers things.

And I was on the swimming team at the YMCA, because Evanston High School

at that time didn't have a swimming pool.

Ms. Kauper: Okay.

Judge Bellows: I did get interested in swimming around that time, and I loved the beach.

(Laughs) Loved the beach. So, I had my Y club, and I was active in the

newspaper and we just had a very carefree high school experience, I'd say.

Ms. Kauper: Great. Did you have a big circle of friends? What were your friends like?

Judge Bellows: Yes. We had our Y club and very nice girls and, as I say, we had sleepovers and

parties and fashion shows and sweet sixteen teas. That was very important in the

north shore in the early 5 0' s. We had, every sweet sixteen, we'd get dressed up

in our hats and our white gloves and our high heels, and we'd have a sweet

sixteen tea.

Ms. Kauper: Very good.

Judge Bellows: So it was very social, very social.

Ms. Kauper: Sounds like it.

Judge Bellows: Yes, very. You know (laughs), innocent socials, but we had a nice time.

Ms. Kauper: And let's talk a little bit about school. What kind of a student were you?

Judge Bellows: I was good student. I was a good student, but I wasn't the valedictorian.

Ms. Kauper: Was it important for you to do well?

Judge Bellows: Oh yes, yes. I wasn't the valedictorian, but the valedictorian actually went to

Michigan Law School. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Oh, very good.

- 14 -

Judge Bellows: We haven't seen her since. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: And how did your parents influence you in high school? Did they encourage you

in education, I assume?

Judge Bellows: Always, always, always. As I say, they were not the directive kind of parents.

Ms. Kauper:

They expected all us to do well, and we did. (Laughs) But they didn't push us in

anyway.

You've mentioned your high school teacher already, the English teacher. That

sounds like it may have been your favorite subject, your favorite class.

Judge Bellows: Oh yes, I loved journalism and social studies, Spanish ... you know, we had a lot

Ms. Kauper:

of interesting classes. We're talking ancient history now. (Laughs)

You mentioned playing the piano. Did you play another instrument? Were you

in the band or orchestra?

Judge Bellows: No, no. I never even learned to read music (laughs), but I did take it for a while,

yes.

Ms. Kauper: And you also mentioned swimming. Were there any other activities that you took

when you were in school?

Judge Bellows: I remember a bunch ofmy high school friends and I took tap dancing.

Ms. Kauper: Really.

Judge Bellows: When we were in high school, it was really fun. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: That's great.

Judge Bellows: We were at the recital with all the little kids. (Laughs) So, it was fun.

Ms. Kauper: Were you at all politically interested at this point in your life?

Judge Bellows: In high school, no.

- 15 -

Ms. Kauper: No.

Judge Bellows: No, not in high school.

Ms. Kauper: And were there any, and again, I just don't know the answer to this, were people

socially active at that point in high school? Was there any volunteer work done

at that age or was it really too young?

Judge Bellows: Oh, I think we did things like go into the ghetto and paint houses and things like

that. We'd do things, some social things like that -- you know, help the poor

people. I remember specifically going into the ghetto and painting people's

homes and their walls weren't even like we were used to -- they were so thin.

But, I specifically remember that kind of social action.

Ms. Kauper: What were your plans at this point in your life? What were· your goals?

Judge Bellows: I wanted to be a doctor.

Ms. Kauper: Oh.

Judge Bellows; Yes, my mother always encouraged that. So, I actually spent two years of pre-

med at Illinois. (Laughs).

Ms. Kauper: Very good.

Judge Bellows: You know, I wasn't .. .it wasn't for me. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Nor for me. (Laughs). We obviously alreaµy talked about the war and, and that

was probably the biggest current event of that time.

Judge Bellows: Oh, absolutely.

Ms. Kauper: Were there any others, anything else that comes to mind?

- 16 -

Judge Bellows: Oh, absolutely. Then the building after the war. We lived in a kind of

undeveloped area until 1945, when they started building all over the place. So

there was this resurgence. And then the Eisenhower years and things like that.

Ms. Kauper: Very good.

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: Anything else about the high school years that we haven't covered?

Judge Bellows: Oh yes. The most important thing in my life was getting my driver's license.

Ms. Kauper: Oh.

Judge Bellows: At age fifteen. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Very good.

Judge Bellows: That was the most. .. probably the turning point ofmy life was that driver's

license. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: And did you have a car, have access to a car?

Judge Bellows: Oh, I had access to a car, always yes. (Laughs) And I loved to drive, yes ... we,

we did a lot of things in the car.

Ms. Kauper: Helped the social life. (Laughs)

Judge Bellows: Oh yes, oh yes, very much. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Well let's move on then, to college -- talk a little bit about college.

Judge Bellows: Let me tell you one thing.

Ms. Kauper: Oh, sure.

Judge Bellows: About right at that time, right after I graduated from high school, I needed a

summer job.

Ms. Kauper: Good addition.

- 17 -

Judge Bellows: And I was a good swimmer, so I became a lifeguard at Wilmette Beach. And, in

1953, there was still a leftover from the war, so there were all women lifeguards

at Wilmette Beach. Now, this is a very ...

Ms. Kauper: Interesting.

Judge Bellows: .. .important part of my life. I loved the beach, and so I became part of an all

women lifeguard crew on a very large beach on the north shore. We had to row

the boats and we had to guard the beach, and we worked six days a week, nine

hours a day, and we made a hundred and ninety a month.

Ms. Kauper: Wow!

Judge Bellows: But this was my first real job, and of course it got me to my favorite place in the

world, which at that time was the beach. (Laughs) So, I certainly kept up my

swimming and my rowing, and that was unusual in the early 50's. And then the

following year, they fired all the women and hired all the men, and they had their

first drowning,

Ms. Kauper: Oh my gosh.

Judge Bellows: Oh, yes. So, I think the women were much better guards.

Ms. Kauper: Yes, that's interesting.

Judge Bellows: Because they watched the little kids.

Ms. Kauper: That is interesting.

Judge Bellows: So that's an interesting part -- that was an important part of my development, I

think.

Ms. Kauper: Well, it gave you a real sense of responsibility.

- 18 -

Judge Bellows: Yes, and we'd be up on the lifeguard towers blowing our whistles, directing

people, and watching the safety issues. We had a good time too. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Great, great.

Judge Bellows: We had a very social life, in fact, a very big social life.

Ms. Kauper: Right. That's great.

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: Talking about college ...

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: How did you think about where you were going to go to school? What kind of

schools ... what lead you to Illinois?

Judge Bellows: It was supposed to be a good school. I wanted to be a doctor, and it had a good

pre-med program. I didn't even apply anywhere else.

Ms. Kaup er: Really?

Judge Bellows: Yes, and this was 1953, so, being a depression baby, it wasn't hard to get in

anywhere. (Laughs) So, that's where I went.

Ms. Kauper: And what was your thought about leaving home at that time?

Judge Bellows: That's just something people did when they were eighteen, so it was fine.

Ms. Kauper: Were you excited, nervous?

Judge Bellows: Oh, definitely excited.

Ms. Kauper: And how did your parents feel, do you think?

Judge Bellows: Great. They thought this was great because I was the oldest child and they

thought I'd never come back. But I did (laughs), because in those days,

- 19 -

everybody used to get married in the sophomore year of college and drop out.

The women used to get married in their sophomore year.

[Brief Telephone Interruption]

Ms. Kauper: Okay, we were talking about college.

Judge Bellows: Oh yes.

Ms. Kauper: Just picking up where we dropped off. We were talking a little bit about your

feeling of going away to school.

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: So.

Judge Bellows: Loved it, loved it.

Ms. Kauper: And how did you finance your college education, did your parents support you?

Judge Bellows: My parents paid for it.

Ms. Kauper: Parents paid for it?

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: You mentioned the summer job before going into college.

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: Did you continue to work over the summers during college?

Judge Bellows: I did. I did, but I never had such a good job again. (Laughs) That is, for an

eighteen year old, it's the best job in the world.

Ms. Kauper: What did you do the other summers? What kind of jobs did you have?

Judge Bellows: Oh, I think I worked for a real estate company one summer, and I think I might

have worked for my father in the law office. I can't remember all of my jobs -- I

- 20 -

worked in a delicatessen, but I think that was in high school, but I always had

some kind of job.

Ms. Kauper: Some kind of odd job.

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: And what kind of student were you in college?

Judge Bellows: Oh, for my pre-med, I was partying too much. (Laughs) And, I was just not

great for pre-med, but then when I got into political science I got to be a very

good student. And I had calmed down on my partying. (Laughs) So, I was very

social in college, very social, and it's hard to go out every night and maintain the

good, good grades in the sciences. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: You had a big circle of friends in college, too?

Judge Bellows: Oh yes, oh yes. Oh yes, we had a good time in college.

Ms. Kauper: What were your friends like?

Judge"Bellows: Well, I lived in a dorm. They were very independent, and we liked to have a

good time. (Laughs) We had lots of parties, lots of beer drinking, that kind of

thing, you know. We had a good time.

Ms. Kauper: Did they come from similar backgrounds?

Judge Bellows: Oh no. Everybody was from different backgrounds. Everybody had come from

different backgrounds, for sure.

Ms. Kauper: And what kind of activities did you participate in, in college?

- 21 -

Judge Bellows: Well, after I got out of pre-med, I became very active in the student government.

I ran for office .. .I was a student senator. I was an officer of the independent

women's group.

Ms. Kauper: Good.

Judge Bellows: And, I was very politically active in college.

Ms. Kauper: Oh, very good, and what do you think changed between high school and college

that made you more politically active in college?

Judge Bellows: Oh, I just found that my interests went along those lines to political science, to

the student senate and to governance. I loved that. I loved that. I loved making

rules for everybody and influencing government as much as we could, and

just ... and don't forget I had a mother who was always active in good

government.

Ms. Kauper: Right, right.

Judge Bellows: So, I would say that might have been in the back of my mind, in my sub-

Ms. Kauper:

conscience.

And did your increased interest in political activity within student government

and those things also translate to increased interest in politics on a more national

level?

Judge Bellows: Oh, I'd say yes. I'd say that would have to be true, although I wasn't particularly

Ms. Kauper:

active in party politics, because don't forget, we couldn't vote. We couldn't vote

until we were twenty-one. (Laughs).

I did not remember that. (Laughs)

- 22 -

Judge Bellows: Oh yes. We could only vote when we were twenty-one. So that would have been

1956, the first time I was eligible to vote, and I was a senior by then.

Ms. Kauper: Interesting, and ...

Judge Bellows: But no, so we didn't have access to politics.

Ms. Kauper: What lead you to the subject of political science?

Judge Bellows: I don't remember.

Ms. Kauper: Anything specific that you were interested in?

Judge Bellows; I don't remember, just interest._

Ms. Kauper: And what didn't you like about pre-med?

Judge Bellows: I really didn't like the science courses. I didn't like physics. I didn't like

chemistry. It just didn't interest me, but I didn't know that until I got into it.

Ms. Kauper: You said in high school you were involved with the newspaper. Were you

involved with the newspaper in college?

Judge Bellows; No, I wasn't.

Ms. Kauper: Okay.

Judge Bellows: I did love the journalism in high school.

Ms. Kauper: Were you athletic in college? Did you participate in swimming and sports? ·

Judge Bellows: Oh, I kept up my swimming, always. Yes, I always did swimming. I got my

Ms. Kauper:

water safety instructor certificate and things like that, and I kept up my regular

swimming. Don't forget, you may not know this, but when I grew up in high

school and in college, they didn't allow anything but intramural sports for girls.

There were no interscholastic sports for girls.

I didn't know that.

- 23 -

Judge Bellows: And there were almost no, well there were no programs to be really athletic.

(Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Isn't that interesting.

Judge Bellows: There was a law in Illinois that there was no ...

Ms. Kauper: That's fascinating.

Judge Bellows: .. .interscholastic sports among girls. For the basketball games for girls, who

were, I think six girls on each team, you could only play on half the court. I

mean, you can't imagine how restrictive it was. And then in college, we were

twenty-one years old, but we h~d to be in by 10:30 p.m. during the week and 1 :00

a.m. on the weekends. Don't forget, we're twenty-one and we were still treated

like children, so I think you don't realize what life was like.

Ms. Kauper: Right. No.

Judge Bellows: I mean it was pretty restrictive for girls.

Ms. Kauper: Sounds like it.

Judge Bellows: Very restrictive for girls.

Ms. Kauper: And it was different for boys?

Judge Bellows: Oh, they had no hours. They had no hours at all. No restrictions.

Oh no, we were very restricted, I mean to be twenty-one and told you have to be

in at 10:30 p.m.?

Ms. Kauper: Right. That's interesting.

Judge Bellows: Oh, yes.

Ms. Kauper: So was it an all girls dorm that you lived in?

Judge Bellows: Oh, I did. There was nothing but an all girls and all boys, nothing.

- 24-

Ms. Kauper: And did you live in a dorm for all the years that you were there?

Judge Bellows: All four years, I lived in the same room. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: In the same room?

Judge Bellows: Oh, yes.

Ms. Kauper: Did you have roommate?

Judge Bellows: I did. I had one roommate as freshman year, and the last three years I had a

different roommate. I mean, I had the same roommate for my last three years.

Ms. Kauper: Are you still close?

Judge Bellows: No, not at all. She was salutatorian of the class at the University of Illinois. She

had gotten one "B'', and she was a biochemistry major. She got her Ph.D. and

then, oh, she became mentally ill, so she has no contact with anybody. She was a

professor at a college in New York, and she had to drop out of life because she

was so ill. But it was so, such a shame, she was so talented, so brilliant.

Ms. Kauper: Are you still in touch with friends from college?

Judge Bellows: Oh I am, yes I am.

Ms. Kauper: Friends from student government, from those kind of activities or just generally?

Judge Bellows: No, from the dorm, from the dorm basically.

Ms. Kauper: Tellme a little bit about your favorite professor in college.

Judge Bellows: Well, I had a lot of good political science professors. I don't remember that

many names.

Ms. Kauper: Just your experience with them.

Judge Bellows: Very, very, very, ...

Ms. Kauper: How did they influence you?

- 25 -

Judge Bellows: Oh, probably, just taught me about government. I think that was the thing that

interested me. I do remember my municipal government professor. He was very

sharp, and he ran his classes like a law school class, asking questions and things,

so, it was interesting.

Ms. Kauper: Very good. I was going to ask that question too -- what style of teaching, most of

your classes were.

Judge Bellows: Most of them were lectures. Most of them were straight lecture. You took notes,

you studied the books, you studied your notes and took your exams.

Ms. Kauper: And were they big classes, small classes or mixed?

Judge Bellows: At the University of Illinois, which was big even in the SO's, the lecture halls

were very big and then the classes were broken down in smaller groups. The

lecture halls were very big, although some of the classes, when you got to be

seniors, were a better size where you could interact with your professors.

Because in a big school, we had a lot of teaching assistants.

Ms. Kauper: Right.

Judge Bellows: And things like that. I don't remember any of them being particularly good.

(Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Did you, in college, have an opportunity to travel with friends or with your

family? Any particular trips?

Judge Bellows: No, we didn't travel much in college.

Ms. Kauper: Didn't travel?

Judge Bellows: Nobody went to Europe in those days.

Ms. Kauper: Spring breaks or ... ?

- 26 -

Judge Bellows: Nobody went to Europe. Yes, we went to .. .I went to Florida once during spring

break and stayed with relatives. (Laughs) So, I did not do the scene in college. I

went up to Lauderdale for the day.

Ms. Kauper: Anything else about college that you want to mention that I might not have

covered?

Judge Bellows: Well, it was just a fun time in the Big Ten. Very innocent time.

Ms. Kauper: Sounds like a great experience.

Judge Bellows: We had great parties, and we were very carefree. Nothing, nothing like it is

today ... we're so serious.

Ms. Kauper: In terms of the environment, I didn't ask this question, do you know or have any

sense of what the breakdown of men to women was in college?

Judge Bellows: Oh yes, I think it was four men to every woman, or something like that. .. way

more men at the University of Illinois than women.

Ms. Kauper: And ...

Judge Bellows: And I told you that so many of the women would meet their husbands in

sophomore year and drop out of school and that always bothered me a lot. I

would see really smart girls, like in pre-med with straight A averages, drop out

after their second year. I always hated that, I just hated that. I mean it was the

thing to do in the 50's -- get your husband, get your MRS degree and get out.

But, to see really smart, capable women doing that always bothered me.

Ms. Kauper: And it sounds to me like your background particularly with your mother being a

lawyer ...

Judge Bellows: Yes.

- 27 -

Ms. Kauper: That was never something that was ...

Judge Bellows: Oh, never, never. Never, ever.

Ms. Kauper: And what about minorities on campus?

Judge Bellows: Oh, we didn't have many minorities and in Evanston High School they were

pretty much kept segregated. We learned years later that they weren't allowed to

go to dances -- they are the reason that Evanston High didn't build a swimming

pool, because they didn't want to integrate it. This is, you know, the 40's, and it

was very, very racist, but we were unaware of the racism. We probably had ...

maybe a quarter of our school was black students. At our 50th reunion, we had

maybe two black students show up, so they did not feel part of the community.

Ms. Kauper: No.

Judge Bellows: Although, some of the athletics were, you know, pretty popular.

Ms. Kauper: But still, probably somewhat isolated from the rest of the students.

Judge Bellows: Oh, I think so.

Ms. Kauper: In effect...

Judge Bellows: I think we had one football hero who was ahead ofme in class who became a

hero, I think in Wisconsin, a football hero in Wisconsin, and he came back and

taught at Evanston High School.

Ms. Kauper: Very good.

Judge Bellows: But that was few and far between. I think we had tremendous segregation and

discrimination. Though, I think by the time I got to Illinois, I don't think the

barber shops were segregated, but if not, it had just been very recent. It was very

recent that the barber shops were desegregated. So, you know, there was

- 28 -

tremendous racism, although I do remember, I think the president of our student

senate was an African American student.

Ms. Kauper: Really?

Judge Bellows: Actually, now that you're talking about it, I remember his name. And so there

were a few blacks, a few blacks, but pretty much an isolated community.

Ms. Kauper: When you moved from pre-med to political science, did you start thinking at that

point about law school?

Judge Bellows: Oh sure.

Ms. Kauper: Or had you always thought about law school?

Judge Bellows: Oh no, no I hadn't, not until after my sophomore year.

Ms. Kauper: And was that encouraged by your parents?

Judge Bellows: Always, my parents always encouraged us, whatever we wanted to do. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Did they particularly push you in the direction of law or were they just going to

be happy with whatever you did?

Judge Bellows: No, my parents never pushed me in the direction of anything. (Laughs) You

have to remember this is the mother who didn't tell me to put on my sweater

when I was cold.

Ms. Kauper: Right. (Laughs)

Judge Bellows: In fact, my aunt remembers meeting me when I was four years old, and she

bought a box of candy for me. She told my mother she bought a box, so my

mother said, "give it to her." So, she gave it to me, and I was in the comer eating

the whole box of candy and she said, "Sarah, she's eating the whole box of

candy." My mother said, "well, when she gets tired of it, she won't eat any

- 29 -

more." Believe it. (Laughs). That's the whole philosophy of taking

responsibility for yourself. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: It sounds like you had a very good relationship with your parents.

Judge Bellows: Oh I did. I did, except when I really started staying out late when I was in

college. They didn't like that, you know, when I was doing really worrisome

things that they didn't like so much. (Laughs) But, they were not controlling.

Ms. Kauper: Were you ever actually in trouble or was it typical college-age rebellion?

Judge Bellows: Oh yes, I remember one time when .. J used to have a wonderful house for

parties. My friends and I, one summer, invited about ten people to a party at my

house, because we had a lot of parties at my house -- it ended up with hundreds of

kids and people bringing liquor and parking on the drive and on the grass, and the

police were called. (Laughs) So, I was in trouble, but I didn't really do it.

(Laughs) I was very social and well that's what happens when you're a teenager.

(Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: True.

Judge Bellows: Yes, so I was in trouble for some of my parties.

Ms. Kauper: Well, let's talk a little bit about- law school. How did you choose? You were at

Northwestern?

Judge Bellows: Right.

Ms. Kauper: Did you plan to go to Northwestern or did you look at other schools?

Judge Bellows: No, never looked at another school. I didn't want to stay in Champaign, because

four years is enough. (Laughs)

[End of First Interview]

- 30-

Oral History of the Honorable Carole Kamin Bellows

Second Interview

This is"the second interview of the oral history of the Honorable Carole Kamin Bellows, which is

being taken on behalf of Women Trailblazers in the Law, a project of the American Bar Association

Commission on Women in the Profession. It is being conducted by Krista D. Kauper on November

30, 2005.

Ms. Kauper: To begin this second interview shall we start with your career?

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: When you were graduating from Northwestern, did you think about a variety of

positions, for example working at a firm or a clerkship?

Judge Bellows: Well, I went to work for my father. Remember in those days, women weren't

really considered for clerkships.

Ms. Kauper: Did you know any women who pursued clerkships?

Judge Bellows: I know one woman who had a clerkship, and as far as I know, that was the only

judicial clerkship I know of that had a female.

Ms. Kauper: And that was true at all levels of clerkships?

Judge Bellows: Oh absolutely. There may have been one female clerk for an Illinois

Supreme Court Justice, but that's the extent of it. It wasn't a usual thing. It

wasn't a career back then the women looked at. It wasn'treadily available

to women.

Ms. Kauper: And did you feel left out? I mean compared to your male colleagues?

Judge Bellows: Don't forget that my whole family was in the law business, and I got

married in 1958 right after my freshman year of law school. I finished law

school. My husband was lawyer. My father-in-law was a lawyer. My

father was a lawyer. So, what I did was I worked for my dad. And then my

daughter was born in June of 1961, so that kept me pretty busy. Then, in, I

think it was 1962, sometime in '62, I did have a clerkship for an Illinois

Court of Claims Judge, which I did for about 10 years. That was a part-time

job.

Ms. Kauper: How interesting.

Judge Bellows: So, it wasn't a standard clerkship, but I did all the writing of the opinions

and all of the research, because the Court of Claims did write every opinion.

Every decision was written.

Ms. Kauper: That's good experience.

Judge Bellows: And I did do that for ten years.

Ms. Kauper: And, I was going to ask how having children impacted your career. So,

working part-time was one impact?

Judge Bellows: Oh, that's right. I did that part-time, so it worked very well. And, at that

time my mother was alive, and she helped me with the baby-sitting and

those things. But, I did definitely work part-time.

Ms. Kauper: And what was your relationship with the Judge? Did you get an

opportunity to know the Judge very well? Over ten years, I would think so.

Judge Bellows: Oh yes, oh yes. I would hear all of the oral arguments that were in the

Chicago area. They were primarily in the Chicago area, as I think of it. I

- 2 -

Ms. Kauper:

would hear all the oral arguments. I would write all the opinions, and it was

a good position. So I did have a good clerkship. But as far as traditional

clerkships with judges, women just couldn't see that.

Well, going back to right when you graduated, you said you went to work

for your dad. Did you always plan to do that? Did you think about doing

something different?

Judge Bellows: No, not really. In 1960, I didn't have a big career plan to tell you the truth.

(Laughs).

Ms. Kauper: (Laughs) And how was working with your Dad?

Judge Bellows: Oh, I loved working with my Dad. He was at that time, in 1960, already a

professor at Loyola part-time.

Ms. Kauper: Okay, good.

Judge Bellows: And he taught labor law there, and so it was fine.

Ms. Kauper: Was that his area of practice, labor law?

Judge Bellows: Labor law, right.

Ms. Kauper: And so you practiced with him in that area or were you doing other things

as well?

Judge Bellows: I did other things. I didn't do anything major. (Laughs) Believe me.

Ms. Kauper: And how long did you say you practiced with him, about a year, a year and

a half?

Judge Bellows: Y e·s, about a year and a half or so, and then I got this clerkship after my

daughter was born so that worked out very nicely.

Ms. Kauper: And when you were doing the clerkship, did you enjoy it?

- 3 -

Judge Bellows: Oh, I loved legal research and legal writing. Oh, yes. Oh, very much so.

You know, it was basically research and writing, and writing opinions, and I

loved that. What lawyer doesn't like writing opinions?

Ms. Kauper: Right. (Laughs)

Judge Bellows: (Laughs) So .....

Ms. Kauper: And were there other clerks as well? Did you have colleagues that were law

clerks?

Judge Bellows: Oh, not every Judge had their own.

Ms. Kauper: Not their own.

Judge Bellows: No.

Ms. Kauper: Did you get to know some of the other clerks or didn't you have that kind of

interaction?

Judge Bellows: I didn't have that interaction. I probably got to know the Attorneys General

who represented the state better than I knew the law clerks ..

Ms. Kauper: What were your colleagues from law school doing when they graduated?

Were there a variety of positions or were they practicing in law firms

mostly?

Judge Bellows: Oh yes. Do you mean the women colleagues or all the colleagues?

Ms. Kauper: Any.

Judge Bellows: Oh yes. We had about a hundred people in the class, and we all did

different things. We had three women graduate. There was another woman

in school, but I don't think she graduated with us. One of my colleagues

was an Appellate Court Justice, Jill McNulty. I think she started in a law

- 4 -

firm, ended up teaching at Kent, and then ended up on the bench. And then

my friend Barbara O'Malley went to Washington. She went to work for the

federal government, and she's now my age, 70 years old, and she's still

working for the federal government. She is in the Department of Justice.

Ms. Kauper: That's great.

Judge Bellows: And so, ever since we got out oflaw school, 45 years ago, she's been with

the federal government, and she raised four children doing that.

Ms. Kauper: What are your impressions of the profession generally from those first years

out of law school? Were you, and again you come from a background of

lawyers ... .

Judge Bellows: Right. .. .

Ms. Kauper: ... so, it wasn't a surprise to you, but did you have any impressions that

stand out about the profession generally?

Judge Bellows: Well, it was very unusual to be a woman in law. I have a clipping from the

Tribune, from probably the mid 1960's .. .it was a full page on husbands and

wives who were lawyers. It was so unusual, and obviously I knew all the

other women on the page. One of the couples was my friend Kathryn

Sowle, who was number one at Northwestern in 1956, with her husband.

My husband and actually my whole family posed for the picture. My

brothers were in law school at the time. Another friend of mine who was

married to a lawyer, and then another lawyer couple who I knew too. We

all knew each other because there weren't that many ofus. It was so

- 5 -

unusual at the time, and this is the mid 1960's, and they made a big deal out

of it.

Ms. Kauper: Isn't that interesting.

Judge Bellows: Yes, a big deal. It was on the first page of what was Tempo magazine. The

whole first page. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: That's great.

Judge Bellows: Anyway, I do have the article. It was so unusual.

Ms. Kauper: And what did your husband do when he graduated from law school?

Judge Bellows: Well, he was practicing with his father, and they did mostly criminal law.

Ms. Kauper:

My father-in-law was a very prominent criminal lawyer. My husband went

into practice with his dad, and he did a few things in the civil area. My

father-in-law was a very high-powered criminal lawyer.

That's interesting that you both went to work with your fathers. That must

have been even more unusual.

Judge Bellows: Well, that's how we met actually, because my dad was a labor lawyer. His

dad was a criminal lawyer and one ofmy dad's clients was indicted, and

Charlie Bellows represented him in the criminal case.

Ms. Kauper: Oh, that's interesting.

Judge Bellows: So that's how we ended up meeting. The fathers starting talking to each

other -- well I have a single son, I have a single daughter. And that's how

we met through our fathers.

Ms. Kauper: Isn't that interesting. That's great.

Judge Bellows: Yes, it was fun.

- 6 -

Ms. Kauper: And you met in your first year in law school.

Judge Bellows: Yes.

Ms. Kauper: Very good. So, let's jump ahead a little bit. You did your clerkship, and

what made you think about moving from the clerkship to something else?

Judge Bellows: Oh well, that was just a part-time job. Actually, a lot of things happened on

a parallel course, and this is where my bar career actually started in 1961.

Ms. Kauper: That's good.

Judge Bellows: Which I should mention was very important in my life.

Ms. Kauper: I was going to get to that a little later, but that's great.

Judge Bellows: That was very important in my life. A few weeks after my daughter was

born, she was born on June 10, 1961, the president of the Illinois State Bar,

who knew our family, appointed me .to a committee. He appointed me to

the Bill of Rights Committee of the Illinois State Bar Association, and that

just wasn't done in those days. So, just a few weeks after Marcia was born,

I went off to my first Illinois State Bar Association Meeting and that's how

I got involved in bar work, through the Illinois Bar on the Bill of Rights

Committee. I became very active, and I eventually became the Chair of the

Committee, and that's what started the whole bar career, that president

appointing me.

Ms. Kauper: That's great.

Judge Bellows: Yes, it was nice.

Ms. Kauper: You have quite oflist of bar work. Obviously, you've been very involved

your whole career. Were there any other committees at the state bar level or

- 7 -

any other things that you were involved with the state bar level that you are

particularly proud of?

Judge Bellows: Well, I'm particularly proud of the Bill of Rights work. We wrote a book

about our Bill of Rights.

Ms. Kauper: Good.

Judge Bellows: I was so involved in that project, and then I did run for the Board of

Governors. There had never been a woman on the Board of Governors, and

the wonderful thing about the Illinois State Bar is that the Board, and all the

Officers, are elected by the members. It has no nominating committees. I

think if there were nominating committees ... it's really the men of the

Illinois State Bar Association who gave me the support that I always have

had from the organized bar. Because when I started running in contested

races, which was probably in the mid 1960's .. .I just want to see when I

became a member of the Board of Governors.

Ms. Kauper: 1969? Was that it?

Judge Bellows: Actually that's when it was, thanks. Yes, so I ran in 1969 after having been

Chair of the Bill of Rights Committee -- my beloved Bill of Rights

Committee, which I just adored. Around 1969, I was also on the

Constitutional Revision Committee of the Chicago Bar Association. What .

we did that was so outstanding on the Constitutional Revision Committee

was that the State of Illinois hadn't had a new constitution since the mid

1800's, and it was desperately in need of revision. Our Constitutional

Revision Committee of the Chicago Bar Association supported having a

- 8 -

constitutional convention, which was a statewide vote, and then the

delegates were elected. Actually, my brother was one of the delegates. Our

committee broke up into sub-committees, and we basically wrote a draft

Constitution for every single Article in the Constitution.

Ms. Kauper: Sounds fun.

Judge Bellows: And, I was on a small sub-committee on the Bill of Rights area of the

Constitution, and our little sub-committee actually drafted the non­

discrimination language in the Bill of Rights. This was in 1969 or so, while

they were in session. The Constitution wasn't passed until 1970.

Ms. Kauper:

Paragraph 17 of Article 1 of the Bill of Rights states: "All persons shall

have the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of race, color,

creed, national ancestry and sex, in the hiring and promotion practices of

any employer or in the sale or rental of property". And that's a

Constitutional revision. We came up with that. It was so controversial that

we were afraid to give it to the Board of Governors of the Chicago Bar

Association. It was, in that day and age at the end of the 1960's, very

controversial to put that in the Constitution.

And that language hasn't changed since then, not since your sub-committee

drafted it.

Judge Bellows: It made it into the Constitution. That was a very proud moment, because at

that point there was terrible discrimination on the basis of sex and race in

housing and in employment. So that was quite a unique provision, and it

did become part of the Constitution.

-9-

Ms. Kauper: That's great.

Judge Bellows; So that was major in that time.

Ms. Kauper: What an exciting thing to be involved in.

Judge Bellows: Yes, to be a young lawyer and to be involved in that and to see it actually

happen, it was just wonderful. Then in 1969, I went on the Board of

Governors, and I served my three terms. You could only serve three terms.

I always had a contested election, and then when I had to go off after the

three terms, I ran for third vice-president. Again it was the members of the

Illinois State Bar who elected me in a contested election, and there weren't

very many women at that time.

Ms. Kauper: Were there other women on the Board with you?

Judge Bellows: Never. I was the first and only for quite a while. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: And on these committees as well. I assume ...

Judge Bellows: Oh yes, not at all, not at all.

Ms. Kauper: And when you say you had a contested election, you've mentioned several

times the support you had ... did you have people that were opposed to you,

do you think, because you were a woman?

Judge Bellows: Oh I don't think so. I really don't think it was sexist at that point, but there

were other people active in the Bar who deserved to be on the Board too.

Ms. Kauper: Right, right.

Judge Bellows: And, who deserved to be third vice-president. (Laughs) So, these were

people who did not come out of nowhere.

Ms. Kauper: Right.

- 10 -

Judge Bellows: They had a nice resume. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: So, you didn't feel it was because you were a woman.

Judge Bellows: Never, never. At that point, never.

Ms. Kauper: It sounds like you had tremendous support.

Judge Bellows: I did. I've always had support ..

Ms. Kauper: From the men that you worked with.

Judge Bellows: I've always had that support, for which I am very grateful. I was young too,

and that was a mark against me. But, it didn't seem to hurt (laughs), and I

was very devoted. I never missed meetings. I always worked very hard in

the bar, and I always thought it was a privilege to have input in the things

like the Illinois Constitution.

Ms. Kauper: Absolutely.

Judge Bellows: It was wonderful.

Ms. Kauper: So you were talking about being involved with bar work and did that lead to

your new position in law after your clerkship? Did it help you think about

what you were going to do?

Judge Bellows: It was a parallel track. The bar work was in parallel.

Ms. Kauper: Parallel.

Judge Bellows: Yes. Then, when my kids got a little older, I went into practice with my

husband and my father-in-law, and that was my next career move.

Ms. Kauper: Okay.

Judge Bellows: So then I was working full time.

Ms. Kauper: And how was that working with your husband and his father?

- 11 -

Judge Bellows: Oh, it was great. I mean, it was just wonderful. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: That's a very unique background, first having worked with your father and

then working with your husband and his father.

Judge Bellows: Yes, when you have that much family in the law (laughs), that is what

happens.

Ms. Kauper: Small firm, I take it?

Judge Bellows: Yes, yes.

Ms. Kauper: And what was the day to day experience there?

Judge Bellows: Well, I did a variety of things. I didn't do criminal work at all, and I

basically followed whatever I liked, whatever I wanted to follow. I ended

up doing some anti-discrimination -- early anti-discrimination litigation,

when it wasn't so easy to win in those days. (Laughs) That was so

important to me to have fair employment. It was very important to me, and

I worked on several things in that area and ended up going to the U.S.

Supreme Court on one issue. It was an interesting issue. We had a

discrimination case in federal court against Delta Airlines, which we didn't

win. We represented a flight attendant, a poor flight attendant, and we

didn't win it, although I thought we had a pretty good case. But we didn't

win. We had Julius Hoffinan as our judge (laughs), a very, very

conservative man. But, there was a rule that if you lose in a federal case

you have to pay the costs. For this poor girl, who had no money

whatsoever, Delta Airlines came after her for the costs. So that was the

issue that ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court. It was Delta vs. August, and

- 12 -

we won. (Laughs) We won the argument that the rule doesn't apply to civil

rights plaintiffs. That was the upshot.

Ms. Kauper: Very good.

Judge Bellows: Yes. My husband was very, very sick at the time, and actually he was

dying at the time. So one of my friends argued the case.

Ms. Kauper: That was what I was going to ask you ...

Judge Bellows: Yes, yes. But I was there, I was there. It was very exciting. It was very

exciting to win a big civil rights victory that civil rights plaintiffs do not

have to pay costs. That was major.

Ms. Kauper: Your case set a precedent.

Judge Bellows: Major, yes. It was very exciting to be there and to write the briefs.

Ms. Kauper: Absolutely. You mentioned your husband. What impact did his passing

have ... I take it he must have died shortly after that?

Judge Bellows: He died right before that.

Ms. Kauper: Oh, right before. Did that have an impact on your career? Were you still

practicing with him and his father?

Judge Bellows: Well, no. At that point, I had just gone to a bigger firm, so I was just trying

to pull the pieces together along with things I had started. They were very

supportive, very supportive of that.

Ms. Kauper: And what made you make the decision to go to a bigger firm?

Judge Bellows: Well, my husband and my father-in-law were very, very ill, both of them at

the same time.

Ms. Kauper: Okay.

- 13 -

Judge Bellows; So, I really had nowhere else to go. So, to be practical I made the move.

Ms. Kauper: And which firm?

Judge Bellows: I went with Reuben and Proctor, which was a spin-off of Kirkland and Ellis

at that time. I was with them for a few years.

Ms. Kauper: And, what was your experience there?

Judge Bellows: It was very interesting. I met a lot of different people and did a lot of

different kinds of cases, and it was very interesting. I think it was there that

I first got interested in family law, because I somehow ended up with a lot

of family cases. Even though they did not do that much family law, a big

firm really needs to service their clients like that.

Ms. Kauper: Right.

Judge Bellows: So that is how I got interested in family law.

Ms. Kauper: Oh, very good. And what made you interested in that firm? Did you seek

them or did they seek you?

Judge Bellows: No, I don't remember in detail right now, but I did end up with them.

Ms. Kauper: Okay, and ....

Judge Bellows: I think my father-in-law had talked to Don Reuben, who was the senior

partner. I think that's how it was put together.

Ms. Kauper: And what was the environment like there? Were there other women there?

Judge Bellows: Oh yes, there were other women at that point. There were some very good

ones, very good ones. This was about 1978 or 1979, around that time.

Ms. Kauper: Did you have a mentor at that firm? Was there anyone that particularly

influenced your career?

- 14 -

Judge Bellows: Don Reuben was very much everybody's mentor. (Laughs)

I don't think anybody else was a mentor at that firm, but he was very

helpful.

Ms. Kauper: And you said that's what got you interested in family law?

Judge Bellows: Yes, because I ended up with a lot of family law things, and I ended up

loving that area. Because it's a people-type area, and I just very much liked

it. I've been doing it for 23 years on the bench. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Were you able at the firm to do that the majority of your time or was it a

smaller amount time? Were you doing other things too?

Judge Bellows: I did other things too. I was also keeping up with my bar work, and don't

forget the bar work was a huge part ofmy life through the 70's and the 80's.

Ms. Kauper:

I was in the House of Delegates, I was Chair of a section of the ABA, and I

was Chair of a standing committee of the ABA. So I had a lot of bar work,

and the firm was supportive in that work too.

And was that typical of firms, at that point, to be supportive of bar work?

Did most firms support it?

Judge Bellows: The good firms. I think they were always supportive of bar work.

Ms. Kauper:

Although in later years some of the people who had spent a lot of time in

bar work were punished, that wasn't my situation.

Let's actually go back to your bar work for a minute. You were, you said,

the first woman elected to those positions and you were the first woman

president of the Illinois State Bar.

Judge Bellows: I was the first woman president of any bar.

- 15 -

Ms. Kauper: Of any bar?

Judge Bellows: Of any state bar.

Ms. Kauper: In the country.

Judge Bellows: In the country, right.

Ms. Kauper: Very impressive. And how did that feel? Did that feel like a big

accomplishment? It sounds like .....

Judge Bellows: I don't know. I always used to say, "I may be the first, but I won't be the

last." That, of course, turned out to be very true.

Ms. Kauper: Do you know if there were other women presidents of other states, not

necessarily just Illinois, shortly after you? Did it take long for other women

to follow suit?

Judge Bellows: I don't remember. I don't know if there were any women in the 70's.

There were certainly a lot of women by the 80's. There may have been

some in the late 70's, but I just don't know. Maybe the ABA has records of

that, but I don't know.

Ms. Kauper: Maybe.

Judge Bellows: I don't have any memory specifically of women presidents.

Ms. Kauper: And what did you enjoy most about being President of the Illinois State

Bar?

Judge Bellows: Well, the wonderful thing about bar work, as I may have indicated before, is

that you do get to influence the legislative process. I think the most

important thing that we did in the bar was get a legislative agenda that we

- 16 -

felt helped the administration of justice. When I was President and

President-Elect of the Illinois State Bar, we obviously would lobby in

Springfield and we would lobby in Washington. I think having the

organized bar input was good -- some of the congressmen and

representatives were very amenable to that, especially if they were lawyers.

If they weren't lawyers, they weren't necessarily amenable to it. I

remember, in 1972, getting slaughtered by people like George Ryan trying

to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. (Laughs) It was just brutal. I went

down to Springfield with a nun, and they asked the nun all the legal

questions and they wouldn't ask me any legal questions. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Interesting. (Laughs)

Judge Bellows: There was terrible discrimination at that point against women. Just terrible.

But, I had debates against Phyllis Schlafly on the Equal Rights Amendment

and on other issues our input was important. The 1970's, this was a very

interesting time in the organized bar, because you saw the organized bar

change from a very narrowly focused group, talking about how to change

the rules and procedure, something like to that, to getting into social issues.

Ms. Kauper: How interesting.

Judge Bellows; And at the beginning, let's say in the mid 70's, beginning of the 70's, there

was tremendous resistance from the organized bar -- I was in the House of

Delegates of the ABA -- to getting into social issues. I got very active in

the Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section, which of course was all

about social issues.

- 17 -

Ms. Kauper: Right.

Judge Bellows: And we used to get beat up in the House of Delegates something terrible. I

remember one time we gave them a resolution against hunger, and there

was this one discussion about whether hunger was germane to the purposes

of the American Bar Association. When I was Chair of the Section, we

presented the first gay rights resolutions to the House of Delegates in 1975.

I was Chair, and I presented it, because our delegate at the time wouldn't

present. (Laughs) It was controversial even in the Council. So, basically

the resolution, if I remember, is something like: "That we the American

Bar Association believe that there should be no discrimination against

people on the basis of sexual orientation in employment and housing" or

something close. I can't remember right.off-hand, although it's in the

archives. But it was the first gay rights resolution brought before the

American Bar House of Delegates, and it was very controversial. At one

point, I was presenting it and they were trying to boo me down, and I said,

"this is the American Bar Association House of Delegates, not the supreme

soviet." (Laughs) That did not go over big. But then, some of the top

leaders from the bar got up and said, "of course this is germane to the

purposes of the American Bar Association, we are talking about civil

rights." That was just phenomenal. I mean, this was a sea change. They

tabled it, because that's how the House of Delegates was at that point. Of

course in later years they supported things like the Equal Rights

Amendment and pro-choice and gay rights and all that, but that was to come

- 18 -

Ms. Kauper:

later. There was just a sea change in the House of Delegates, and that was

kind of exciting in the mid 1970' s. If you could influence legislative action

or public perception, I think that's good and well worth doing.

And that's something you learned from your parents too, going back to their

community involvement.

Judge Bellows: Oh yes, oh yes. The organized bar really did, and does, have a lot of

influence on societal issues.

Ms. Kauper: Do you remember who those leaders were who stood up and said "it is

germane?"

Judge Bellows: Oh yes, I remember specifically. One of them, Barnabas Sears, was one of

our top trial lawyers in Chicago, former President of the State Bar and state

delegate for many years. He was one specifically that I remember saying

that. Somewhere in the archives I think there are House of Delegates

debates on this.

Ms. Kauper: Sure.

Judge Bellows: So, I might be able to find it, but it is in the archives. In 1975. I think it

was the Midyear Meeting in 197 5.

Ms. Kauper: Okay.

Judge Bellows: In Atlanta.

Ms. Kauper: And even though it was tabled, did you feel what you'd accomplished?

Judge Bellows: Absolutely. Just raising the perception and getting the issue in the public

discourse was phenomenal.

- 19 -

Ms. Kauper: That's great. At what point, I'm jumping back just a little bit, did you start

getting involved in the ABA?

Judge Bellows: I was Chairman of this little Bill of Rights Committee at the Illinois State

Bar, and the American Bar Association at that time, about 1967, was trying

to organize a Section of Individual Rights. That interested me. So, I went to

the ABA meeting and I volunteered to help with the membership drive for

the Section oflndividual Rights and Responsibilities, and that's how I

immediately got into the ABA.

Ms. Kauper: So you were essentially a charter member of the IR&R Section?

Judge Bellows: Oh definitely, definitely. I was a charter member of the Section, and that

was the late 1960' s, so that's what got me into the ABA. Then I became

Recording Secretary of the Section, but I was very young. I was very

enthusiastic. I helped with the membership, and it was very interesting. I

met some incredible people at that time.

Ms. Kauper: You were the first woman Chair of that Section. Do you know if you were

the first woman Chair of any section at the ABA?

Judge Bellows: I think there was somebody from Texas who was Chair of the Family Law

Section before that, so I wasn't the first Chair of an ABA section, maybe

the second one.

Ms. Kauper: When you started your involvement with the ABA, did you see more

women lawyers involved in those activities compared to the state bar?

Judge Bellows: That was still the 1960's, so no you didn't see very many women lawyers at

that point. Very few.

- 20 -

Ms. Kauper: And your bar association activity, whether at the state level or the ABA, did

that give you networking opportunities? Did it give career opportunities

here at the local level?

Judge Bellows: I would say not at that point, not necessarily career opportunities, but

Ms. Kauper:

definitely networking. I met people all over the country. It was just

wonderful. I mean, I still have friends all over the country from my ABA

work.

Very good. I guess from there I would go back to Reuben and Proctor.

You were very involved with the bar association, you were doing some

family law work, getting more and more interested in that, and what

happened next in· your career?

Judge Bellows: Well, I was with Reuben and Proctor from the late 1970's until the mid

1980' s, and in 1986 I had a chance to go on the bench.

Ms. Kauper: Oh, good, so ...

Judge Bellows: So, I was .....

Ms. Kauper: Okay. (Laughs)

Judge Bellows: Which was a good thing because Reuben and-Proctor merged with Isham,

Lincoln & Beale, and shortly thereafter everything dissolved. I had just

gotten on the bench, so I weathered all of that (laughs), which was a good

thing.

Ms. Kauper: And when you say, you had an opportunity to go on the bench at that time,

were you appointed or were you elected?

Judge Bellows: I was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court.

- 21 -

Ms. Kauper: Okay, and were all judges appointed at that time?

Judge Bellows: No, just vacancies.

Ms. Kauper: Ah, okay, okay.

Judge Bellows: There was a vacancy.

Ms. Kauper: And, how do you think you were given that opportunity?

Judge Bellows: Well, I had a pretty high profile at that point. Justice Seymour Simon was a

very liberal man, and I think he wanted a chance to appoint a prominent

woman. It was just 1986, and I knew him, somewhat. He gave me the

opportunity, and I took it. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: That's great. Had you ever thought about being a judge?

Judge Bellows: It had been in the back of my mind, but you know it's basically very

political, usually a very political process. When Justice Simon made the

appointment, he made sure that the Democrats were going to back me at the

next election. So, I mean he was very, very supportive. He was a huge

mentor, just tremendous in my life. I owe my life to him really. (Laughs)

As far as this judicial career goes.

Ms. Kauper: And how-did you meet him? Was he someone you knew from back in your

career?

Judge Bellows: Don't forget, I networked over the years. I knew so many lawyers and

judges, because you know being a Bar president and ...

Ms. Kauper: Right.

Judge Bellows: ... just being active in the profession. I knew a lot of people. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: And, when you started on the bench were there other women?

- 22 -

Judge Bellows: Yes, there were. I can't remember what percentage, but in the 1980's there

were beginning to be more women on the bench.

Ms. Kauper: Did you come on to the bench in the domestic relations area?

Judge Bellows: Ye~, the presiding judge of the division asked for me, so I never went to

traffic court like most other judges. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: That's great.

Judge Bellows: In fact, I've had this particular office on the southeast comer of the building

since January 1987, and I got on the bench in November of 1986. Actually,

I was given my current assignment being a team leader and preliminary

judge in January of 1987. So, I've been doing the same thing since January

'87.

Ms. Kauper: And what has changed in those years on the court? Has much changed?

Judge Bellows: Well, lots more women, obviously. And, I think there's more transparency

in the court. I don't see any backroom deals being made, you know like

there used to be. At least we heard tales that there used to be.

Ms. Kauper: Right.

Judge Bellows: I think it's a much cleaner operation now than it reputedly was. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: What about the work load, has that changed?

Judge Bellows: Not really, not really.

Ms. Kauper: No?

Judge Bellows: I think we have a pretty good load. It's pretty steady over the years. We

have about 20,000 new cases filed in our division every year, and I don't

think it's gone up and down that much.

- 23 -

Ms. Kauper: And what do you enjoy about being a judge?

Judge Bellows: What I like is that I can do problem solving for families. Just being able to

protect children is so major, to try to get them in the best possible

environment. We work with mental health professionals and with

mediators, and just resolving family problems is so rewarding to me. Not

every family can be saved, but for the ones that we can help, it is so

wonderful. We can make life better for a kid. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Absolutely.

Judge Bellows: Making sure that the parents, both parents, can be involved. Trying to save

some of the kids from this dysfunctional whirlpool that they get into, getting

them counseling, and getting them represented by lawyers. I think Illinois

has a wonderful system because every custody and visitation dispute goes to

mediation. It is court provided mediation, and they must sit down with the

mediator for at least two half days, and they talk to the kids. They must go

to a four-hour parenting class. You know, just these things that we're able

to do in Cook County are wonderful. If I still have problems ongoing after

the mediation process, which does resolve 80% of the problems, then we

get the children r~presented by specially trained attorneys. That's just been

a wonderful thing. If you can impact families ... that's why I never wanted

to go to another division, because I can't think of anything more important

than impacting families and children.

- 24 -

Ms. Kauper: Absolutely. Are there any cases that stand out in your memory? Obviously

all of your cases really do make a difference, but are there any that are

really memorable or stand out?

Judge Bellows: Oh, you know over nineteen years there are many, many cases of course.

Some people are more dysfunctional than other people, like the airline

captain who went to jail for months for contempt because he hid his money

and he didn't want to pay child support. (Laughs) Things like that always

stand out. There are some really crazy, crazy things that happen.

Ms. Kauper: And what do you do when you get frustrated over things like that?

Judge Bellows: I never get frustrated. (Laughs)

Ms. Kauper: Well, that's good.

Judge Bellows: Being on the bench, you can always do something about it. People are

lying to you, you can say, "you've perjured yourself and you're going to get

six months." I don't like to send people to jail, but it has happened.

Ms. Kauper: And what is your relationship with the attorneys that appear before you?

Judge Bellows: Oh, I really do like the domestic lawyers and attorneys because they work

so hard and their clients are so difficult. I feel that they really are trying to

do the best they can for the families. Sometimes they're embarrassed -­

they'll come in and say, "judge, my client is really crazy and my client, you

know, really has issues." Then, of course, we deal with substance abuse

issues. We get random testing, and if they're dangerous for the kids, we

don't want them with the kids without supervision. We keep the drunks,

- 25 -

hopefully, from driving the children. We try to protect the children at all

costs.

Ms. Kauper: Right. What are the qualities that you think make a good attorney?

Judge Bellows: Hmmm ...

Ms. Kauper: In the context of being a judge, from your perspective as a judge?

Judge Bellows: Well .... patience (laughs) is number one; compassion, number two;

empathy, number three. I think you have to have legal knowledge -- you

must read the pleadings. You must follow the law. You must ... you have to

know what you're doing. You can't just do it all on instinct, although

instinct is very good. Common sense is very good, but you really have to

know what the law is. But, I think our attorneys are just wonderful, and on

the whole, I admire them. I know how hard it is to represent these people

who are at the height of emotion.

Ms. Kauper: Right.

Judge Bellows: They might be normal in other situations, but they're not normal when they

come to divorce court.

Ms. Kauper:

Judge Bellows:

Ms. Kauper:

Judge Bellows:

Ms. Kauper:

And what are the qualities that make a good judge?

Well, the same thing.

Same.

Patience, compassion, legal knowledge. You know, you do have to be

patient.

What are your relationships with the other judges on the bench?

- 26 -

Judge Bellows: Oh, very good. We're very collegial in our division. We have monthly

meetings. The women judges do yoga a few times a week, or some of them

do. We do major birthdays. This is mostly for the women, although my

team will celebrate the birthdays for our whole team. We have five

members on our team. We do birthday parties and lunches and yoga. We

have a very good relationship with each other, and we're not isolated from

each other like some divisions are. We have the monthly meetings when

we have lunch together.

Ms. Kauper: That's great.

Judge Bellows: In general, we're very collegial.

Ms. Kauper: Do you have or was there a judge that was a mentor to you, once you came

on the bench?

Judge Bellows: I had certain judges that I really admired, and even though I didn't

necessarily work with them one-on-one, I had particular judges in this

division who I tried to emulate. We do have a formal mentoring program

now.

Ms. Kauper: Oh, good.

Judge Bellows: And I have mentored many, many judges. We didn't at that time, but now

it's formalized.

Ms. Kauper: I would think being a mentor to judges coming on the bench would be a fun

part of your job.

- 27 -

Judge Bellows: That's what I've done for many, many years, and the formal mentoring

program has you eating with your mentee at least six times during the first

six months that they'r~ on the bench. So, I've been a mentor many times.

[End of Second Interview]

- 28 -