‘Perfectionist5 and ‘workaholic'

Press, 13 July 1984, Page 6

‘Perfectionist 5 and ‘workaholic'

By ed McCullough, of the Associated Press (through NZPA) Forest Hills, New York

The energy and ambition Representative Geraldine Ferraro has shown in her bid to become the first main party female candidate for Vice-President is not surprising to those who have followed her career as teacher, lawyer, prosecutor, and congresswoman. Her mother, Antonetta, recalls a perfectionist daughter who won scholarships to high school and college, then earned a law degree at night while teaching grade school during the day. “She never knew when to stop studying or working,” Mrs Ferraro said. “I never heard that girl say she was tired. Workaholic — that’s what my daughter is, right?” Miss Ferraro, aged 48, was born in Newburgh, New York, and moved to the south Bronx with her mother and older brother after her father died when she was eight. The big family house was replaced by a small flat near relatives. Mrs Ferraro got a job

sewing in New York City’s garment district. “The loss of her father was devastating — she was sick for a whole year,” Mrs Ferraro said. “But her childhood otherwise was a normal one with tea parties and outings with the Girl Scouts.”

Always bright, Geraldine Ferraro skipped grades six and eight, and was voted most likely to succeed when she graduated from Marymount school in 1952. She graduated from Marymount College four years later, and Fordham University law school in 1960. Miss Ferraro lived at home while teaching second and fourth grades in public schools in Queens and dating the man she would marry, John Zaccaro. The ceremony was held after she passed the bar examination. Geraldine Ferraro — she uses her maiden name in Congress and business — worked part-time in Mr Zaccaro’s real estate firm and her own private law practice while raising two daughters and a son. A comfortable life was built around a home in exclusive Hills Gardens and

private schools for the children. In 1974, when the children were settled in school, Miss Ferraro took a job as assistant prosecutor in the office of the Queens District Attorney, Nicholas Ferraro, her cousin. “I think the reason was because she had the opportunity,” Mr Ferraro said. “It gave her the chance to get experience in criminal law. “She didn’t ask for .help *

and I didn’t give her any. I thrust her immediately into felony trials. I’m sure she was nervous, but she did it.”

Miss Ferraro helped set up a victims’ unit, and her exposure to child abuse and domestic violence is the foundation of her support for liberal social programmes. “The whole idea of an individual suffering — it shaped her outlook,” Mr Ferraro said. “It was not a particular case, it was the whole atmosphere. It was a side of life that she was not familiar with, and most people are not.” The question of her qualifications for Vice-President has come up repeatedly. Miss Ferraro has limited experience in national politics and international affairs. People who have long known her note her poise and acumen in handling new situations.

Against the advice of friends and without the support of the county Democratic organisation, Miss Ferraro stood for the seat held by a retiring 16-term veteran, James Delaney, in 1978. She won the primary and then prevailed in the

General Election. “Needless to say, she was articulate, although virtually unknown in the 1978 race,” Mr Ferraro said. ‘.‘And where she went she made good impressions.” The knack for making good impressions led the then President, Jimmy Carter, to send his mother, Lillian, to help Miss Ferraro with publicity and fund-rais-ing. He appointed her as deputy national chairman of his re-election campaign two years later. A friendship with the House Speaker, Mr Thomas O’Neill (Dem., Massachusetts) led to a seat on the Democratic steering committee in 1981 and on the powerful Budget Committee last year. “She’s a very savvy person,” says Representative Mary Rose Dakar (Dem., Ohio), who recently urged Walter Mondale to choose Miss Ferraro as his running mate. “And she understands how things get done.” “I used to call up and say, ‘Hello, congresswoman of the United States of America’,” said Mrs Ferraro. “Now I say, ‘Hello, Vice-President of the United States, and my daughter’.”