The Old Wolf Lady: A Biography

In this compelling biography, author Joyce Daniels creates a sensitive and humorous portrait of Jackie Day, from her humble beginnings to her active and dedicated 80th decade. Daniels distills countless interviews with Jackie Day, her colleagues and her family into an engaging narrative, peppered with Jackie's own language, stories, and jokes. Daniels' own skills as a storyteller are evident when she narrates her interactions with Jackie. Jackie Day comes alive on the page.

Born in the Southeast Bottoms of Des Moines in 1918, using the family bathtub for her bed until she was four, Jacqueline H. Armstrong Day, AKA Jackie Day, emerged from a poverty-stricken childhood as a feisty scrapper who became active in the Republican Party on local, state, and national levels. Day turned her father's colorful, raw expressions into a Jackie Day trademark that is fondly remembered in this book by former governor Robert Ray and former journalist Dolph Pullium.

Native American Sioux descendent Jackie Day rose above the expectations of women in her time, working as a member of the Nurse's Aid Corps with returning WWII vets, helping organize the National Republican Convention in San Francisco in 1956, serving as Secretary of the Iowa Headquarters at the National Republican Convention in Chicago in l960, and traveling as the only woman in 1967 to Vietnam with an Iowa delegation on a fact-finding mission.

Throughout her adult life, Jackie Day, a colorful, vibrant, dedicated woman, was a pioneer of social justice for women, Native Americans, African Americans, and Vietnam veterans.

Joyce Daniels, Iowa writer and college professor, writes with humor, admiration, and charm about her uncle's wife, who is described by others as a master mechanic for the Republican party, as a sparkling women of uncut realism, and as a woman with Betty Grable legs. Daniels shares Jackie-isms, like "Life shouldn't be a spectator sport", and "The easiest way to resent your age is to regret the things you haven't done". And then there are the many anecdotes that include personal experiences with well-known personalities Gene Autry and Dan Rather.

The Old Wolf Lady-A Biography inspires us all with its depiction of a woman who used her natural strengths and passions to live fully and to make a difference. The book is an engaging record of an important woman's life and her contributions to Iowa and women's history.