BETTY LOU "ELIZABETH" RAY
Born 1943
"I can't type, I can't file, I can't even answer the phone."
Elizabeth Ray reminds me of something a senior citizen once told me, which was, "most of us keep failing."
At first thought this sounded negative, until I realized that to keep failing, you must keep trying.
Elizabeth Ray certainly did that. Her route to scandal included work as a stewardess, a waitress, a car rental clerk, and the winner of a beauty pageant in which she became Miss Virginia of 1975. Her employment on "the Hill" in Washington, DC, began in 1972 when she was 27. Eventually she became Representative Wayne Hay's secretary, a job she held for 2 years. When she was later quoted about her complete lack of secretarial skills, fuel was added to the fire. Elizabeth was possibly closer to a sex slave on payroll, if you believe that she sat for hours in an out of the way office, alone and awaiting visits from Hays for sex. That she sat there may indicate that she either took the job seriously or didn't mind too much. It's easy to think "She must have been brainless if she wasn't bored." But you know, maybe she was using her wait time well, like maybe she was writing her book. A year after she won Miss Virginia she was in the news, as was Hays, for a political sex scandal, one that couldn't be beat, though there have been many, until Monica Lewinsky and President William J. Clinton.
According to the Washington Post article linked below, it's as if Elizabeth had assumed entertainment duties in the political arena prior to Hays. "During a year and a half working as a clerk on the staff of former Rep. Kenneth J. Gray (D-Ill.), Ray says she was frequently given days off to prepare for evenings spent on a date with Gray or favored constituents. She says she often entertained Gray's male friends aboard Gray's houseboat, docked on the Potomac."
After the sex scandal, unemployed but striving, Elizabeth tried to get an acting career going and was part of a feature in Playboy Magazine. Often referred to as "a bouncy blonde," considered to be Fun, in videos that I'll be running this month from YouTube, I'm pleased to hear her voice and to realize that she was a well spoken young woman. I begin to wonder if she was just typified as a dumb and as the woman was blamed, or if she herself used that stereotype to get the publicity needed in those days before blogs, social networking, and Twitter, to get the buzz going.
Wayne Hays was an older man, married for over 35 years, a Representative in the House, a Democrat from Ohio, who was both respected and feared, and not known to have the most pleasing personality. He was, some thought, a mean man. (Well, everyone can't be pleasing or sparking!)
picture is from the Zimbio article linked below
Wayne L. Hays got divorced and remarried in 1976 but not to Elizabeth Ray. He was also forced to resign from office at age 65. You could say he had a crisis but was near retirement age anyway. His second wife, who had been on his staff, remained with him for life. Elizabeth got a book deal that included a promotional tour.
Button found on Hakes Collectables site/ and Google Images.
A Promo Button used by Dell Publishing
to promote Elizabeth's novel, a fictive book.
Elizabeth Ray's roots are that of the fatherless child. Her father, a traveling Western musician, died when she was a toddler, and her mother left her to be raised by a grandma in the Ashville, North Carolina Bible Belt, for good, not reclaiming her after another marriage. Grandma was shocked at what her good Christian girl granddaughter had gotten herself into. Growing up, the stunning Elizabeth was known as Betty Lou. She prayed and carried a Bible with her. Was Elizabeth in need of a father figure as a lover?
I'm not sure where she is now or what she's doing though I did try to find out. My research pointed to some possibilities but I was unable to verify that these candidates for our Elizabeth Ray were actually the same woman! Let's just say that there is no reason to believe that anyone, simply because they were born a woman, can or should type, file, or answer the phone, or be a secretary, as the end all of their ambitions. But I wouldn't be surprised if Ray had many skills and talents beyond beauty or sex and wouldn't be surprised if she's used these skills and talents to support herself.
When common ordinary folk, such as the people in Ohio that Hays represented, or the people Betty Lou left behind in North Carolina, and the people of the United States, first heard of the set up between Elizabeth and the politician, they were more outraged that he had used the TAXPAYERS MONEY TO FUND A MISTRESS, instead of his own money, o have one. They were outraged that he wasn't, like them, a faithful and loyal husband, at least not anymore. If he had used his own money and kept it between him and his wife, that he had a mistress would've been his private business.
Missy
C All Rights Reserved MistressManifesto.BlogSpot.Com / Missy Rapport
If interested in Political Mistresses, you may want to use the Google Search feature or my archives to locate posts on previous Political Mistresses of the Month including...
Karin Stanford, College Professor, and Jesse Jackson - May 2011
Madeleine Duncan Brown, Mistress of Lyndon Baines Johnson - December 2011
Monica Lewinsky and President Bill Clinton - March 2012
Rielle Hunter and Politician John Edwards - June 2012
Carrie Phillips and President Warren Harding - November 2012
*****
Research on ELIZABETH RAY for this months feature article on her includes:
WASHINGTON POST - SCANDAL ELIZABETH RAY by By Marion Clark and Rudy Maxa
Washington Post Staff Writers
ZIMBIO - WAYNE HAYS : AMERICANS 50 MOST SCANDALOUS
NEW YORK TIMES - OBITUARY WAYNE HAYS FEB 10 1989 DEATH - SECOND WIFE AT SIDE
PEOPLE MAGAZINE ARCHIVES - SHE WAS BETTY LOU IN ASHVILLE
