DORIS "GRANNY D" HADDOCK, Bright-Eyed, Energetic and Full of Moxie and Sass

I am so grateful that I was able to have Doris “Granny D” Haddock spend a day with me and sit for a portrait.

Doris "Granny D" Haddock, Oil on Linen, 20" x 24" (click to enlarge) by Karin Wells 

  At the age of 90, she began a 3,200 mile walk across America to raise awareness of the need for Campaign Finance Reform. 

Sitting for long periods of time would have been difficult for her, so I took reference photos to use at the easel. 

Frankly, I want to be just like her when I grow up. Her words still inspire me: 

 “We have a duty to look after each other. If we lose control of our government, then we lose our ability to dispense justice and human kindness. Our first priority today, then, is to defeat utterly those forces of greed and corruption that have come between us and our self-governance.” 

 "Never be discouraged from being an activist because people tell you that you'll not succeed. You have already succeeded if you're out there representing truth or justice or compassion or fairness or love. You already have your victory because you have changed the world; you have changed the status quo by one; you have changed the chemistry of things, and changes will spread from you, will be easier to happen again in others because of you, because, believe it or not, you are the center of the world." 

 ~ Doris "Granny D" Haddock, 1999 in her walk across the country for Campaign Finance Reform. 

Sadly Doris passed away long before my portrait was finished. I trust she would be pleased with it as I included everything she asked for. 

 Some of the elements in this painting are: 

 THE STRAW HAT: She wore out many hats in her trek across Amrica - but that hat became her trademark and she always replaced the ones that wore out with another hat exactly like it.

 THE HAT BAND: This was a colorful fabric belt that belonged to a dear friend. Unfortunately she died, but Doris used that belt on every hat she wore. Sometimes she would find a bird feather and stick it in the hat band as a decoration. 

 THE GOLD-HEADED CANE: As Dublin's oldest resident, she was awarded The Boston Post Cane. She was very proud of that and wanted it in her portrait. 

 WEDDING RING: She spoke fondly of her husband who passed away long ago and wanted me to make sure that her wedding ring was visible.

 THE SMALL STACK OF ENVELOPES AT HER ELBOW were some of her favorite letters sent from all over the world. She saved the envelopes, but cut off all of the stamps to give to a young stamp collector.

 THE PAPER IN HER HAND: One of Granny D’s favorite sayings was “Democracy is not something we have, it’s something we do.” 

THE PICTURE OF A DOVE symbolizes her anti-war activities and the dedication to peace. 

 LETTERED INTO THE BACKGROUND: In April 2000, Granny D was one of a group of protestors arrested for reading the Declaration of Independence in the Capitol Building. She entered a plea of guilty, made a statement to the court and paid a $10 fine. 

 I lettered part of her statement to the judge into the background of her portrait: 

 “Some of us do not have much power, except to put our bodies in the way of an injustice ~ to picket, to walk, or to just stand in the way. It will not change the world overnight ~ but it is all we can do.” 

 (Note: long before I began painting portraits, I was a sign painter - so this was pretty easy for me to do.) 

 THE SETTING SUN: This is a metaphor for her decision to begin this work when she turned 90 years old and her determination to make a difference in her "sunset years."  

THE SKY in the background is a reminder of all of the great big skies she saw on her coast-to-coast journey. 

 THE DRAPE: Granny D had a talent for designing and hooking rugs. She created a small (mostly red) rug called “The Trail of Tears.” She said it was a very moving experience to have followed part of that trail on her journey across America. I tried to put it in the portrait, but the color and pattern were too strong and it detracted from the portrait. However, I used her elegant rug as the drapery behind her (sans color and pattern). 

 I regret that I did not photograph this particular rug separately - it would be worth a still life painting all by itself.

The following is an article about Granny D by Marlo Poras, Filmmaker, "Run Granny Run" ~ and she describes Doris better than I do...

REMEMBERING THE FORGOTTEN TRIUMPH OF ‘GRANNY D’

Doris “Granny D” Haddock was
a serial troublemaker. She died Tuesday at
her home in Dublin, N.H., at the age of 100,
having raised more hell in her last decade
than most people do in their whole lives.

In 2000, at the age of 90, Doris walked
3,200 miles across America to raise awareness
about campaign finance reform.
Racked with emphysema and arthritis, she
logged 10 miles a day for 13 months. Her
Sisyphean trek won praise from Sen. John
McCain and former President Jimmy
Carter, and it galvanized popular attention
on an electoral system gone awry.

Doris “Granny D” Haddock poses in
2004 in front of the camper she used during
her cross country walk to support campaign
finance reform.

She grabbed my attention four years later,
when I read that a 94-year-old was crisscrossing
America, registering working
women to vote in swing states. I was floored
by the idea that this nonagenarian was
putting her life on the line to fight for her
vision of democracy. I’m a documentary
filmmaker, and at the time I was on the
hunt for the subject of my next project.
Moved by her determined, seemingly
quixotic commitment to breathing life into
her ideals, I jumped on a plane to meet her.

As excited as I was to meet Doris, I had
some doubts. She was in her 90s — would
she have the pluck and presence to carry a
film? And, more delicately: Did she really
have all her marbles? But when I met her,
she was bright-eyed and energetic, full of
moxie and sass, and her gravelly, British inflected
voice was a filmmaker’s dream. I
was won over from the start.

When I began filming, Doris planned to
register voters until Election Day. I imagined
crafting a road trip movie through the
eyes of an unlikely heroine during a pivotal
election year. But true to form, Doris defied
even her own expectations of herself when,
back home for a short break from the road,
she suddenly became New Hampshire’s
Democratic nominee to the U.S. Senate.

During the campaign, she spoke out vehemently
against the Iraq War, at a time
when virtually no Democratic candidates
were doing so. She completed a 250-mile
walk around New Hampshire to reach out
to potential constituents, while refusing to
accept any PAC or special-interest money
to help fund her run. But the big moment
came when she had her first-ever debate —
on live TV — against incumbent Sen. Judd
Gregg, who had stood in for John Kerry in
Bush’s debate training.

The days, hours and minutes leading up
to the debate were the most nerve-racking
I’ve ever experienced. Doris’ schedule left
her little time for debate training: On a typical
day, she awoke at 4 a.m., drove with her
son Jim to the starting point for that day’s
five-mile walk, then walked those miles
waving at morning commuters. That would
be followed by a few interviews, speeches,
and copious hand-shaking at a couple of
events. Once home, she’d study the issues
of the day and finally go to bed around midnight.

When Doris did manage to squeeze in
time for debate training, her performance
was highly erratic. One day, she’d pack a
wallop, like when her coach asked Doris
about her opinion on gay marriage and
Doris replied, “I’m for love. I don’t think
the government belongs in my bedroom. I
don’t want them there. Not that anything’s
happening there these days!” The next day,
Doris might wax poetic about health care
reform after being asked a question about
terrorism.

Doris’ longtime working-partner and
close friend, Dennis Burke, who was also
her campaign manager, summed up quite
eloquently how all of us felt about the upcoming
showdown. “The way I’d like to
watch the debate tonight is with a TV tray, a
little black-and-white TV, a pastrami sandwich,
a beer, and a .38 revolver.”

I was literally shaking by the time Doris’
wrinkled face graced TV screens the
evening of the debate. Doris herself was
fearful, too, convinced that her throat
might give out on her, or that she’d be overtaken
by one of her uncontrollable coughing
fits. As the debate began, I could see
that Doris was careful to hide her trembling,
arthritic hands behind the podium.

After a slow start, though, Doris surprised
us all. When Gregg asked how she
would improve upon his lauded environmental
record, her eyes twinkled. “I saw a
picture of you fishing recently, senator,”
she replied. “I hope you didn’t eat that fish:
the lakes and rivers of our state are now
poisoned with mercury, which was certainly
not the case when you entered office.”

Our sighs of relief must have caused a
minor earthquake in New Hampshire that
night. Not only did Doris end up holding
her own in the debate, but a comfortable
majority of viewers declared her the victor
in a poll the following day. And despite
George Bush Sr.’s predictions that she
would only receive 7 percent of the vote,
Doris was embraced by a resounding 34
percent of voters’ support on Election Day.
Not bad for a last-minute, four-month run
by a great-grandmother of 16 who had never
dreamt of running for political office before.

Throughout Doris’ campaign and the
making and roll-out of my film “Run
Granny Run,” I felt blessed to spend time
with Doris, to become her friend and to
learn from her example. Independent documentary
filmmaking is a highly discouraging
practice, replete with funding problems,
impossible rights clearances, and
anxiety about securing a distributor for
your film. But every time I got discouraged,
all I had to do was think of Doris’ debate.

She will forever remind me that when you
don’t pay heed to what’s impossible, you act
as if everything is possible, and that’s the path toward extraordinary change.

Granny D didn't just inspire me, Artist Robert Shetterly wrote a wonderful book called, "Americans Who Tell The Truth" and illustrated it with his portraits. He included Granny D:

Granny D by Robert Shetterly. I apologize that this is not a good reproduction of his work. I have seen this and many other of his originals and really admire his entire body of work.... he did a nice job and I bought the book.

He included Granny D and this is what he wrote:

Born Doris Rollins in Laconia, New Hampshire, “Granny D” is best known today for her walk across America in support of campaign finance reform (1999-2000). Her trip, begun shortly before her 89th birthday, lasted 14 months, and covered 3,200 miles.

Doris Haddock’s journey was no mere publicity stunt. She had studied the issue of campaign finance reform so that she could communicate her views to the people who assembled to meet her along the way, including the more than 2,000 who greeted her arrival in Washington, D.C. She spent a year training for the physical challenges she would encounter on the trip, which would wear out four pairs of shoes and included a hundred-mile stretch that she covered on cross-country skis.

Commitment to campaign finance reform is but one facet of an activist career that included working on environmental issues in Alaska (1960) and writing and speaking against war in Iraq (2003). She tells her fellow citizens: “We must not be content to go home and watch television when there is a democracy to run, or to spend all our money on ourselves and our children. Right now, many young people will tell you to ‘get a life’ if you suggest that they get involved in community issues. But that is a life. That is the life of free people in a democracy.”

Her nickname reflects her status as great-grandmother of a large family; it also helps to define the strong, protective love she feels for her country—a love expressed in her statement: “We live in a land where each person’s voice matters. We can all do something. Sometimes, we have to make sacrifices to be heard. But it is still our free land and, my, how we all do love it.”

In her moral toughness and pragmatism, “Granny D” also knows that real love acts responsibly and fights for its object: “We have a duty to look after each other. If we lose control of our government, then we lose our ability to dispense justice and human kindness. Our first priority today, then, is to defeat utterly those forces of greed and corruption that have come between us and our self-governance.”

National Icon "Granny D" dies at 100

NOTE: Late last Sumer (2009), I was able to arrange for Doris "Granny D"Haddock to sit for me. She is to be my first portrait in the new series I 'm planning, entitled, "People who Tell The Truth."

It was a fun shoot. She was feeling good and feisty that day and wore her infamous hat. One of these pictures is posted below.

I am so grateful to have these reference photos and I am sorry that Doris won't be here to see the result. I like the quote below and may letter it into her portrait.

- Karin

“You have the power of one,” she said. “And if you use it for something that’s bigger than you are, people will come.”

- Granny D



Granny D also understood and supported our efforts to spread the Truth of 9/11.

Doris “Granny D” Haddock died peacefully today in her Dublin, New Hampshire family home at 7:18 p.m. Tuesday, March 9, 2010. She was 100 years old. Born in 1910 in Laconia, New Hampshire, she attended Emerson College and lived through two world wars and the Great Depression.

She was an activist for her community and for her country, remaining active until the return of chronic respiratory problems four days ago.

She walked across the United States at the age of 90 in the year 2000, in a successful effort to promote the passage of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act.

In 2004, Granny D decided to challenge incumbent Senator Judd Gregg for his US Senate seat. She hoped to demonstrate that ordinary people can run for office and win with the support of small donations from individuals.

Despite a shortened, grassroots campaign without the benefit of any advertising dollars, Granny D garnered an impressive 34% of the vote. During the past year five years, Granny D has traveled the country speaking about campaign finance reform and working on behalf of legislation for publicly-funded elections in New Hampshire.

In the 1960s, she and her husband, James Haddock, Sr., were instrumental in halting planned nuclear tests that would have destroyed a native fishing village and region in Alaska.

The following was written in The Keene Sentinel. Wednesday, March 10, 2010:

DUBLIN, NH — Doris Haddock of Dublin, who walked across the country at age 90 to promote campaign finance reform and later waged a quixotic campaign for U.S. Senate, has died. She was 100.

Haddock died Tuesday of chronic respiratory illness at her home in Dublin, said spokeswoman and family friend Maude Salinger. She was surrounded by her son, daughter-in-law, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

In 2000, Haddock walked 3,200 miles to draw attention to campaign finance reform. In 2004, at age 94 and bolstered by her new notoriety, she ran for the U.S. Senate against Republican Judd Gregg.

The subtitle of her autobiography, written with Dennis Burke, was “You’re Never Too Old to Raise a Little Hell.”

“Her age wasn’t a factor in what she did,” Salinger said. “She never gave up. Until the end, she advocated for public funding. She would have wanted people to know that democracy and government belongs to us.”

Haddock was true to her cause right up until her death.

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in January to ease limits on corporate campaign contributions, she fired back:

“The Supreme Court, representing a radical fringe that does not share the despair of the grand majority of Americans, has today made things considerably worse by undoing the modest reforms I walked for and went to jail for, and that tens of thousands of other Americans fought very hard to see enacted. ...

“The Supreme Court now opens the floodgates to usher in a new tsunami of corporate money into politics.”

In an interview with The Sentinel near the time of her 100th birthday, in January, Haddock said every month she continued to get hundreds of e-mails and letters from supporters around the world.

The HBO documentary “Run Granny Run,” which chronicled her cross-country walk, helped to fuel her cause and her legend.

Many told her she inspired them to stand up for something they believe in.

She printed the e-mails and kept them in a thick folder in her bedroom, she said.

She spent several hours a day on her computer, tracking campaign finance reform measures across the country, writing speeches and newspaper columns editorials on the subject and responding to e-mails from her fans.

She walked regularly — a mile or two several days a week — a practice she credited for helping to keep her young.

Haddock said her passion for taking big money out of politics at the state and federal levels helped her to keep going.

Doing so, she said, would bring true democracy to the country. That’s a legacy she longed to leave behind for her 16 great-grandchildren.

“I’ve been working on it for 10 years,” she said in January. “It will mean that anyone can run for office if they have the will and the guts.”

“But today, it costs so much to run for office, and it’s costing more and more all the time, and there are very few people who have the money to do it. They have to get it and they get it from special interests or from corporations.”

Haddock was born Jan. 24, 1910, in Laconia and attended Emerson College before marrying James Haddock. She later worked at a local shoe company for 20 years.

She spent a decade caring for her husband after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He died in 1993.

After retiring in 1972, Haddock became more active in community affairs.

In 1997, Haddock began to get involved with the cause that would become her life’s mission. She became interested in campaign finance reform after the defeat of the first attempt of Sens. John McCain and Russ Feingold to remove unregulated “soft” money from campaigns in 1995.

She gathered more than 100,000 signatures for a petition in support of the McCain-Feingold bill.

But a year later, disappointed with the response from her local representatives, the 89-year-old decided to begin training for a walk across the country as a champion for the cause.

Inspiration for her cross-country trek came from the Tuesday Morning Academy, a group of women in Dublin who met every Tuesday at 8 a.m. to do ballet exercises and discuss world affairs.

Her walk began Jan. 1, 1999, in Los Angeles and, 3,200 miles later, she arrived in Washington D.C., trailed by a crowd of about 2,200 supporters.

Covering about 10 miles a day, Haddock walked through more than 1,000 miles of desert, climbed the Appalachian Range in blizzard conditions and even skied 100 miles after snowfall made roadside walking impossible. She started in near-obscurity, but soon was discovered by local and national media.

The response from people along the way was one of the things she’ll always remember from the walk, Haddock said. “I had no money,” she said. “I walked as a pilgrim across the states.

“I walked until given shelter. I fasted until given food.”

And she shared her message with anyone who would listen, Haddock said.

“I stopped at every dog fight, any place, just so that my name is known and my name means public funding of elections,” she said. “It’s got to come. It’s going to.”

Burke, who co-wrote Haddock’s memoir, met Haddock as she walked through Arizona on her way to Washington.

“Doris was one of the youngest people I have ever known. She was a little kid about her country — so in love she was with it and so excited for it always,” he said early today.

In 2004, Haddock jumped into the Senate race on the last day to file after the presumptive Democratic nominee dropped out when his campaign manager was accused of financial fraud. A few months before the election, she officially changed her name to “Granny D,” but stressed that the “D” stood for “Doris,” not her party affiliation.

On Election Day, Judd Gregg won. But Haddock still saw the 34 percent of the vote she captured as a victory.

“I wasn’t going to just let him have it without giving a fight,” she said.

Mark Fernald, a former state senator and a Sharon resident who practices law in Peterborough, said Granny D was a woman of remarkable poise and commitment, which made it easy for people to naturally be drawn to her.

“She was genuine,” Fernald said this morning. “She had a way about her, and people liked her. She was out to tell her story; she didn’t put people down, she didn’t lecture, she talked about what she believed in and why we needed this change (campaign finance reform) to change our country.”

In recent years, she founded a group that pushed the state Legislature to create the Citizen Funded Election Task Force and attended the task force’s weekly meetings. She was honored at a Statehouse ceremony in January to mark her 100th birthday.

She was working on a new book, “My Bohemian Century,” which focuses on her college days and her Senate campaign and is expected to be published this spring. Haddock had stayed with Burke’s family in Phoenix last month to complete work on it, he said.

“Two things that people might not know, but should,” Fernald said, “she was a marvelous writer and speaker, and she wrote all her own stuff. And it was good. She really thought very deeply about what it meant to be an American, to live in a democracy. She’d get up there, and make these speeches, at age 88, 90, 92, and she never wore reading glasses.

“In some ways, she seemed like she was ageless — the mind of a 25 year old, the eyes of a 35 year old ... and the legs of a 40 year old.”

In the book’s dedication, Haddock offers readers advice: “You have to keep the young adventurer inside your heart alive long enough for it to someday re-emerge. It may take some coaxing and some courage, but that person is in you always — never growing old.”

In February, “Sources of Strength: Granny D at 100” was published. The book focuses on how she’s managed to live such a long and active life and includes the text of several of her speeches.

Both Democrats and Republicans offered condolences Tuesday night.

“Her commitment to fair and open democracy should inspire us all to work even harder for reform,” state Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley.

“We are always saddened when someone with a genuine commitment to their values and principles passes away,” said Republican Party Chairman John H. Sununu. “Granny D was an unwavering advocate for her beliefs, and her tireless efforts inspired many Granite Staters to participate in our political process,” he said.

Haddock told The Sentinel in January that she hopes her legacy will transcend politics.

“You have the power of one,” she said. “And if you use it for something that’s bigger than you are, people will come.”