Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest

What was it in Sandra Day O'Connor's background and early life that helped make her the woman she is today-the first female justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and one of the most powerful women in America? In this beautiful, illuminating, and unusual book, Sandra Day O'Connor, with her brother, Alan, tells the story of the Day family and of growing up on the harsh yet beautiful land of the Lazy B Ranch in Arizona. Laced throughout these stories about three generations of the Day family, and everyday life on the Lazy B, are the lessons Sandra and Alan learned about the world, about people, self-reliance, and survival, and the reader will learn how the values of the Lazy B shaped them and their lives.

Sandra's grandfather first put some cattle on open grazing land in 1886, and the Lazy B developed and continued to prosper as Sandra's parents, who eloped and then lived on the Lazy B all their lives, carved out a frugal and happy life for themselves and their three children on the rugged frontier. As you read about the daily adventures, the cattle drives and roundups, the cowboys and horses, the continual praying for rain and fixing of windmills, the values instilled by a self-reliant way of life, you see how Sandra Day O'Connor grew up.

This fascinating glimpse of life in the American Southwest in the last century recounts an interesting time in our history, and gives us an enduring portrait of an independent young woman on the brink of becoming one of the most prominent figures in America today.

Sandra Day O'Connor was born in El Paso, Texas, and attended college and law school at Stanford University. She has been married to John O'Connor since 1952, and they have three sons. Nominated by President Reagan as associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, she took the oath of office on September 25, 1981, the first woman to do so.

H. Alan Day is a lifelong rancher who, after graduation from the University of Arizona, managed the Day ranch, the Lazy B, for thirty years. He also purchased and ran ranches in Nebraska and South Dakota, where he established a wild-horse sanctuary that, under contract with the U.S. government, cared for fifteen hundred wild horses. He lives in Tucson.