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Ruth "Bazy" Tankersley (March 7, 1921 – February 5, 2013) was an American breeder of Arabian horses and a newspaper publisher. She was a daughter of Senator Joseph Medill McCormick. Her mother was progressive Republican Congresswoman Ruth Hanna McCormick, making Tankersley a granddaughter of the late Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio. Although Tankersley was involved with conservative Republican causes as a young woman, including a friendship with Senator Joseph McCarthy, her progressive roots reemerged in later years; by the 21st century, she had become a strong supporter of environmental causes and backed Barack Obama for president in 2008. Tankersley's father died when she was a child. When her mother remarried, the family moved to the southwestern United States where Tankersley spent considerable time riding horses. She became particularly enamored of the Arabian breed after she was given a part-Arabian to ride. At 18 she began working as a reporter for a newspaper published by her mother. She later ran a newspaper in Illinois with her first husband, Peter Miller, and then in 1949 she became the publisher of the conservative ''Washington Times-Herald''. That paper was owned by her uncle, the childless Robert McCormick, who viewed Tankersley as his heir until the two had a falling out over editorial control of the newspaper and her relationship with Garvin Tankersley, who became her second husband. After ''The Washington Post'' absorbed the ''Times-Herald'', she shifted to full-time horse breeding. Tankersley purchased her first purebred Arabian when she was 19, and began her horse breeding operation, Al-Marah Arabians, in Tucson, Arizona, in 1941. As she moved across the US for her newspaper career, her horses and farm name went with her. She purchased her foundation sire Indraff in 1947, while living in Illinois. Upon her move to Washington, DC, her Al-Marah operation relocated to Montgomery County, Maryland, where it became the largest Arabian farm in the United States by 1957. Tankersley returned to Tucson in the 1970s, where in addition to horse breeding, she created an apprenticeship program at Al-Marah to train young people for jobs in the horse industry. She set up a second horse operation, the Hat Ranch, near Flagstaff, Arizona. Over her career she bred over 2,800 registered Arabians and was one of the largest importers of horses from the Crabbet Arabian Stud in England. Tankersley was a patron of many charities. Upon her death from Parkinson's disease in 2013 she bequeathed the Tucson ranch to the University of Arizona and placed the Hat Ranch in a conservation trust. In her final years, she downsized her breeding operation to about 150 horses, and most remaining stock went to her son, Mark Miller, who moved the Al-Marah Arabian farm name and horse operation to his home base near Clermont, Florida. ==Background and personal life== Tankersley was described as having "inherited a love of politics and horses, not necessarily in that order."〔Smith, p. 461.〕 She was born in Chicago, Illinois, on March 7, 1921.〔 Her nickname "Bazy" came from how she pronounced the word "baby" when she was a toddler.〔 Her father was Joseph Medill McCormick, part-owner of the ''Chicago Tribune'' and a Senator for Illinois. Her mother, Ruth Hanna McCormick, was a daughter of Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio,〔 and Ruth was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois,〔 serving in the 71st Congress from 1929 to 1931 as a progressive Republican.〔 Bazy was the youngest of three children; her siblings were Katherine ("Katrina"), (1913–2011) and John (1916–1938).〔 When Tankersley was four, her father died by suicide,〔 believed to be partly attributed to his defeat for renomination in 1924.〔 Her mother remarried in 1932〔 to Albert Gallatin Simms, a congressman from New Mexico,〔 lawyer, and banker.〔 Tankersley spent part of her childhood on her mother's Rock River dairy farm in Byron, Illinois,〔 and later moved to the Southwest with her mother and stepfather,〔Ahneman-Rudsenske and Bavaria, p. 62.〕 living at a ranch owned by Simms in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at first, and then moving in 1937 to the Trinchera Ranch, a property in Colorado that her mother had purchased.〔 Tankersley attended a boarding school in Virginia and spent summers in the West. Her love of horses in general and the Arabian horse in particular came from those years: "Right away, my stepfather bought me a cow pony, and I wore it out ... So my mother got me a Arabian that I couldn't wear out."〔 She also showed horses on the East Coast in the 1930s.〔 Her interest in Arabian horses led her to meet several major breeders of the time, including Jimmie Dean of Traveler's Rest, Roger Selby, W. R. Brown and Carl Raswan.〔 Tankersley did not complete high school,〔 and later said, "I virtually had no education."〔 Nonetheless, she studied genetics at Vermont's Bennington College between 1939 and 1941 without completing a degree.〔 While there, she gained some notoriety for genetic studies she conducted by raising fruit flies in her dorm room.〔 In 2004, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Arizona.〔 Tankersley married Maxwell Peter Miller, Jr. in 1941.〔〔 She and Miller lived in Tucson for two years,〔 where she developed a deep love for Arizona.〔 They then moved to Chicago for a time, and subsequently to her mother's Trinchera Ranch, which Bazy ran.〔 Her mother died of pancreatitis on December 31, 1944,〔 two months after a serious riding accident.〔Smith, p. 463.〕 The couple moved back to Illinois prior to relocating to Washington, DC.〔 Tankersley divorced Miller in 1951 to marry Garvin E. "Tank" Tankersley, an editor at the ''Washington Times-Herald'' ten years older than she was.〔〔Smith, p. 505.〕 Garvin Tankersley had started his news career as a photographer. He was the managing editor when he left the paper in 1952.〔 The couple met while Bazy was running the ''Times-Herald'', but Robert McCormick, Bazy's uncle and owner of the newspaper, considered Garvin Tankersley to be of unsuitable social status for Bazy because "Tank" was from a poor Lynchburg, Virginia, family.〔 McCormick also disapproved of her divorce. Bazy saw the latter stance as hypocritical, given McCormick's own complicated personal life.〔 McCormick's attempts to end the relationship ultimately prompted the couple to elope,〔 and the Tankersleys were married for 45 years until Garvin's death in 1997.〔 Tankersley also dabbled in campaign politics. In 1948 she organized "Twenties for Taft" clubs to support the 1948 Presidential campaign of Robert A. Taft.〔 She followed in the footsteps of her mother Ruth, who was the first woman to manage a presidential campaign, the 1940 and 1944 efforts of Thomas E. Dewey.〔 Tankersley later described herself as a friend of Senator Joseph McCarthy,〔 and in 1952 she advocated for the removal of Guy Gabrielson as chair of the Republican National Committee.〔 Tankersley's politics shifted dramatically during her life.〔 Noting her earlier strong affiliation with the Republican party and conservative politics, ''The Washington Post'' reported that in 2008 she voted for Barack Obama.〔 She also supported Democratic Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords.〔 From her two marriages, Tankersley had three biological children: a son, Mark Miller, born in 1947,〔 and two daughters, Kristie Miller (b. 1944) and Tiffany Tankersley (1970–2012). She also had two stepchildren, Anne Tankersley Sturm and Garvin Tankersley, Jr.〔 At the time of her death, she had six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bazy Tankersley」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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