Barbara Farrell Vucanovich

Barbara Farrell Vucanovich (née Farrell; June 22, 1921 – June 10, 2013) was an American Republican politician from Nevada. She was the first woman from Nevada elected to the United States House of Representatives, in which she served seven terms representing Nevada from 1983 to 1997.

Background Barbara Farrell was born in Camp Dix, New Jersey, on June 22, 1921. Her father, Thomas Farrell, who hailed from Troy, New York, was of Irish ancestry. Between the world wars he was the chief engineer for the New York State Department of Public Works, and during World War II rejoined the United States Army to become Deputy Commanding General of the Manhattan Project. Her mother, Maria Ynez White, was of English and Mexican-Californio ancestry from southern California, with her maternal great-grandmother having been a Mexican who became a U.S. citizen upon the transfer of California to the United States in 1848.

Early life and marriage Farrell grew up in the capital city of Albany, New York. She married James Henry Bugden at the age of 18 but became separated when her husband was assigned overseas during the war. She was employed by several New York businesses during the 1940s. In 1949, she relocated to Reno, Nevada, for what was intended to a brief period, so she could legally dissolve her first marriage under the city's famously lax divorce laws. George died of leukemia in 1998.

Political career Vucanovich's second husband, Ken Dillon, introduced her to Nevada Republican politics in the 1950s, when the party was slowly building after decades of minority status. Dillon introduced her to Paul Laxalt, then a young district attorney from Carson City.

Governor Brian Sandoval paid tribute to Vucanovich, whom he likened to Margaret Thatcher, who was nicknamed the Iron Lady: "Barbara Vucanovich was the matriarch of her political generation ... Nevada's "Silver Lady". ... First and foremost, however, Barbara was a wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Her family was always her priority, even as she served the entire Nevada family in the United States Congress".

Electoral results