TEXAS SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Remembering the Remarkable Judge Sarah T. HughesIBy Judge Elizabeth RayWAS TEN YEARS OLD THE FIRST TIME I met Judge Sarah T. Hughes, when my fatherintroduced me to her. I can still recall her voice and her presence. She had given up on “nice”by that time. I remember thinking that she was absolutely tiny; she stood only five feet tall. Onecan safely assume she had her judicial robes altered to fit.I encountered her a second time in 1979, after I graduated from law school and was clerking for a federalmagistrate in Fort Worth. She was eighty-three years old at the time. I was having trouble finding a job as alitigator; her advice to me was along the lines of, “Don’t be a wuss. Get it done one way or the other.” I declinedoffers to work in probate and family law and opened my own “firm” much as she had done some fifty-eight yearsearlier.That was thirty-six years ago. Things seem to have worked out OK. Like Judge Hughes, I have won someand lost some (I lost an election for the Texas Supreme Court in 2002 by 22,380 votes and a district court racein 2008 by fewer than 500 votes). But Judge Sarah Hughes’s grit and determination to move forward in spite ofsetbacks set a fine example to those who might be tempted to quit after a bitter defeat, whether in politics or in life.Judge Sarah T. Hughes experienced a life of “firsts.” She was the first female Texas state district courtjudge, the first female federal district judge in Texas, and the first female to administer the oath of office to apresident. She shaped history, and her life of “firsts” continues to inspire us today, thirty years after her death.Few among us can claim a legacy as broad or as grand as hers. Her influence continues. It certainly affected me.I share this article as a tribute to Judge Hughes and intertwine it with my recollections of her and her impacton my life.Sarah Tilghman Hughes was born on August 2, 1896 in Baltimore. She came from an illustrious background.Her great-great-great grandfather James Tilghman was the first Attorney General of the State of Maryland, and hergreat-great-great uncle Tench Tilghman was aide-de-camp to General George Washington. The family plantation,Hermitage, was still in use when she was born.Hughes graduated from Goucher College, an all-women’s college in central Baltimore, and then taughthigh school for two years at Salem Academy, a private girls’ school in North Carolina (her mother, Bessie, wasfrom North Carolina). She completed her education in 1922 by graduating from the George Washington UniversityLaw School. Hughes attended law classes at night while working as a police officer during the day. Disciplinedin all areas of her life, she maintained a set bedtime of 8 p.m. and arose promptly at 4 a.m. As a woman policeofficer not allowed to carry a gun, she patrolled areas where prostitutes and runaways were normally found. Thisexperience instilled in her a lifelong passion for women’s issues. At the time, she lived in a tent and commuted toher law classes via canoe.Hughes married her classmate, George Hughes, who was from Palestine, Texas, and they moved to Dallasin 1922. She was admitted to the Texas Bar that same year. Unable to obtain employment with a law firm (much73