Rhea Chiles
| Rhea Chiles | |
|---|---|
| First Lady of Florida | |
|
In role January 8, 1991 – December 12, 1998 |
|
| Governor | Lawton Chiles |
| Preceded by | Mary Jane Martinez |
| Succeeded by | Anne Selph MacKay |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Rhea May Grafton December 1, 1930 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | November 8, 2015 (aged 84) Anna Maria Island, Florida, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse(s) | Lawton Chiles (m. 1951–98) (his death) |
| Children | 4 |
| Alma mater | University of Florida |
Rhea May Chiles (née Grafton; December 1, 1930 – November 8, 2015) was First Lady of the State of Florida from 1991-98 during the tenure of her husband, Governor Lawton Chiles. In 2009, Chiles was designated a Distinguished Floridian by the Florida Economics Club at an event hosted by former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Major B. Harding and keynoted by former United States Senator Sam Nunn.
Rhea Chiles spearheaded the creation of Florida House on Capitol Hill, the only "State Embassy" in Washington D.C.
In the late 1960s, Lawton and Rhea Chiles were visiting Washington D.C. on vacation with their young children. They got lost and found themselves on Embassy Row. One of the children said, "Let's go to Florida's embassy, and they will tell us where we are." They explained that only foreign countries had embassies and that states did not. The idea, however, intrigued Chiles.
In the first year following Lawton Chiles' election to the United States Senate in 1970, Rhea was walking by 200 East Capitol Street. At the time, the neighborhood was unsafe and the properties were unsightly. For these reasons, most people did not come east of the Capitol. Chiles walked past a circa 1891 row house—the historic Manning House—that was in total disrepair. The second floor of the historic property had caved in and the windows were boarded up. Homeless people were living in the basement. Chiles remembered her child's comment about "Florida's Embassy." With that as her vision, she arranged the purchase of the property with $5,000 of her own money and $120,000 raised from friends in Florida. Chiles preferred the sound of Number One Second Street over the original address. With that preference, she boarded up the front entrance and opened the back door as the formal entrance to Florida House. She supervised the historic restoration of the 100-year-old Manning House that came to be Florida House.
In time, she reopened the former front door, which now leads into the garden. In 1983, Rhea Chiles received the Florida Society of Historic Preservation Award for her leadership in the restoration of the historic building that became Florida House.
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Wikipedia