FORMER LWVOC PRESIDENT ROSEMARY DUROCHER
HELPED LEAD THE FIGHT FOR GENDER EQUALITY
Thanks to Rosemary for more than 50 years’ service to the LWVOC!
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Rosemary DuRocher remembers when the League of Women Voters of Orange County was small enough to meet in members’ homes.
“In the early 1970s when I joined, we divided up into small groups called ‘units,” she said. “Individuals could choose to join a unit based on whether they were available to meet morning, noon, or night.
“As we still do today, we planned meetings around current events and important issues. Members researched a chosen topic or theme and presented their findings to the group. Each unit focused on the same theme at the same time, so all members became informed about that subject.”
The DuRochers had selected Orlando as their home after husband Joe and a friend from law school decided to open a law practice together. The young couple had met in college: he at Villanova and she at Immaculata, a private Catholic college near Philadelphia. Both grew up in the Northeast.
Once settled in Orlando, she enrolled in a master’s program in guidance and counseling at Rollins and later earned her Ed.D in education from the University of Florida, while rearing three children.
According to DuRocher, the League was the first organization she joined in Central Florida.
“I didn’t know anyone, but I knew about the League, and I knew that people who joined the League were people like me who valued knowledge and wanted to be well-informed,” she said.
“League members are the kind of people who will attend a City Council meeting, and if there is a proposed city ordinance, they will take it home and read it page by page. They do not just accept what is being said. Instead, they analyze, investigate, and thoroughly research a topic before deciding whether or not to support it.”
“When I first came to town, I wanted to learn everything I could about the Equal Rights Amendment,” she said. “So I called Flo Neidig, who ran a League office from her home, and asked for a copy of the ERA.
“She sent me the document and suggested that I might want to join a ‘unit,’” DuRocher recalled. “That was 1972. I joined, and it took off from there.”
Within a few years, DuRocher was a member of the LWVOC Board. By 1978, she was president.
“When the ERA failed to gain ratification from all 50 states, Florida Leagues fought to pass a state-wide amendment to the Florida Constitution outlawing discrimination on the basis of gender,” she recalled. “That legislation became known as ‘Amendment 2,’ or ‘the Little ERA,’ and a group of us worked night and day to encourage voters to approve it.
“Joe gave us office space in a building he owned, so that we could have a dedicated workspace and clear visibility within the community,” she recalled. “We met with civic groups, churches, anyone who would listen.
“Like the ERA, the state amendment failed to pass,” DuRocher said, “but over time, it seems that many of the equality provisions we fought for have come to pass without special legislation.”
Her year as president was a U.S. presidential election year, and a year when a major Constitutional Revision was underway in the State of Florida. Another big issue was the League decision to admit men.
“Linda Chapin’s grandfather was our first male member,” DuRocher said.
Early in her League career, DuRocher became known as something of a local expert on the criminal justice system, probably because she was married to someone who was deeply involved with it.
“When he left private practice, Joe was appointed Executive Director of Legal Aid,” she explained. “Part of his job was to provide lawyers for kids in the juvenile justice system. When Gov. Reubin Askew created a new judgeship, Joe applied and was appointed to the Juvenile Court. Later he became a Circuit Court Judge for Orange and Osceola Counties.”
DuRocher’s 1978-79 tenure as LWVOC President, meanwhile, led to her appointment to the Board of the State League, and later to an appointment on Governor Bob Graham’s Criminal Justice System Reform Task Force.
“I am very proud of my time in the League,” she said. “It has been the single thread that goes all through my life. I admire the work of the League. My League members are my best friends, and I am a better voter now.”
In the 1980’s DuRocher went to work as a guidance counselor at Winter Park High School. In retirement, she leads a monthly discussion group on politics and government at Orlando Lutheran Towers.