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PAMELA DEAN:

I think you really could be said to have been a pioneer for women taking on new responsibilities. You were one of the first women lawyers in the state and you were the first woman on the Durham City Council. Did you consider yourself a pioneer? Did you see yourself in that light?

KATHRINE ROBINSON EVERETT:

While I filed first, Mary Duke Semans and I were elected at the same time. As to my being a pioneer-I don't know. I don't stop to consider that. You just do what comes and what you believe in. You don't stop and think whether you are a pioneer. I realized later that perhaps people maybe would suggest things for me to do with the idea of pioneering. I remember Chief Justice Walter Clark was a great believer in women and women doing things. I knew his daughter and visited their home some and we travelled together. I know he wanted me to qualify and be the first notary public. He said get ready to; but I wasn't especially interested in being a notary public so I didn't do it. These other things have come about because they were maybe in the line of what I was doing. I have had several firsts but they were just because I happened to be there at the right time. Of course, my work needed it. Going in practice with my father, I had cases ready. Generally, you have to build up to the supreme court, something like that. Mr. Everett, my husband, my son, and I were all admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States at the same time. That was the first time they had had a father, a mother, and a son. Now, I noticed they are having a good many husbands and wives and there seems to be an increasing number of husbands and wives who are practicing together or who are practicing, sometimes they are in different firms but they are practicing. That seems to be growing quite a bit. I don't think the three lawyers in the same family is growing quite as much, when they are husband, wife and son. I've practiced with my father, my husband and my son-three generations.

PAMELA DEAN:

No, I think you may keep that record.

KATHRINE ROBINSON EVERETT:

We may have a fourth. My oldest grandson is going to college next year, and he may take up law. We are leaving it to him what he'll do. So if he does, he'll be the fourth lawyer in one family. Then, way back there, I found out in my history that in my ancestors, one of my great-great-grandmothers read law with her husband, who read law. But she did it just for her own pleasure and to help herself.