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Show The Salt Lake Tribune NATION Sunday, September 5, 1999 HATCH’S COMING OF AGE Hatch Learned Politics From His Mother vate baths. One side of the Hatch home was built from a “Meadow Gold dairy sign; the first year it was built, the homelacked electricity gas and indoor facilities. Family membershad to trudge up a dirt “Those who don’t know me thought that was crazy at the last minute. They said it would take a miracle to elect Orrin Hatch [as] president. Well, I want you to know, my life has been alife ofmiracles.” path to use an outhouse ona hill Kuchsays the family got indoor @ Continued From A-1 plumbing bythe time Hatch was 4 or 5. Hatch says he has memories from those times. While other GOP presidential candidates have been campaigning and raising money for months or years, Hatch maintains he re- “I thought that was the neatest homeuntil I realized that we were poor.” Tothis day, he says, “I ne’ luctantly entered the race late er pass by a bathroom. I alwa only after many supporters persuaded him to get in — but that he should not be counted out stop. That 100-yard dash on the dirt path was no fun. On Sundays, the Hatch family “Those who don't know me thought that was crazyat the last minute. They said it would take a miracle to elect Orrin Hatch [as] president. Well, I want you to know, mylife has been life of miracles,” he says. Those who do know him — and his intense drive and ambition — say they are not surprised he would seek the nation’s top spot Hatch denies he waspolitically ambitious from an earlyage. “'I got pushedinto all these things,” he says of the high school mock election and another he won in 1958to serve as summer student body president at the church- owned Brigham Young Universi- ty Hatch Family Photo Orrin Hatch as a young boy grasps a baseball bat and appears ready to take a pitch. cumbent Sen. Frank Moss. Hebe. gan emphasizing his ancestral Utah roots to overcome accusa- iren of presidents and history,” recalls Marilyn “Nubs’ Kuch, an ider sister. it was my mother, really. My mother loved history and she'd talk about history all the time,’ she says. “We always knew about the presidents and we always flewthe flag.” Hatch’s father, Jesse, was a killed building tradesman, an intellectually profound artisan ith his hands,” Hatch says. Hatch lived in Pittsburgh from his birth on March 22, 1934, until the fall of 1952, when he went off to Utahto attend BYU \fter four years in Utah and two as a Mormon missionary in the Great Lakes Mission, Hatch ind his young bride, the former Elaine Hansen, whom he met at BYU, returned to Pennsylvania in 1958. He entered the University of Pittsburgh School of Law ona cholarship. They lived in Pittsburgh, where worked as alawyer, until 1969, ven they moved to Utah so he could accept a job from a friend he siblings beganto sing, play the or- gan and speak publicly fromthe pulpit “That house had lot of lovein Onhis decision to run for the Republican nomination it. Every Sunday, we had groups of peopie in for dinner on Sunday after church, Kuch says. between church. “It was Depression time a a lot of people were poor. We didn’t starve.’ Their community was close- knit. The roads were unpaved. no one lockedtheir doors, and there wasvirtually no public transpor- tation. Children walked to school and kept their nice shoes to changeintoat a rowof mailboxes along the way Alice Hess, now76, recalls that everyone was “fairly middle . and there were manykids around that played together Therealso were few Mormons It was just a lovely neighbor hood. Everybody was friendly she says, “I don't think anybody aroundherelivedin poverty. We had enough Neighbors in Baldwin Borough are quick to recall how Mormon missionaries constantly flockedto the Hatches andconsideredtheir homeanoasis Young Orrin’s parents got a pi- ano — which all the children learned to play — and gave him violin lessons. They would reno vate the chicken’ coop behind their hometo provideaplaceto stay for struggling young fam church mem A Family Loss: By most ac counts. Hatch was extremely self conscious froman early age about his appearance, particularly his clothes. Growing upin an active Mormon family in Pittsburghals made himstand out I understand what it’s like to be rejected. And I've got totell you, I've been rejectedby a lot of people who I've had to walk around in order to get where | am,” he says. Part of the family loreis that whenHatch was 10, a serviceman came to the front of their home to tell the family that older brother Jess had been killed. That day Hatch has long claimed, a one inch-wide streak of his blond hair turnedgrayish white Jess Hatch became a nosegur ner in a B-24 Liberator basedir Italy during World War IL. Twice he was shot down andsurvived See Next Page tions of being a “carpetbagger As in so manyother areasof his life, Hatchattributes his political successes to his Mormonism. “If I didn’t have this faith I don’t think I'd haverunfor the Senateto be- gin with,” he says Sinceentering the presidential race on July 1, Hatch often has invoked his modest background A Mother's Touch:If Hatch had apolitical mentor, it was his mother, Helen. She was a fulltime homemaker with an eighth‘rade education, but also had the equivalent of a Ph.D. in selfstudy,” he says. She often spoke to her chil- spent their mornings and eveningsin a chapel that served the city's small Mormon congregation. It was there, at an age when most children are just learning how to talk, that Hatch and his Orrin Hatch lies. most of them bers He begantalkingit up as soon as he formally announced he would seek the presidency. Whilefront-runners Texas Gov George W. Bush and Vice Presi. dent Al Gore were “raisedin priv ilege, I was born in poverty,” Hatch says. Hard Times: Theissue of the Hatch family’s economic status is complex. When Hatch was born, the familylived at a homethey hadpartly paid for in Homestead, Pa., near Pittsburgh. But his father was un- able to find enough work to af- fordit. So he borrowed $100 from Minnie Moran, an elderly Scottish woman andfellow Mormon, to extendhisline of credit for the purchase of an acre of land in the rolling hills of Baldwin Borough LABOR SALE Monday, September 6th ONLY! according to his mother’s handwritten life history He paidoff the debt at a dollar a month and used the lumber from a building he was hired to tear down to erect the home 9 A.M. TO 9 PM. save} whereHatch spent his boyhood. Like many of the neighbors, the Hatches made dowith little. But unlike some, they had a home, a placeto grow vegetables and keep chickens. And his mother stayed hometoraise nine children, two of whomdied within a year of birth Among at BYU. Hethen formeda series of law partnerships. Just seven years after moving to Utah, he worked, 57 percent owned their filed at the last minute to run against 18-year Democratic in- lacked central heating and_pri- the borough's 7,700 people in 1940, onein five women homes and about 40 percent ny i s Full Tax Deduction - Free Pickup No DMV Filing - No Smog Cert - Running or Not* Utah Councilof the Blind has helped blind people become7: more productive in the workplace since 1972. = 800-767-0258 onall regular or sale-priced merchandise : : in the following departments: ¢Domestics *Bath Shop eToys Electronic Toys eLuggage *Books eEFt Cetera elmpressions eCandy Novelty Come Celebrate Colonial Flag’s 20th Anniversary at our NEW Showroom! OUR FINEST TAPERED 20 FT. 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