Retired Justice O’Connor’s Family Home Is Moved to Museum
Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s family home was moved to Tempe, Ariz., as part of a museum exhibit opening this week that chronicles her achievements.
O’Connor and her husband raised three sons in the 1,700-square-foot adobe house from 1958 to 1981, the Arizona Republic reports. The home’s 2,883 bricks were taken apart by hand and reconstructed next to the Arizona Historical Society’s Museum at Papago Park.
O’Connor said she cried when she sat at the dinner table in the home. Her husband, John, now lives at an Alzheimer’s facility.
In an article for the Arizona Republic, O’Connor said she hopes the exhibit will spur reflection on the events she hosted at her home as a state legislator, where politicians from both parties met to discuss the issues.
“The genesis for the O’Connor House Project is the mud-adobe home my husband and I helped build and where we hosted many of these events,” she wrote. “I don’t want it to become just a house that gets preserved. I want it to stand for ‘where civil talk leads to civic action.’ I believe we can return to a time when we work together, find commonality and make decisions that are in the best interest of all Arizonans.”
