Sherrill Redmon is a former businesswoman and a journalist, but probably best known for being the ex-wife of Mitch McConnell, a leading American politician. She was the first wife of the Kentucky Senator and they were married between 1968 to 1980 and had three children: Elly McConnell, Porter McConnell, Claire McConnell. He does not bring her up often.
All The Facts To Know About Mitch McConnell’s Ex, Sherrill Redmon
Childhood and education:
Her full name is Sherrill Lynn Redmon and she was born in Louisville, Kentucky USA, on 6 February 1943. Her zodiac sign is Aquarius and she holds American nationality.
Sherrill was raised in Louisville by her father Charles who was a businessman, and her mother Doris who was a piano teacher; she has two sisters and a brother.
Politics:
She was interested in politics and journalism as she was growing up, and attended Seneca High School where she was very active in studying and organizing events for the school, being considered as one of the best students. Upon matriculation, she enrolled at the University of Louisville, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965, then continued her education at the University of Kentucky, obtaining her Juris Doctor degree in Philosophy in 1974.
Love life and marriage with Mitch McConnell:
Sherrill and Mitch met in 1962 while they were both studying at the University of Louisville, and they started dating after half a year, and marrying in 1968. Nearly ten years later, Mitch became the Judge of Jefferson County, which meant he spent most of his time away from home, but the marriage still functioned and Sherrill gave birth to their three girls – Elly in 1972, Claire in 1976, and Porter in 1979.
However, a year after Porter was born, Sherrill and Mitch divorced, citing irreconcilable differences.
It was reported in 1986 that Sherrill slept with Harry Reid who was a Nevada Senator, while it is not known whether or not the two were in an actual relationship. Mitch went on to marry Elaine Chao, the Secretary of Transportation in 1993, and the two have been together to this day but don’t have any children together.
Sherrill Redmon’s career:
During her first marriage:
Sherrill Redmon was mostly a housewife, raising her children while also working at the Archives and Records Center.
After the divorce:
McConnell and his wife would be divorced by the time he ran for reelection. After the marriage ended, Sherrill Redmon, who holds a Ph.D. in American history, left Kentucky and shifted to Massachusetts.
She became an activist, feminist scholar:
After her split from Mitch, she joined Smith College as a feminist scholar, and in 1993 started working for the Sophia Smith Collection of the Women’s History Archives, soon being promoted to the position of a director, holding the position until she retired in March 2012.
While at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, she worked to expand the Collection to make it more racially and culturally diverse. She also worked with well-known journalist and feminist, Gloria Steinem, on an oral history project called Voices of Feminism.
In an email, according to The New Yorker Gloria Steinem once revealed that Sherrill Redmon rarely spoke about Mitch McConnell, and noted, “Despite Sherrill’s devotion to recording all of women’s lives, she didn’t talk about the earlier part of her own.” Steinem’s understanding was that McConnell’s political views had once been different. “I can only imagine how painful it must be to marry and have children with a democratic Jekyll and see him turn into a corrupt and authoritarian Hyde,” she wrote.
She’s got a PhD:
Redmon earned a bachelor’s of arts degree from University of Louisville, Kentucky. Later, she attended University of Kentucky and received a Doctor of Philosophy, PhD. in 1974.
Retirement and legacy:
After nineteen years leading the Sophia Smith Collection(SSC), Sherrill Redmon worked her last day on August 31st, 2012. She left behind an organization transformed. As the staff contemplated her legacy for a final-day sendoff, it was hard to remember the Alumnae Gym she entered in the fall of 1993.
Back in 1993, the Collection Sherrill inherited was large and very rich, but also very much centered on the lives and work of white women, many of them elite and from the northeastern United States.
SSC staff had been working to address this imbalance, but Sherrill determined that a more intentional effort was needed to expand the scope of the holdings. With the help and urging of Gloria Steinem and Collection Development Coordinator Joyce Follet (along with very generous financial support from the Ford Foundation), the SSC launched Voices of Feminism, an ambitious documentation strategy designed to pave the way for scholars to fill yawning gaps in the historical record.
They sought out new collections which document important and underrepresented voices through in-depth oral histories of sixty women labor, peace, and anti-racism activists; lesbian rights advocates; grass-roots anti-violence and anti-poverty organizers; women of color reproductive justice leaders; and cultural workers in music, film, writing, and photography.
As part of the Voices project, these women were asked to place their personal papers and/or the records of their organizations in the Sophia Smith Collection. Through the careful work of the Voices staff, the incredulous started to think about their work in a new way and many of the skeptical overcame their hesitations and began sending papers.
The new collections are now resources for African American, Native American, Latino, Asian Pacific Islander and other women of color and their activist organizations. These new materials provide strong evidence that women of color worked for gender equality long before 1963, participated in the so-called Second Wave of feminism, critiqued it for not adequately reflecting their concerns, and incorporated some of its practices into their own women’s movements that burgeoned in the 1980s and continue to thrive in the first decade of the 21st century.
And if that wasn’t enough, Sherrill also took advantage of some incredible (if somewhat daunting) opportunities that cropped up along the way, most notably acquisition of the incomparable and very large records of the YWCA of the U.S.A.
In addition to searching out 292 new collections and around 6,000 linear feet of new materials, Sherrill was also remarkably successful at finding funds to help make some of these marvelous materials research-ready through grants and donations both large and small.
Hobbies and other interests:
Sherrill has been a fan of history from a very early age, especially of the USA, while she has also been to many European countries and is familiar with the history of Europe too, particularly of the Balkan countries.
She likes to read books in her spare time, and some of her favorite writers are Edgar Allan Po and Franz Kafka, while her favorite books include “The Trial”, “In the Penal Colony”, and “A Hunger Artist”.
She is also keen on watching movies and TV series, with her favorite actors and actresses being Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson and Rosario Dawson, while her favorite movies include “Scent of a Woman”, “Donnie Brasco”, and “Devil’s Advocate”.
She is a fighter for human rights as well as for equality of men and women, while she is also a lover of animals, and has donated money to several charity organizations, including animal shelters.
Appearance and net worth:
Sherrill is 77 years old. She has medium long gray hair and brown eyes, is 5ft 4ins (1.62m) tall, and weighs around 120lbs (55kgs). As of March 2020, her net worth is estimated at over $300,000 while Mitch’s net worth is estimated at over $22.5 million.
Is Mitch McConnell married?
Mitch married United States Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, on February 6, 1993 — choosing that date for three reasons: It’s Ronald Reagan’s birthday, it was just before Chao’s 40th birthday, and it was right before a one-week Senate recess.
Redmon is evidently working on a tell-all memoir:
According to The New Yorker website, Sherrill Redmon known for being the ex-wife of Mitch McConnell is working on a tell-all memoir.