Max Baucus: “I rise to honor a great Montanan, a great American, who passed away just a few days ago, Maureen Hayes Mansfield. These…”

“I rise to honor a great Montanan, a great American, who passed away just a few days ago, Maureen Hayes Mansfield. These are remarks about Maureen, but it is also a love story. Maureen was born Maureen Hayes in the State of Washington at the beginning of the last century, in 1905, and spent most of her youth in Butte, MT. Butte, at that time, was a live, bustling, raucous mining city, with big copper mines. Living in Butte, she met a grade school dropout, a mucker working in the Butte mines, a profound young man named Mike-- Mike Mansfield. Mike was not only a grade school dropout but he also was an extremely wonderful person. Maureen must have recognized the strength in Mike at the time. Mike, as many of us know, served in all three branches of the armed services--age 17, 18, and 19. He had to maybe tell a little story about his age so he could get into--I think it was the Navy at the time. Mike served, and Maureen noticed that. They became very close--they fell in love with each other, Mike living as a solitary boarder in a boarding house, Maureen living up in a nice spacious house with her large family in Butte.”