Stan Tupper for Congress

By Lara Tupper

My father, Stan Tupper (1921-2006), a three-term US Congressman from Maine (1961-1967), championed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and introduced the Medicare Act of 1965, then called the Lindsay Tupper Medical Care Bill. He was one of six Republican members of Congress to vote for this measure.

Yes, Republican. I didn’t understand his affiliation either. Which is why, in part, I’m writing a memoir/biography about him (working title, Daughter of Congress). I knew him best as the ukulele-playing, Willie Nelson-obsessed dad who wore a Stetson, devoured Guss’ Pickles and episodes of Friends. Who taught me to ice skate and drove like a banshee on back roads of Boothbay. He was a germaphobe and vehement antinuker who campaigned for years to close Maine’s power plant (and succeeded). He was the “hometown hero” who represented local fishermen in Maine’s Great Lobster War of the 1950s (a battle between lobstermen, dealers and feds over prices). But more vivid: He picked me up from Drama Club and got mad when I photocopied my face in his Xerox machine.

In December of 2005, I took a train from New York City to spend the holidays with my parents in Maine. We trimmed the tree and then my father, stationed in his maroon easy chair, wrote by hand on a legal pad for the rest of the evening. He used pencils. His handwriting was terrible. In that chair, he’d written speeches, personal letters and, when he could no longer contain himself, lengthy editorials for the Portland Press Herald, which my mother made him edit. He’d composed a collection of personal essays (Recollections, 1997), which my mother typed up, copied at Staples and distributed to family and friends. He’d even co-written and published a book before I was born (One Continent, Two Voices—The Future of Canada-U.S. Relations, 1967).

Yet he didn’t think of himself as a writer. An orator, yes. He often told the story of the windy day: a large crowd, a sudden gust, the index cards with bullet points, flying from the podium. He had to wing it, and received a standing ovation. I don’t remember where or why this speech took place, but I believe this story and appreciate the lesson. (Don’t overprepare.) In other words, he could speak and speak. I’d tuned him out for years.

But by 2005 I was intrigued. As my father worked on his memoir, I envisioned juicy revelations. He’d started a few months before and I assumed there would be many months of revisions to follow, cutting and pasting galore. That’s how it was done. That’s how I wrote a book.

My father simply made an outline. He worked on each section; he moved on. He seemed to enjoy the process. He showed me a few pages that winter, a section about his childhood home. I made suggestions. What did he remember about smells or secret corners? What kinds of games did he play with his five siblings? He nodded and listened, then wrote himself a note in the margin. Smells.

On Christmas Day, we listened to the Osmond Family Christmas album, followed by Willie’s Greatest Hits. My father unwrapped Writing Life Stories by Bill Roorbach and began reading it that night. I thought he wanted to write the kind of book I’d written.

A year before, he’d read my debut novel manuscript, A Thousand and One Nights. When I learned it would be published, I called him first. I can still hear the high pitch of his voice on the phone, delighted. I felt, in that moment, that my contributions might match his someday.

As I left to go back to Manhattan, he stood in the icy driveway in his sheepskin jacket, his eyes wet. He’d been doing this for decades, every time I departed. I don’t remember what I said, but I don’t think I teased him that time.

He died nine days later, on January 6, 2006, a few weeks before his 85^th birthday.

When I could bring myself to look at his memoir draft (two full legal pads), I assumed it would be disjointed, incomplete. But it was done, according to his outline. The only challenge would be to translate his scrawl.

Which I did, in the spring of 2006. After teaching my classes at Rutgers, I took the train and the subway to The Writers Room in Astor Place, an airy loft filled with cubicles, where I typed and wept and felt my father was speaking to me again. I circled phrases I couldn’t make out and names I hadn’t heard. I asked my mother for help. In this way, we transcribed his words together.

I allowed myself only a few pages at a time. Here was his voice, mine to listen to as long as I could stand. I didn’t want the dialogue to end.

It’s taken me too long to share his work. The prospect nagged at me every January on the anniversary of his passing, but I didn’t have the stomach to shop his book to potential publishers and risk having it declined. It was hard enough to collect my own rejection slips. And I didn’t want to print it out at Staples.

But on January 20, 2025, to counter my anger and depression, I opened his file again. This jumped out:

In 1964, Medicare became a controversial issue for Congress. Republicans generally were opposed because the American Medical Association and most doctors termed it “socialized medicine.” Just as the Republicans opposed Social Security in the 1930’s, they were now determined to stop another important social issue.

And this:

I remained a Republican for many years because I thought the G.O.P. needed people who believed in social reform more than the Democratic Party needed them. But finally, for my own piece of mind, I dropped my enrollment in 2001 and am now an Independent voter instead of an independent Republican.

In a debate on the Senate floor, the late Senator Dirksen of Illinois once said of an opponent’s remarks, “They have all the impact of a snowflake on the Potomac.” My decision to leave the G.O.P., to paraphrase the Senator, has all the impact of a snowflake on Maine’s Sheepscot River.

The Republican Party, in controlling the White House, the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, has (in 2005) absolute power and has abused this trust. The errors in judgment, the terrible cost of an unnecessary war both in loss of lives and horrendous injuries; the tax cuts which deepen the divide between the rich and the rest of us; the incompetence in light of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina—all of this calls for a drastic change.

“Thank god he’s not around now,” so many said during the first dark years (2016 – 2020). I know what they meant. His daily letters to the editor would have been censored. Even before he withdrew from the G.O.P., my father was “notable for his independence,” as David Broder wrote in The Washington Post in 2006. (“A Credo We Could Use.”) In a campaign brochure from 1964, Broder recalls, my father said a member of congress “should place a higher priority on conscience than on re-election.”

Maine’s Governor, Janet Mills (then Attorney General), described a visit with my father in a tribute from 2006. “He was as outspoken as ever about the events of the day, about the sitting president, about the war in Iraq.”

I was there in the State House balcony with my mom when Mills gave this speech and I felt a swell of recognition. But I wished, again, for greater context about his convictions. And I wondered about Mills’ implication: Where are the “mavericks” now?

It’s heartening to see that she’s become one. (“I’ll see you in court.”)

My father speaks to me again these days. His outrage is clear. The trajectory of his career as a liberal Republican might offer some insight into the troubling direction his party has taken since—and ways it may potentially right itself.

How can I write about the politician who was also my dad? How can I remain objective and resist homage? I’ll continue to look beyond his legal pads because I want to keep the conversation going. I understand that his narrative isn’t just for me.

Lara Tupper (she/her) is the author of four books: AT THE CENTER (forthcoming, 2027), a novel; AMPHIBIANS, a story collection (winner, Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize); OFF ISLAND, a novel (finalist, Housatonic Book Award); and A THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS, a novel. Lara is founder of Swift Ink Stories, a platform for workshops and manuscript development. She is a jazz/folk performer who has traveled the world and a proud member of the Authors Guild, Authors Against Book Bans and the WDA. laratupper.com @laratupper