While the state’s 89th Legislature is in session, The Texas Newsroom will be helping you get to know the people behind the politics. This story is a part of an ongoing series profiling Texas’ lawmakers in their own words.
Long before she ran for office, freshman Texas House Rep. Helen Kerwin got a glimpse of what debates between Democrats and Republicans would look like during family dinners.
“My mother was very conservative. My father was a very Democrat. So we always had the political conversations going on over the dinner table,” said Kerwin, a Glen Rose Republican who represents House District 58. “I was always exposed to the two opposing views. It was awesome.”
The 77-year-old lawmaker is the oldest in the group of fresh faces at the Texas State Capitol this session.
While her family talked politics throughout her childhood in Minnesota, she focused on more kid-friendly activities.
“My memories are always riding my horses, galloping through the cornfields," Kerwin told The Texas Newsroom. “Thought I was Pocahontas and had a little tomahawk and feather in the back of my hair.”
Her love for it stuck around as she grew, and she often attended the equestrian competitions at the Olympics as a spectator.
When she got old enough to work, Kerwin took a summer job at the Saint Paul Hilton Hotel. There she met her future husband, Hugh Leslie, who was the front office manager. They get married in 1969 and eventually moved to California, where she finished college at California State University.
Then, in 1975 the couple made a life-changing decision.
“I just graduated from college, and my husband at the time was working in the hotel business with Hilton Hotels. And he just happened to see an ad in the paper for a historic hotel for sale in Texas,” said Kerwin. “And so we just thought, ‘What an adventure.’”
She said buying the hotel and moving to Texas wasn’t a hard sell. They didn’t really like California and she had always wanted to run a small business. So, they bought the Glen Hotel and hit the road.
“We just drove cross-country with my four cats,” said Kerwin.
Oh, quick aside — Kerwin doesn’t just love cats.
“I love all animals…I have 28 barnyard animals. I have every barnyard animal but a cow,” said Kerwin. “I had a cow. But then I realized, when you have a cow, you're going to have a shovel all the time, because they really do poop a lot…But I got all the other ones, even a llama.”
Okay. Back to the 70s: Kerwin and her husband began to fix up the hotel.
“We spent five years renovating. I had my oldest daughter, Brooke, and then my twin daughters Ann and Helen, and we sold it,” said Kerwin.
The family bought a farm, but eventually Kerwin and her husband split. At the time, she was working at the Somerville County Library making $6 an hour.
“After about a year, I realized that was not going to raise my daughters,” said Kerwin. “So I walked down on the Glen Rose square — beautiful, downtown historic square — saw an empty building filled with boxes. I called the owner, said, ‘What would you charge me if I open a little flower shop? And if I pay you 100 a month, I will renovate the building.’”
The owner said yes. She credits running that flower shop for turning her into a fiscal conservative.
“I count the pennies. You really have to when you're on your own,” said Kerwin.
But managing the flower shop wasn’t all roses.
“We had no holidays. My daughters and I — they were always down there at my flower shop working for me. And I often think that they are such hard workers and they learned their work ethic down there,” said Kerwin.
Eventually, in the late 90’s, her twin daughters graduated and Kerwin decided she would get into politics.
“I just sold the shop and decided to run for mayor,” said Kerwin.
And she won, serving one term as Glen Rose’s mayor starting in 1997.
“Then they asked me to run for county commissioner. And I was the first Republican elected. (Then) ran for county commissioner,” said Kerwin. “That was four more years of getting things done. And then my first daughter had my first grandbaby. So now full time grandma.”
Speaking of her three daughters, you may have heard of one: Brooke Rollins, who just became Trump’s new Secretary of Agriculture.
And then there’s Ann: “She's establishing an energy school at the Ham Institute at Oklahoma State University.”
And Ann’s twin, Helen: “She is the intermediate school principal in Glen Rose. And running the Country Woods Inn,” said Kerwin.
That Country Woods Inn was first established and built by Kerwin.
“I turned our little farm into a bed and breakfast, one room at a time, doing the same skills I had done all those years ago at the hotel,” said Kerwin.
Now that Rep. Helen Kerwin serves House District 58 in Austin, she hasn’t had much free time. But when she does, she spends it mostly “being a grandma.”
“That was full, full time for me. You know, I was grandma for 20 years,” said Kerwin. “Just life at its best.”
When she’s not at the Capitol, she said she’s back in Glen Rose with her grandkids.
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