Mariette Rheiner Garner


Mariette Elizabeth "Ettie" Garner was the wife of John Nance Garner, the 32nd Vice President of the United States, who served from 1933 until 1941.

Biography

Born in Sabinal, Texas, she was a daughter of John Peter Rheiner, a Swiss immigrant who became a Texas rancher, and his first wife, the former Mary Elizabeth Watson.
In 1893, although women in Texas could not vote at the time, Mariette Rheiner ran for Uvalde County judge, but was defeated by the incumbent, John Nance Garner. Two years later, on November 25, 1895, she married Garner in Sabinal, Texas. They had one child, a son, Tully Charles Garner. In an interview in 1940, she denied running against Garner.
During her husband's tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1903 to 1933, Ettie Garner served as his private secretary.
She suffered from Parkinson's disease from 1942 to 1948, slipped into a two-day coma and died in Uvalde, Texas on August 17, 1948, a month after her 79th birthday.