FAIRHOPE, Ala. — “Oh Lord, bring her safely home again,” prayed Henrietta McCormick Hill as the USS Alabama slid into the Elizabeth River at the Portsmouth, Va. Navy Yard on Feb. 22, 1942.

Mrs. Hill, wife of senior Alabama Sen. Lister Hill, had the honor of christening the first U.S. battleship launched after the country entered World War II. Before the year was out, the USS Iowa and USS New Jersey would join her in fighting the Axis powers. Hill’s vivid recollections of that event make for interesting reading to those who love Alabama and Alabama history.

“A Senator’s Wife: From the Great Depression to the Great Society” (NewSouth Books, 2010, $27.95) is chock full of interesting anecdotes Mrs. Hill culled from 30 years of political life. Some may say that because they are recollections from the distaff side they have no significance. However, it is precisely because they are written by the wife of a senator rather than the senator himself that they are so interesting, and offer a real slice of life of that era for the reader.

Over the years, many books have been written by career politicians reflecting on their life in the D.C. milieu, but they don’t cover how their career impacted their own families or share family incidents that naively reveal cultural inequities of the time.

This book is the result of the work of three generations of Henriettas: Henrietta McCormick Hill, as an extensive correspondent, diarist and writer; Henrietta’s mother, Henrietta Copeland McCormick Dent, as a faithful collector of letters from her daughter; and Henrietta Hill Hubbard, for her dedication in getting her mother’s manuscripts edited and published.

Hill’s book is the work of a woman who lived in a different American culture than that of today. In those days, many women were full-time homemakers and the family dinner hour, a staple. Depending on the age of the reader, Hill’s life will seem totally foreign or reminiscent of the culture of their mother’s or grandmother’s generation. In those days, many women were informed by their husbands of last-minute guests they had invited to their homes for a meal. However, Mrs. Hill is probably in a rare classification of women who were informed that first lady Eleanor Roosevelt would arrive at their home in a few hours for a home-cooked meal.

Hill began her life as the wife of an American politician in 1928. Of her arrival in Washington, D.C. as a bride, she said, “Life was new and strange. Of politics I knew nothing. Of the social customs of official Washington, I was entirely ignorant.” It is an interesting read to see how she learns to navigate the national political scene of her time.