Dole-Kemp the Ticket for Fillmore Relative

Before Saturday, most Americans knew Jack Kemp as a professional football player, a former congressman or an unsuccessful 1988 presidential candidate.

But 83-year-old Fillmore resident Lois Main knew him as her son-in-law.

On Saturday, Main turned on her television after spending the morning picking oranges off her backyard lawn and, like millions of Americans, discovered yet another way to describe Kemp--running mate to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole.

“She knew he was going to be asked, but she didn’t know when,” said Joanne Kemp’s white-haired mother, who has lived in the Upper Foothill neighborhood of this small Santa Clara Valley community since 1935 and who last spoke to her daughter Friday by telephone. “[But] she knew Jack was going to accept.”

Aside from a few family photographs, a pewter plate engraved with “E Pluribus Unum”--probably purchased in the Capitol Hill gift shop, Main said--and a bumper sticker in a window overlooking her patio that reads “Empower America in 1996--Kemp,” her tidy home exhibits few visible signs of her political ties.

Main, widow of former Fillmore Unified School District Supt. Donovan Main Sr., has lived quietly in her parents’ former home with her cat, Sarah, since her husband died in 1979. But Saturday, the national political scene intruded on her peaceful life of gardening, Republican Women’s Club meetings and Sunday services at Faith Community Church.

She watched the announcement, a telephone receiver to one ear with son Douglas Main, who lives in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., on the other end.

After hanging up, her phone began ringing. Her minister telephoned to congratulate her. So did friends. And the media began calling.

Main is excited at the prospect of her daughter and son-in-law being thrust into the national limelight once more. But she doesn’t expect the announcement to change her life. At her age, she won’t brave the crowds to attend the GOP nominating convention that begins today in San Diego.

Joanne Main was born Sept. 27, 1936, in Fillmore, the eldest of Lois and Donovan’s four children. Born 17 years before her youngest brother, she was practically a second mother to her younger siblings, Lois Main said.

After graduating from Fillmore High School in 1954, Joanne headed off to Occidental College in Los Angeles to major in education. There she met Jack Kemp, and the two fell in love.

They were married at Fillmore’s Presbyterian Church shortly after her graduation.

Joanne Kemp worked briefly as an elementary school teacher, but she soon decided to become a full-time homemaker. “She was glad to get married,” Lois Main said. “It didn’t bother her to not teach any more.”

Joanne and Jack Kemp had four children, two boys and two girls.

Although Jack Kemp majored in political science, he became a professional football player, first for the San Diego Chargers and then for the Buffalo Bills. When he quit football, he was elected to Congress, representing a Buffalo suburb.

After Kemp failed to win the presidential nomination in 1988, President Bush picked him as secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Joanne Kemp is used to moving in national political circles, Main said, adding that she doubts her daughter will be affected by the sudden attention.

“Joanne is a very calm person,” Main said. “She’s good friends with Nancy Reagan, she’s very good friends with Barbara Bush. . . . She’s used to being with those people.”

Main thinks her daughter has a measurable, but quiet, influence on her husband. “She’s a good steady person that has good common sense,” she said. “She’s just a good helpmate.”

Main doesn’t see her daughter and son-in-law as often as she once did, although on their occasional visits from their Bethesda, Md., residence the couple stay in her spare bedroom.

Whether she will see the pair before the November election is more problematic. But there’s already a possibility Joanne may be asked to capitalize on her local connection and campaign in the area.

Main is quite happy to talk about her family relationship with the potential vice president and his wife, but is less comfortable discussing politics.

“I’m the mother-in-law,” she said, her bluish-gray eyes twinkling. “I have to be careful what I say.”

* KANSAS RALLY

Bob Dole names Jack Kemp as running mate. A1