Barbara Kay (Bracher) Olson (born 1955)



Saved Wikipedia (Sep 13, 2021) - "Barbara Olson"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Olson

2021-09-13-wikipedia-org-barbara-olson.pdf

Barbara Kay Olson (née Bracher; December 27, 1955 – September 11, 2001) was an American lawyer and conservative television commentator who worked for CNN, Fox News Channel, and several other outlets.[1] She was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77 en route to a taping of Bill Maher's television show Politically Incorrect when it was flown into the Pentagon in the September 11 attacks.[2]

Early life

Olson was born Barbara Kay Bracher in Houston, Texas, on December 27, 1955. Her older sister, Toni Bracher-Lawrence, was a member of the Houston City Council from 2004 to 2010. She graduated from Waltrip High School.[3]

Personal life

She married [Theodore Bevry Olson (born 1940)] in 1996, becoming his third wife.[4]

Olson was a frequent critic of the Bill Clinton administration and wrote a book about then First Lady Hillary Clinton, Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton (1999). Olson's second book, The Final Days: The Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House was published posthumously.[5]

Death and legacy

Olson's name on Panel S-70 of the National September 11 Memorial’s South Pool.

Olson was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77 on her way to a taping of Politically Incorrect in Los Angeles, when it was flown into the Pentagon in the September 11 attacks. Her original plan had been to fly to California on September 10, but she waited until the next day so that she could wake up with her husband on his birthday, September 11.[2] At the National September 11 Memorial, Olson's name is located on Panel S-70 of the South Pool, along with those of other passengers of Flight 77.[6]

Three months after the attacks, Olsen's remains identified. She was buried at her family's retreat in Wisconsin.[7]

Books

  • Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton (November 1999; ISBN 0-89526-274-6)

  • The Final Days: The Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House (October 2001; ISBN 0-89526-167-7)

References

External links


Wikimedia Commons has media related to Barbara Olson.

Alchetron (2021 capture, last editied in 2018)

Barbara Kay Olson (née Bracher; December 27, 1955 – September 11, 2001) was an American lawyer and conservative television commentator who worked for CNN, Fox News Channel, and several other outlets. She was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77 en route to a taping of Bill Maher's television show Politically Incorrect when it was flown into the Pentagon in the September 11 attacks. Her original plan had been to fly to California on September 10, but she delayed her departure until the next morning so that she could wake up with her husband on his birthday, September 11.

Olson was born Barbara Kay Bracher in Houston, Texas. Her older sister, Toni Bracher-Lawrence, was a member of the Houston City Council from 2004 to 2010. She graduated from Waltrip High School and earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Saint Thomas in Houston. She earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Yeshiva University Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

As a newcomer, she achieved a surprising measure of success, working for HBO and Stacy Keach Productions. In the early 1990s, she worked as an associate at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Wilmer Cutler & Pickering where she did civil litigation for several years before becoming an Assistant U.S. Attorney.

Olson's support in 1991 of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas led to the formation of the Independent Women's Forum. At that time, Olson and friend Rosalie (Ricky) Gaull Silberman started an informal network of women who supported the Thomas nomination to the Supreme Court despite allegations of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, a former subordinate of Thomas at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Olson, who had also worked under Thomas at the EEOC and was a close friend of Thomas, spoke out on his behalf during his contentious Senate confirmation hearings. Olson later helped edit The Real Anita Hill, a book by David Brock that savaged Hill and portrayed the harassment claim as a political dirty trick (Brock later recanted his claims and apologized to Hill). The Independent Women's Forum continued on with a goal of retaining a high profile group of women to advocate for economic and political freedom and personal responsibility.

In 1994, Olson became chief investigative counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In that position, she led the Travelgate and Filegate investigations into the Clinton administration. She was later a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of the Birmingham, Alabama law firm Balch & Bingham.

Personal life

She married Theodore Olson in 1996, becoming his third wife. Theodore went on to successfully represent presidential candidate George W. Bush in the Supreme Court case of Bush v. Gore, and subsequently served as U.S. Solicitor General in the Bush administration.

2001 (Sep 13) - NYTimes Obituary for Barbara Olson (45)

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/us/barbara-olson-45-advocate-and-conservative-commentator.html?ref=barbaraolson

2001-09-13-nytimes-barbara-olson-45.pdf

Barbara K. Olson, who was killed on Tuesday on the commercial jetliner that was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon, was well known to television viewers across the nation as a combative and confident political commentator representing the conservative Republican point of view.

Mrs. Olson, 45, was also half of a highly influential couple on Washington's social-political scene; her husband, Theodore B. Olson, an appellate lawyer, successfully argued the Florida election case for George W. Bush before the Supreme Court. President Bush named Mr. Olson the nation's solicitor general, the official who formulates the administration's strategy before the nation's courts.

Mr. Olson was in his Justice Department office on Tuesday morning when he received two calls from Mrs. Olson, who was using her cell phone aboard American Airlines Flight 77 to tell him the plane had been hijacked. Her description of what was occurring in her last moments provided what officials said was valuable information about the incident. She reported that the flight crew had been herded to the back of the plane with the passengers, and she asked her husband what she should tell the pilot who was apparently beside her while the hijackers were in control of the cockpit.

Mrs. Olson's friends and her husband said her efforts to ''do something'' on the doomed plane were exquisitely in character. ''She never sat back,'' her husband said in an interview.

The Olsons, who were married four years ago, complemented each other in style. Mrs. Olson was the more outspoken of the two in her televised commentaries, while Mr. Olson presented a more deliberative face in his role as the reigning constitutional litigator for the Republican establishment.

Although Mrs. Olson was generally a take-no-prisoners advocate, Mr. Olson recalled on Tuesday that she recently told him she had come to believe that the national political debate had become too acrimonious. He recalled that she said that during one television appearance, she believed those who called in comments to her and her liberal counterpart, Bill Press, were far too harsh.

Barbara Kay Bracher Olson was born on Dec. 27, 1955, in Houston, and trained to be a teacher at the University of St. Thomas in her hometown. But, she had told friends, she wanted to save enough money to go to law school and decided a quicker way to do so than teaching was to become a part of the film industry.

With no experience in the field but an abundance of self-confidence, she moved to Hollywood and began telephoning production companies connected to well-known actors, offering herself as an all-around helper. Stacy Keach finally offered her a job, Mr. Olson recalled this week, and when she saved enough money to go to law school, she moved to New York to attend the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University.

Mrs. Olson turned down jobs in New York after law school because she yearned to live in Washington. As chief counsel for the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee's Republican majority from 1995 to 1996, Mrs. Olson led the investigation into President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton's role in firing longtime employees of the White House travel office. She became a caustic and relentless critic of the Clintons.

Mrs. Olson wrote ''Hell to Pay'' (Regnery, 1999), a highly critical book about Mrs. Clinton, and recently finished a sequel, ''Final Days,'' about the Clintons' last weeks in the White House. Mr. Olson said it would be published by Regnery.

Mrs. Olson is survived by her brother, David Bracher, and her sister, Antoinette Lawrence, both of Houston, as well as her husband.

Obituary - The Guardian

https://www.newspapers.com/image/257606096/?terms=%22hillary%20clinton%22&match=1

2001-09-14-the-guardian-uk-pg-24

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NJ9bs3xvexm0QshjwPgnTZoaFbBXM3io/view?usp=sharing

2001-09-14-the-guardian-uk-pg-24-clip-olson

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TYGmbqJn5rEqjjLw5n02e4degVn-SKxl/view?usp=sharing


EVIDENCE TIMELINE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBtFC8BYKlU

9/11 Barbara Olson Story - NBC 11:00 pm

10,389 viewsJul 16, 2011

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ppFvUc10nc (Link to video not allowed, must visit youtube directly)

Ted Olson On Barbara Olson's Last Moments On Flight

16,255 viewsAug 8, 2014

2014-08-08-youtube-hudsonunionsociety-ted-olson-on-barbara-olsons-last-moments-on-flight-1080p.mp4


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David Boies and Theodore B. Olson, who argued against each other all the way to the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore, joined forces after that titanic battle to forge the unique legal argument that would carry the day. At the Society as allies and not foes, they will tell the fascinating story of the five-year struggle to win the right for gays to marry, from Proposition 8’s adoption by voters in 2008, to its defeat before the highest court in the land in Hollingsworth v. Perry in 2013.

On June 26, 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a pair of landmark decisions, striking down the Defense of Marriage Act and eliminating California’s discriminatory Proposition 8, reinstating the freedom to marry for gays and lesbians in California.

The evening will be authoritative, dramatic, and up close account of the most important civil rights issue, fought and won, since Brown v. Board of Education (which separate schools for African Americans and Whites was ruled unconstitutional) and Loving v. Virginia (which invalidated law prohibiting interracial marriage).

Boies and Olson will discuss how they put state sanctioned discrimination on trial.

Selected by Time magazine in 2010 as one of the 100 Most Influential Peoplein the World, David Boies is the most prominent trial lawyer in the United States and has litigated some of the highest profile cases in recent history, including Bush v. Gore and United States v. Microsoft. Also selected as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time magazine in 2010, Theodore B. Olson is formerly President George W. Bush’s United States Solicitor General and the premier appellate lawyer in the country. He has argued sixty cases before the United States Supreme Court, including Bush v. Gore and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Olson has been mentioned over the years as a possible Supreme Court nominee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc-RY6XY0pI

Barbara Olson

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5VwtUR2OrU

9/11 Barbara Olson Got The Pilot On Her Cell Phone And Said Ted Tell This Man What To Do

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The most serious official contradiction of Ted Olson's cell phone story came in 2006 at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker. The evidence presented to this trial by the FBI included a report on phone calls from all four 9/11 flights. In its report on American Flight 77, the FBI report attributed only one call to Barbara Olson and it was an "unconnected call," which (of course) lasted "0 seconds." According to the FBI, therefore, Ted Olson did not receive a single call from his wife using either a cell phone or an onboard phone. Back on 9/11, the FBI itself had interviewed Olson. A report of that interview indicates that Olson told the FBI agents that his wife had called him twice from Flight 77. And yet the FBI's report on calls from Flight 77, presented in 2006, indicated that no such calls occurred. The FBI is part of the Department of Justice, and yet its report undermined the well-publicized claim of the DOJ's former solicitor general that he had received two calls from his wife on 9/11.

9/11 - FBI Barbara Olson Did Not Call Ted Olson From Flight 77 On Her Cell Phone

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9/11 - FBI Barbara Olson Did Not Call Ted Olson From Flight 77 On Her Cell Phone


2001 (September 14) - Larry King Live interview

"Ted Olson Details Cell Calls from Wife Barbara on AA 77 to Larry King (CNN 9/14/01)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjSM09q2P3o

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May 21, 2019

Lawyers' Committee for 9/11 Inquiry

Read about the Lawyers' Committee FBI Lawsuit & Grand Jury Petition here http://lcfor911.org

Consensus 9/11: The Reported Phone Calls from Barbara Olson

Americans were first told that terrorists had hijacked an airliner when CNN gave a report about US Solicitor General Theodore “Ted” Olson, who said that his wife, well-known TV commentator Barbara Olson, had called him twice from American Airlines (AA) Flight 77, stating that terrorists had taken over this flight. This would have been roughly a half hour before this plane, according to the official story, crashed into the Pentagon.

The story about Barbara Olson’s report of the hijacking of AA 77 was foundational for the official account of 9/11. This foundational role is illustrated by the fact that, although it has been widely held that the hijackers had box cutters, this idea was provided only by Ted Olson’s report of his wife’s phone calls. In any case, in spite of the foundational role of the Olson story, there were three serious problems with its credibility:

1. One problem is that, although Ted Olson went back and forth on whether his wife had used an onboard phone or a cell phone, she evidently could not have used either:

With regard to the possibility that Barbara Olson had used a cell phone, the FBI ruled this out in 2004, saying: “All of the calls from Flight 77 were made via the onboard airphone system.” [8]

There is also evidence that Barbara Olson could not have made the calls attributed to her in The 9/11 Commission Report: This is the evidence, cited in the Burnett section of Point PC-4: “Cell Phone Calls from the Planes: The Second Official Account”, that the cell phone technology available in 2001 would not have allowed cell phone calls from this airliner. [9]

Further evidence that Barbara Olson could not have used an onboard phone to call from AA 77 is provided by a page in the Boeing 757 Aircraft Maintenance Manual (757 AMM), dated January 28, 2001. The first sentence of this page states: “The passenger telephone system was deactivated by ECO FO878.” (ECO F1463 and F1532 were later orders to remove the phones.) This page indicates, in other words, that by January 28, 2001, the passenger phone system for the AA 757 fleet had been deactivated. [10]

The impossibility of Olson’s having used an onboard phone is further supported by a pilot and a flight attendant:

After being a fighter pilot, and having attended the US Navy Fighter Weapons School, Captain Ralph Kolstad served as an airline pilot for 27 years, during 13 of which he flew Boeing 757s and 767s for American Airlines. He wrote: “[T]he ‘air phones,’ as they were called, were … deactivated in early or mid 2001. They had been deactivated for quite some time prior to Sep 2001.” [11]

Flight attendant Ginger Gainer, after reporting that the Boeing 757s prepared for international flights had stickers on the seatback phones “indicating that they were inoperative,” added: “I asked several current and former Flight Attendants for American … who flew domestic … and they all said that they recalled the phones as having been disabled at the time, or gone.” [12]

There is one more reason to be skeptical about the claim that Barbara and Ted Olson talked that morning by telephone: Neither the telephone company records, nor the Department of Justice phone call records, nor Barbara Olson’s cell phone call records have ever been made public, in spite of the fact that there has been much discussion of the authenticity of the reported phone calls from her. [13]

2. A second more serious problem is that the Olson story was contradicted in the FBI’s 2006 report to the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. In its report about phone calls from AA 77, the FBI stated that there was one call from Barbara Olson (not two), and that this call was “unconnected,” so that it lasted “0 seconds.” [14] This report thereby contradicted Ted Olson’s report that his wife had made two calls to him, one that lasted “about one minute” and another that lasted “two or three or four minutes.” [15]

More: http://www.consensus911.org/point-pc-...

Detailed Account of Telephone Calls From September 11th Flights

http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/ev...

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWIfgHfH3Kg

9/11 - Ted Olson Virtually Certain Explosion Was Barbara's Plane, Not On Scheduled Monday Flight

3,819 viewsNov 15, 2011

911TimeForTruth

9/11 - Ted Olson Virtually Certain Explosion Was Barbara's Plane, Not On Scheduled Monday Flight

2011-11-15-youtube-911timefortruth-ted-olson-virtually-certain-explosion-was-barbaras-plane.pdf

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9/11 Barbara Olson - Only One Publicly Identified Death

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ABC News 10:30 PM September 11, 2001. Barbara talked to Ted for 0 seconds according to FBI legal court record, which means Ted openly lied on TV about 9/11 and his wife's murder. Typically that makes the liar a prime suspect in a real criminal investigation. Barbara was not on "Flight 77". According to the forensic evidence a Boeing did not crash into the Pentagon. Barbara is either alive or Ted is involved in her murder. Since the FBI never investigated her murder, she is most likely still alive somewhere.

SHOW LESS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzGovzJmPLc

2014-08-



3:15 pm EST September 11, 2001 Fox News broadcast

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3:15 pm EST September 11, 2011 Fox News broadcast - search and rescue begins after the World Trade Center is destroyed, views of Lower Manhatten, Linda Vester and Rick Leventhal report from New York City, Brian Wilson and Tony Snow report from Washington as fire continues to burn at the Pentagon, Bill Rapley reports from Logan Airport in Boston, US Marines Amphibious group being deployed to NYC, FEMA sends out search and rescue teams to NYC, Fox News Commentator Barbara Olson's death reported, Air Force One at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, country at Threat-Con Delta. [Educational Use Only]

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjmaAvCFWI8


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_2HsqxuUH4&t=106s

What Barbara Olson Knew

242,325 viewsApr 8, 2008

composerguy

She apparently knew about the World Trade Center crashes while on the hijacked Flight 77 plane, and no one at the Pentagon knew or could do anything?


2001 (August 09)

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r8c9c9zQ9LzmliE2QdzYEaeHhvARCW-W/view?usp=sharing


https://www.newspapers.com/image/533376514/?terms=%22barbara%20olson%22&match=1

2001-08-09-the-berkshire-eagle-pg-a4

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nck-hs-OQvrH7om-yF9kVKzW22fahZ1g/view?usp=sharing

July 31 2001

https://www.newspapers.com/image/496643903/?terms=%22barbara%20olson%22&match=1

2001-07-31-the-vancouver-sun-pg-a8

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2001-07-31-the-vancouver-sun-pg-a8-clip-women

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H0FQSdqfOpaybX5ZyGQlBJuaWcSQSNQU/view?usp=sharing

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/post/ted-olson-on-loss-and-love-in-the-decade-since-911/2011/09/09/gIQAlqKDLK_blog.html

2011-09-11-washington-post-ted-olson-on-loss-and-love-in-the-decade-since-911.pdf

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vxLTNt04gRNMg6up-ekuO_I9_hiFoWVn/view?usp=sharing

2011-09-11-washington-post-ted-olson-on-loss-and-love-in-the-decade-since-911-tedolson.jpg

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xhXLgLioe83dFup6RsuRHzCEXTXtMbuj/view?usp=sharing

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L3NvSbAK6IjfHJDgF_J3vm1uIl75ZV_U/view?usp=sharing


Ted Olson on loss and love in the decade since 9/11

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By The Reliable Source

September 11, 2011



Ted Olson spent his 71st birthday Sunday at his family’s lakeside property in Northern Wisconsin. He was invited to ceremonies marking the anniversary of 9/11 but, after careful consideration, decided not to attend.

“I had to balance between my feeling that I should be at the Pentagon and participate in these public events of memory and remembrance,” he told us Friday. “On the other hand, I also felt it’s so powerfully overwhelming that the best thing I could do is to celebrate my birthday, remember Barbara’s death and celebrate the remainder of our lives with family members away from Washington, D.C.”

Ten years ago, Olson became the most famous person in D.C. to lose a loved one in the terrorist attacks: His wife, conservative commentator Barbara Olson, was on American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon. She had delayed a trip to California so she could be in town for his birthday dinner the night before.


Barbara Olson during an appearance on “Larry King Live.” (Ho/Reuters)

Before she died, Barbara placed two calls to her husband from the hijacked plane. The terrible news spread within minutes, and Olson immediately became Washington’s face of loss.

“When I appeared in public, I had to stress that I’m not unique . . . unfortunate, tragic things happen to all of us,” he said. “It’s very important to put that in perspective: You’re not the only one that has experienced a terrible tragedy, as thousands of other people did that day.”

Olson said he was determined not to be consumed by his sorrow. His mother, then 81 years old, told him: “Ted, you’ve got to get back on your feet and get out there. You’re a young man.” He went back to work the following Monday and argued his first case as solicitor general three weeks later.

Six months later, he was introduced to Lady Booth, a tax attorney from Chicago. The two began dating and quickly became serious. “I felt that some people would feel that I was moving too fast. Everyone has their own idea about how someone should cope and how much you engage in mourning. I believe Barbara — because she was so passionate about life — would have wanted me to live my life.”



On Friday, Olson delivered a speech about 9/11 at the Justice Department, then flew to Wisconsin to spend his birthday with his wife, mother, brother, sister and daughter. “It’s nice to be able to get away from this extraordinary, heavy, nonstop emotional binge taking place this weekend,” he said.

Wisconsin is also where Barbara is buried. It took three months to identify her remains, and he decided the family retreat would be her final resting place. Olson said he would spend Sunday surrounded by the people he loves best.

“Horrible things can happen to you, and horrible things happened to us on September 11,” he concluded. “But if we look for love and happiness and fulfillment, we will find it.”


"Ted Olson in his office at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher last year. (Jahi Chikwendiu/ The Washington Post)"

"Ted and Lady Olson in 2006. (Philip Bermingham)"


Good friends with Clarance Thomas ???

https://www.newspapers.com/image/233614566/?terms=%22barbara%20bracher%22&match=1

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2017 Blog : WhereTheGoldIs.Blogspot

https://wherethegoldis.blogspot.com/2017/?m=0

2017-01-wherethegoldis-blogspot-com-the-family-business.pdf

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White House Press Scandal of 2005


A February 18, 2005 Houston Chronicle story revealed that Robert R. "Bobby" Eberle had a bachelor's degree from Texas A&M University, a master's and a doctorate degree in engineering from Rice, and that he had once worked as an aerospace engineer at Lockheed Martin before deciding to become a political journalist. He began working with Young Republicans after politically supporting a losing 1994 Congressional campaign. [fn - Given the fact he lived in Pearland, a small city on the border of Brazoria and Harris Counties, by 2005 (Tom Delay's 22nd Congressional District), we must assume he lived elsewhere in 1994, or else that he worked for a different campaign. He could not have worked for Steve Stockman, who also won that year.]


Bobby Eberle stated that his interest in politics was motivated by the deaths of two teenage girls from Waltrip High School in 1993--the same school in Houston, incidentally, where Barbara Bracher had graduated in 1973. Barbara's father had been born in Texas to Barbara's grandparents--Gustav Adolphus Bracher (born in Bern, Switzerland in 1882) and a Texas-born Selma, daughter of Max Adolph Schneider (born in Germany in 1847). Gus Bracher's father had immigrated to Brenham, Texas before 1887 when Gus was a child, and died there in 1908 after his wife, Rosette Meister Schneider, gave birth to three more children who were confirmed in the Lutheran Church at Brenham. She too died in 1931 in the town of Wallis, midway between Rosenberg and Sealy in Austin, County, Texas, where she spent the last eight years of her life with a married daughter named Ida Sprain.


Barbara Olson's grandfather, Gus A. Bracher, lived to be 91 years old, dying in 1973 at Heights Hospital in Houston. He had spent his adult life as a civil engineer with the Texas Highway Department, building state roads. After retirement, he moved to Houston, where his adult sons operated a lumber company near Heights Blvd. and Yale Street. That was his address at the time Gus received his WWII draft notice--190 Yale, next door to their business.


When Barbara's father' Victor Charles, was born in 1916, Gus and Selma lived in Beaumont, but by 1918, the highway department had assigned Gus to work in Columbus, Texas. While Gus was off on assignment building a new highway, Selma often lived with her parents, the Schneiders, at 2300 East Avenue in Austin, an address which has not existed since Interstate Highway 35 was adjacent to that right-of-way, and Texas Longhorn stadium has since been built at the site. Their house, which had been across the street from Mt. Calvary Cemetery, was next door to inventor Herbert O. Winfrey, who patented a machine that made tamales. Gus Bracher and Selma Schneider married in Austin, Texas in 1912, and their first child, Edwin, a pilot, achieved the rank of captain for the Scandinavian Airlines System, after co-founding the airline. Edwin also was active in YMCA organizing and in Rotary International, sponsoring in 1963 the founding of the new chapter in Clear Lake City by NASA contractors and astronauts who worked at the LBJ Space Center.


The second son, Barbara's father, Victor Charles Bracher, operated the lumber company Edwin owned, using it as a base for his his house-building and land development company in Houston. Located on Yale Street, the lumber company was a few miles south of 842 W. 43rd Street -- the house where Barbara grew up. The modest home on a tree-lined street was a mile and a half from Waltrip High School, attended 20 years later by two girls who were gang-raped and murdered. Whether or not that incident elicited any attention from Barbara is unknown, although her mother and two siblings were still living in Houston then and may have mentioned it to her.


During Barbara's last year at Waltrip, her father had been chosen by a group affiliated with Oveta Culp Hobby, which submitted his name as a person to work with Governor Dolph Briscoe in his campaign to attack the use of bonded water districts then being used by developer Walter Mischer, a client of John Connally's law firm, Vinson & Elkins. Dolph Briscoe, however, refused to select Bracher and chose his own man. Perhaps he suspected that Bracher, who had obtained financing from the Connally-affiliated bank, First City in Inwood Forest, would not oppose the law firm Vinson & Elkins, which acted as legal counsel for the large majority of those districts. Mrs. Hobby, of course, was a member of the Suite 8-F Crowd, just as Walter Mischer was being groomed to be at that time. Connally as governor named Mischer to sit on the prison board in 1965. [fn - The Suite 8-F Crowd took its name from the Lamar Hotel suite of George and Herman Brown, founders of road construction and engineering company, Brown & Root, which their foundation sold to Halliburton a year after Herman's death. George then used the Brown Foundation to buy his way into Houston "Society," which is defined in terms of Rice University, of which he was placed on the Rice board of trustees after helping oilman Harry C. Wiess acquire for Rice the Rincon field from Nazi sympathizer William Rhodes Davis. After serving with Wiess on the board, Brown was named to the chairmanship of Rice's trustees in 1950.]


Barbara Bracher began her undergraduate education in Austin at the University of Texas but soon transferred to St. Thomas University in Houston, a Catholic school from which she graduated in 1978, two years after marrying James Barton McNeil, also from a Houston family. However, she filed for divorce from him in Houston in 1980, using her father's attorney, Dan Wolfe. Her father died in 1987, after Barbara had given up ballet-dancing and her work for a movie production company. She graduated from Yeshiva University Cardozo School of Law, located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 12th Street in downtown Manhattan, in 1989.


Theodore Olson revealed much of Barbara's history in the 1st Annual Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture [see https://fedsoc.org/commentary/publications/1st-annual-barbara-k-olson-memorial-lecture-transcript] at the Federalist Society For Law And Public Policy Studies, delivered three weeks after 9/11.