Governor Lurleen Wallace of Alabama and Evita Peron, First Lady of Argentina, were women in their time, but were not women of their time.

Born in the same era, both first ladies-of rural, humble birth, who did not graduate from high school-emerged as charismatic leaders, the trajectories of their high-profile achievements and dramatic life journeys paralleling in astonishing chrysalis patterns, eclipsing the political Suns of the steely-eyed, more educated, men of expediency they married.

Their husbands kept from each, the identical life-threatening medical secret. Their humanitarian legacies endure beyond each woman's early, poignant death from the same cause. Their husbands' self-focused legacies proved gossamer.

Narrative nonfiction: AMERICAN EVITA:

LURLEEN WALLACE is award-winning author Janice Law's sixth book. Her 2006 nonfiction diary of her first year as a Texas criminal court judge was a nonfiction finalist for the 2007 Texas Book Award.

She is the founder of American Women Writers National Museum in Washington, D.C. a non-profit charity.