Apple CEO Tim Cook, Anderson Coopers New Book on the Astor Family, 50 years of MS. Magazine

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I'm Jane Pauley, and this is Sunday morning. It's the most valuable company in the world, and in many ways, Apple has redefined the way we live and work from the Macintosh computer to the iPod to the iPhone and more. Apple always seems to have its eye on the future, but beyond its best-selling products, the company now says it's committed to a higher goal. John Dickerson catches up with CEO Tim Cook to learn how Apple is going green. First, I was hoping you had a moment to chat with a very special guest we have. It is the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook. Hi. It may surprise you that Apple CEO Tim Cook can sometimes be a reluctant salesman.

What kind of phone are you looking for? But when the topic is Apple's ambitious climate goal, Cook's both capitalist and evangelist. This is a proof point for us here, a very, very large one. It can be done.

It can be done. Coming up on Sunday morning, Tim Cook on the environment and the bottom line. They were America's first multimillionaires, and their name became synonymous with untold wealth. Caliph Asane talks with Anderson Cooper about a new book examining the complicated story of the Astors. The Astor family was one of the wealthiest in 19th and 20th century America. Is there anyone good in this story of the Astors? Look, people are multifaceted, and I think every family has heroes and villains. That sounds like a no. If someone asks whether I'm a good person, then the answer is, well, he's multifaceted.

That's not a good sign. This is the Astor Place subway station. Later on Sunday morning, Anderson Cooper and the Astors. With our Rita Braver this morning, we'll page through five decades of Ms. Magazine, the trailblazing publication at the forefront of a revolution. Nancy Giles sits down with Sheila Johnson, the first black woman in America to become a billionaire.

Erin Moriarty on lessons learned from the manhunt for that escaped convict in Pennsylvania. And more, this Sunday morning for the 17th of September, 2023. And we'll be back after this. There are so many amazing days on the way to your wedding day, and Zola's here for all of them. Like the day you find your perfect venue, the day you almost skip to the mailbox to send your invites, and the day you realize making a budget isn't so scary. Zola has everything you need to plan the wedding you want, like a free website for your guests to RSVP and shop your registry.

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Get started with your free trial at Wondery dot com slash plus. Apple revealed its newest products this past week, an annual affair that's become something of a national event. John Dickerson asked Apple CEO Tim Cook to share his company's vision for the future. This four-mile long stretch of solar panels, nearly a million of them, will look to some like a bold step towards a clean energy future. And to others, it will look like marketing disguised as social conscience, what cynics would call virtue signaling.

I don't do virtue signaling at all. I don't believe in it. We want to do hard work. What Apple CEO Tim Cook means by hard work is making sure environmental choices make business sense.

I want to see that it pencils out because I want other people to copy it. And I know they're not going to copy a decision that's not a good economic decision. In Brown County, Texas, flat, dry, near the geographical center of the state, Apple has invested in a joint venture to power 100,000 homes with clean energy. Where do you have these different investments towards your clean energy goals? We have them from Oregon to California. We have them in China.

We have solar on rooftops in Singapore. Cook wants to match every bit of carbon released by Apple products with clean energy and carbon capture, what's called carbon neutral, from mining to manufacturing, shipping, even recycling. He has pledged to get there in just seven years and hopes Apple's lead will inspire others to follow. It can be done. And it can be done in a way that others can replicate, which is very important for us. We want to be the ripple in the pond. We want people to look at this and say, I can do that, too, or I can do that, too.

Or I can do half of that. We want people to look at this and rip it off. This past week, Apple announced its first totally carbon neutral product, its new Apple Watch. Apple sold about 50 million watches last year, compared to more than 200 million iPhones. A carbon neutral iPhone is the company's holy grail. And according to Christina Raspi, who manages Apple projects like this one, getting to carbon neutral includes Apple's customers as well. Right now, we're focused across the company and my department in particular on ensuring every device that our customers own and operate, the electricity they use to charge it is offset by renewable energy.

This is all about putting one watt in the system for every watt that our customers use to power our devices. Have you had to become an energy engineer in this process? I don't know that I would give myself that kind of certification, but I certainly understand a lot more than I used to.

You like everything so far? Cook was appointed Apple CEO by founder Steve Jobs in 2011, just months before Jobs lost his battle with cancer. Since then, Apple has become the most valuable company on the planet, worth nearly $3 trillion, nine times its value back when Cook became the boss. When you look at the time you've been CEO, are you more bold or more cautious? I came into the CEO role at a time that I was, along with the company, was in deep despair over Steve's help.

And so that was a very difficult time to get over personally. And over time, you gain more confidence. And you have a feel for things.

You know it when you see it, and you take more risk. We do have one more thing. One big risk Cook has taken is entering the virtual reality competition, where other companies have faltered. The Apple Vision Pro, there have been some reports that the suppliers are having trouble keeping up with the ambition of the project. Is it still on track for its release early 2024?

It is on track. I'm using it on a regular basis. How do you use it? I watch the entire third season of Ted Lasso on the Vision Pro. And of course, there's some things that I have access to that other people don't have access to.

And so I'm doing that. What would those things be, Tim? That I have to talk to you about. They come and act it out in front of you, right?

Ted Lasso and his crew. Has it been more complicated? Are the puzzles that you faced with creating it the same kind you would face with an iPhone? No. It's more complex.

And so it requires innovation in not only the development, but also in the manufacturing. But is it on track? It's on track. It is.

It is on track. Success has also emboldened Cook to speak out on civil and voting rights issues, especially LGBTQ equality. Look this way, Tim. In Apple's Austin, Texas, campus, the staff's diversity was also a priority.

The staff's diversity was clear to see. I was hoping you had a moment to chat with a very special guest. Hi.

He even took a sales call. You want a larger display? I'll leave you with a professional now. But it's been wonderful talking with you. Good.

How are you? You guys thought I screwed up. The caller wanted to upgrade their iPhone.

Did you tell her to hold out for the 15? I didn't exactly say that. You said, I don't think of myself as a celebrity. No, I don't. But you are.

I'm just a fairly ordinary person. And people love the company. And so they express that love with me a lot.

Thank you. This may be a welcoming place for Apple's 10,000 Austin employees. But while Texas promotes its business-friendly climate, the state has pursued strong anti-abortion and anti-trans and gay legislation. When we last talked, you said, I believe that everyone should be treated with dignity and respect, and that all roads lead to equality.

How should people think about your commitment to equality, and how should people think about your commitment to equality and the politics of Texas, which would seem to be clashing with that? There will always be cases, John, where we're either selling or operating in a place where we have a difference of opinion on something. But I'm telling you from our heart, we believe in treating everyone with dignity and respect. And that's how we show up as a company. We believe in being a part of the community and trying to advocate for change, rather than pulling the mode up and going away. We at the ADL are all grateful for your leadership. That worldview won Cook the Anti-Defamation League's Courage Against Hate Award in 2018. Today, the ADL has accused tech mogul Elon Musk of promoting anti-Semitism on his platform X, formerly known as Twitter, a charge Musk denies. Should Apple continue to advertise on Twitter?

It's something that we ask ourselves. Generally, my view is Twitter is an important property. I like the concept that it's there for discourse, and there is a town square. There's also some things about it I don't like. There's discourse, and then there's anti-Semitism. At which time, it's abhorrent.

Just point blank, there is no place for it. So is this something you're constantly evaluating, or? It's something we constantly ask ourselves. When we last talked to Cook, it was by remote, in the thick of the pandemic. Like every big company in America, Apple is at a crossroads with how to return to the office.

How have you approached the coming back to work part of the post-pandemic age? Yeah, what we did was we admitted we don't know what the best approach is. And so what we decided to do was run a pilot where people would come into the office three days a week. We deal with user experience, and this requires collaboration. And so we knew it had to have a fair amount of in-person work.

And we're still in the pilot today. During the pandemic, a lot of people had uncertainty about what gives them meaning in life. And they reevaluated their work choices. And that's part of what this come back to work is about. It's balancing what gives you meaning, and work may not do that. What gives you meaning in the work you do? Our work is meant to improve other people's lives. What really turns us on and gets us excited is seeing what people do with our products. Where people are doing things and we're empowering them to do it through our products. And as long as we get that energy, it's a virtuous cycle. We want to do more. We want to release the next product and the next product. It's a renewable energy resource.

There you go. Their story begins with a German immigrant whose family would become one of America's wealthiest. Caliph Asane talks with Anderson Cooper about his new book on the Astors. John Jacob Astor and then his son for generations, they were just buying up parcels here and there and then large tracts of land further north. Astor Place in New York's Greenwich Village is named for John Jacob Astor, America's first multi-millionaire. Astor died in 1848 with one regret. He wished he had bought more real estate.

Yeah, there's a famous quote, you know, had I to do it over again, I would, you know, put every nickel I had in New York real estate. Astor made his money through the bloody and brutal beaver fur trade. He saw the huge markups that beaver fur could get, you know, 600, 700, 800 percent markups. And John Jacob Astor went out into the wilderness and started trading with indigenous populations. By 1834, his fur trading company was the largest business enterprise in the United States. It was also a ruthless business, the way he operated.

Astor was astonishingly ruthless, according to Anderson Cooper's new book, co-written with historian Catherine Howe. He would screw over the traders that worked for him. They would have to buy them and it marked up prices.

So then their incentive was to screw over the indigenous populations who they were trading beaver health from. And by the next generation, you have William Astor, William Astor, who owns all these buildings in New York. You refer to him as a slumlord. Yes. I mean, the Astors were slumlords.

There's no doubt about it. They would rent out the land to a sublandlord. And that sublandlord's business was to build whatever building they wanted on that land. But within 20 years or so, the lease would be up and anything built on that land would revert to the Astor family.

So there was no incentive for any sublandlord to keep up a building. Today, the Astor name is etched into the infrastructure of New York City. This is the Astor Place subway station, which still has a kind of an homage to the Astor family and to their origin. A lot of people probably wonder, why are there beavers here chewing on trees? And this is a reference to the creation of the Astor fortune.

Beavers are adorable. But the Astors... Is there anyone good in this story of the Astors? Look, people are multifaceted. And I think every family has heroes and villains. That sounds like a no. If someone asks whether I'm a good person, then the answer is, well, he's multifaceted.

That's not a good sign. One of Cooper's favorite Astors wasn't originally part of the family. Brooke Astor, born Roberta Brooke Russell, was the third and final wife of Vincent Astor, who had become the richest man in America after his father, Jack Astor, died aboard the Titanic. Vincent Astor realized, wait a minute, we're slumlords? He was not happy to learn this. He was definitely not easy to be around.

Smoke, drink, unbelievable amount. He sold off some of the family's assets and started a foundation with what Cooper describes as a vague notion of bettering humankind. He died in 1959, leaving his fortune and foundation to his widow, Brooke. In that five and a half years of often miserable marriage, she put up with a lot and she inherited all of Vincent Astor's money and she rehabilitated the Astor name. She really embraced this idea of being both an Astor and a philanthropist, right? Brooke Astor focused on giving back to New York City and she would dress up in her fur coats and her Chanel and she would go to housing projects and homeless shelters because she wanted to see how the money she was giving would be spent.

That was Brooke Astor. Cooper and co-author Catherine Howe at times rely heavily on a handful of sources, which has raised some questions about the diligence of their research. We asked Cooper about this. He replied, we have written what we hope is a compelling and accessible account of the Astors and have relied on and rigorously cited dozens of books, contemporary accounts, and historical documents.

In the book, Cooper also recalls his personal interactions. As a 13 year old, he first met Brooke Astor while at lunch with his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt. Your mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, really the last of the Vanderbilts in a way. Brooke Astor, the last of the Astors.

Yeah. If somebody passing by the restaurant in that moment had seen Brooke Astor and my mom sitting, you know, shoulder to shoulder, essentially, that's the thought they would have had, like these two sort of iconic, you know, representatives of a vanishing past. Cooper says his mother and Brooke were not friends. Brooke Astor was the toast of New York society and my mom chose a different path and I think that's part of the tension she felt with Brooke Astor. Gloria, who was born a Vanderbilt, was someone Brooke probably would have wanted to befriend, a reversal from more than a century earlier when the Astors wanted nothing to do with the Vanderbilts. The Vanderbilts were considered the nouveau riche, Commodore Vanderbilt died with a hundred million dollars, but he also was a very uncouth guy.

It was the, the Commodore's grandchildren who set about this enterprise of breaking into New York society. That meant getting past Caroline Astor, who created and controlled New York social register. She called it the Astor 400. Which was allegedly the 400 people who could fit in Caroline Astor's ballroom and they created the rules for it.

You had to have a French chef and French architecture. She defined it in a way that benefited her. But Cooper's great-great aunt, Alva Vanderbilt, found a way in. She decided to throw a party the likes of which America had never seen and Caroline Astor's daughter, Carrie, really wanted to go to this party. Finally, Caroline Astor folded to the pressure and Mrs. Astor finally recognized the Vanderbilts. Anderson Cooper says he always knew there would be no Vanderbilt money left for his inheritance.

He swears that was fine with him. Inheriting wealth never ends well, he says. Brooke Astor spent her final years struggling with her son from a previous marriage, Tony Marshall. When Brooke Astor decided to step back from the foundation because of Alzheimer's, she decided not to give it to Tony. Basically telling him, one day none of this will be yours.

And yet, as Brooke Astor's mental faculties declined, her working relationship with her son became suspiciously close. Tony was accused, ultimately, of stealing money from his mom, doing things without her knowledge. He's eventually convicted of theft.

He stood trial, he was convicted. This era of these great families kind of comes to an end, but of course we have our Elon Musks and our Zuckerbergs. How do our plutocrats measure up to these older American plutocrats? The histories have yet to be written about the mega wealthy people today and what the impact of their fortunes will be on subsequent generations and their families. Will the lessons of these other families be learned?

You know, I would recommend they read these books. For much of the past two weeks, we've been following efforts to recapture a killer in Pennsylvania. Aaron Moriarty looks back at his escape, his time on the run, and ultimate capture. We are all fascinated about individuals escaping from inescapable places. From the moment 34-year-old Danilo Cavacante crab-walked his way out of a Pennsylvania county facility and into our consciousness, Jeff Mallow, like so many Americans, was hooked. I've never seen anyone walk up a wall in that crab-like style to escape. Mallow is a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan and has studied over 500 prison breaks.

Few, he says, begin as dramatically as this one or last as long. Most escapees are caught over 60% within the first few days. Not Cavacante. Wanted for murder in Brazil and convicted of killing a former girlfriend here in the U.S., he was about to begin a life sentence when he slipped away on August 31st. It was just grueling for the investigators that were out there. Robert Clark is Supervisory Deputy U.S.

Marshal. He actually said we almost stepped on him up to three times. How close did investigators get to him? He described it with less than 10 yards. Cavacante was sighted at least a dozen times, including on a doorbell video camera, where he appeared clean-shaven and in new clothes. He stole a backpack, and inside that backpack was a razor and I believe a sweatshirt.

But early Wednesday morning, Cavacante ran out of luck and triggered a home alarm. Hours later, the search ended peacefully with the help of a dog named Yoda. Yoda is a three to four-year-old male, Malinois, and he's a bite-and-hold dog. What is a bite-hold dog?

When it gets a bite, it will hold you until your handler calls you off. Escapes like this catch our attention, but Jeff Mello says they are few and far between. Approximately 9 million individuals cycle in and out of jails every single year. In-state prisons have approximately 600,000 releases. Our data suggest each year maybe 2,500, 2,800 escapes throughout the country.

Looking at a rate, maybe 10.5 per 10,000, numbers that identify them as rare events. Why does a story like this fascinate people so much? Cops and robbers, it's always been a fascination, and this is one of those stories that people got hooked on. It had had all the elements to it.

Thankfully, it ended up well. William Bratton led the police departments in New York and Los Angeles, a law enforcement veteran. Events like this may be fodder for film. But Bratton cautions that fugitives like Calicante should never be glorified.

The nuts are shank, we dump them in the back of the truck. They're not shashank redemption where you're rooting for him to get out of that jail. This case is an individual committed to murders.

There should be no sympathy or empathy for them. And Danilo Calicante himself made that point chillingly clear. Were there any details about this particular manhunt and the capture that really surprised you? Calicante did make a statement when we were interviewing him that he knew he had to pay for the crime he had committed.

However, he wasn't going to pay for it with his life. So, you know, how far was a desperate man going to go? It came to represent a movement. 50 years on, Rita Braver is talking with some of the women behind Ms. Magazine. What do we want? Equality! When do we want it?

Now! As the women's liberation movement was picking up steam more than half a century ago, feminism, the idea of equality for women, was a new and controversial idea. Why do you think that word seemed to threaten people, the word feminism? Two reasons. One, because they didn't understand it.

And two, because they did understand it. Now 89, Gloria Steinem was a 30-something columnist for New York Magazine when she joined with a group of other journalists to create a new magazine, aiming to push feminism into the mainstream. Even the title, Ms., a newly emerging designation for those who didn't want to be bound by Mrs. for a married woman or Ms. for a single woman, was an issue. As I understand it, even the New York Times wouldn't call you Ms. Gloria Steinem.

Oh no, no, I'm so glad you know that. It was so annoying because for years and years I was Ms. Steinem of Ms. Magazine. Ms. would not offer household hints or fashion tips like traditional women's magazines. We wanted to be able to write about trying to make an equal marriage or to write about abortion. We didn't want to just focus on women's outsides, but also our insides. In fact, Steinem says she became an activist, as well as a journalist, while covering an abortion hearing. Suddenly I realized, wait a minute, I had an abortion when I was in London and why has this common experience not been spoken about? So in the very first issue of Ms., we had a massive petition signed by, you know, all kinds of people saying, I have had an abortion. Some 50 prominent women signed it.

Yes, I have had an abortion and I demand that it become safe and legal. And of course, we're still fighting this battle in some states. Amid fears about how Ms. would be received, Steinem's boss, legendary New York publisher Clay Felker, volunteered to publish a sample issue within the pages of his magazine. Steinem and the Ms. team hit the publicity circuit. And when I got to California, somebody called the radio show I was on and said, you know, we can't find it.

And I called Clay Felker in a panic and I said, it didn't get here. And it turned out it had sold out. That was a moment of recognition that, you know, it had an audience. An audience that's lasted more than 50 years. This is from the early 70s. Catherine Spiller, executive editor of Ms., spent two and a half years compiling an anthology out this coming week.

They all want to make you just dive in. Yes. Right?

Yes. It's immodestly subtitled The Pathfinding Magazine That Ignited a Revolution. It started trends and it amplified the trends. A lot of articles about men and marriage and relationships and child-rearing and politics and violence against women. And you can trace... And keep coming back. And keep coming back.

And it shows the endurance of this movement, but also the endurance of our opponents. Published monthly, there were lots of Wonder Woman covers. And stories about women's emerging political clout. One of the most popular features has been letters from readers.

Here's a great one. It's very funny. My husband says I used to be a bitch once a month, but since I subscribed to Ms., now I'm a bitch twice a month. The letters often end with the word click, inspired by one of the earliest articles by Ms. co-founder Jane O'Reilly. Describing the moment a woman realizes she's experiencing sexism.

It's really become part of a vernacular even today. It's an automatic connection to other women who are suffering the same injustices. Long before the Me Too movement, Ms. was writing about sexual harassment on the job. The editors at the time had to use a doll to show... Because it would have been too outrageous over the top to have a real woman there.

Exactly. And as it was, a lot of newsstands pulled this off, refusing to sell the issue. But it absolutely represented what way too many women in the workplace experienced then and now. And selling advertising for a women's magazine that covered these issues became a challenge. You describe a lunch with the head of a major cosmetics company, in which he told you that women who read Ms. didn't buy blush or makeup.

Right. Took me to lunch to tell me that, yes. Car manufacturers didn't want to advertise because they didn't think women bought cars. And that it would devalue a car to see a woman driving it. I mean, they told me that in Detroit.

I'm not making it up. In 2002, Ms. started being published by the nonprofit Feminist Majority Foundation. Today, Ms. is a quarterly and still inspiring young woman, according to Iliana McDonald, who works for the foundation. So to the question that some people have, which is, hey, is this 50-plus magazine still relevant?

What's your answer? Absolutely. It's relevant. Now, for the same reason it was relevant back in the 70s, because it's providing a platform. It's encouraging discourse that still needs to be encouraged. It has been 50 years, but we still have a lot of work to do. All of us must stand up together and say no more. Ms. co-founder Gloria Steinem couldn't agree more. Are you still optimistic about the push for equality? Yes. We have to be. Yes, we have to imagine something before it becomes reality.

So, yes, I am a hope-a-holic. Sheila Johnson is an entrepreneur, the first black woman billionaire. And now Nancy Giles tells us, the author of a new book with a title that says a lot about who she is. Just outside of our nation's capital, amid Virginia's rolling hills and picturesque stonewalls, is a place that time seems to have forgotten.

And I'll tell you in the form when the trees turn, it's just spectacular. I bet. Yeah. Oh, my God. The place Sheila Johnson calls home. When you first came out here, what did you think? This is where I needed to live.

It feels like a sanctuary. Yes. Yeah.

It is. She came here in 1996 to find refuge. At the time, BET, Black Entertainment Television, the company she and Robert L. Johnson had co-founded, was hugely successful. But their struggling marriage was the talk of the town. The rumor mill was off the chart. People would tell me.

I saw them at the Super Bowl. Oh, I saw her come down in his shirt. And I said, I need a place where I can be alone, at peace. Right. Oh. And this is my secret garden. And you come out there in the mornings? That's where I have my coffee, yes.

Yeah. Today, Sheila Johnson is a very successful businesswoman and part owner of three sports teams. On this wall are the championship mystics. And you look like you've been crying. I have been. The first Black woman to make it into the very exclusive, very white, and very male billionaires club.

And yet, she says, tongues are still wagging. You know, they look at me and they go, OK, you were so-called the first Black billionaire and everything, and you've had it so easy. No, I haven't. Do people say that you've had it so easy? You have no idea. There's so many stories out there. They need to hear from me. Her book, Walk Through Fire, published by our sister company Simon & Schuster, takes its title from the legend of the salamander.

It's the only animal, mythically, that walks through fire and still comes out alive. It's also the name of her impressive collection of five-star luxury resorts. Hi, how are you? We joined Sheila Johnson last month as she welcomed guests to her flagship salamander resort and spa in Middleburg, Virginia, for a weekend of good food and wisdom from some of the country's top chefs. This has been a marriage in culinary testing. It's been 10 years since the doors first opened. It was not an easy road.

Oh, no. In some ways, the town of Middleburg had welcomed her. But the thing that really bothered me was driving into town every day and seeing a Confederate flag in a gunshot. When I saw that flag, I said, God, where did I move to? You know, and I just decided to buy the buildings, and it's now a wonderful market. That's the beauty of having a little money.

Getting the town's approval to build a resort was another matter. I thought I had left one fire. I jumped into a great big one, and I forgot I was south of the Mason-Dixon line. They came after me with all barrels, and they signed petitions. We had hearings.

I won by one vote. One thing to know about Sheila Johnson, giving up is not in her DNA. Your mom walked through fire in many ways. Her life, you know, had a huge impact on me. Here she was at the top of the social circle as a woman, as a mother married to a doctor.

Theirs was an African-American success story, though that success was hard won. By the time she was 10, Sheila Crump had moved 13 times. We moved about every 10 months.

Right. Because of the work situations for your father. My father couldn't practice in white hospitals, and he couldn't even operate on white patients. Finally, her father got a permanent job in Chicago, and they were able to buy a house and settle down. She took up the violin and excelled at it. And then, without warning, her father announced he was leaving the family. It brought us all to our knees because it was just one night, and he says, I'm leaving. Her mother had a breakdown. She had always been my backbone, and I was losing her. It just really kind of destroyed me in a way. And then I realized, I said, Sheila, you know, you can't play the victim here.

With the help of her violin teacher, she got a music scholarship to the University of Illinois, where she met an upperclassman named Bob Johnson. You were pretty young. I'm really young. Yeah.

How about 16 and a half? What was your first impression of him? I was always looking for someone with ambition, but I was also going through something else psychologically. Because my father had left, I felt unloved. He wanted me. And because of him wanting me, I wanted him.

Their marriage lasted for 33 years. And I shouldn't have, I really shouldn't have let it go on as long as I did. I didn't want to be a failure. And I kept saying, I can get through this. And I was really behind him. So much so that I got erased out of the picture. Their divorce was finalized in 2002 by coincidence or fate.

The end of that chapter was the beginning of another. As I walked into the courtroom, I looked at the judge and I looked at my lawyer. I said, I think I know this guy.

The guy was Judge William T. Newman Jr. Many, many years ago, we happened to be in a play together. When the case was over, she said, excuse me, your honor, can I approach the bench? And I said, sure. I said, do you remember me?

He goes, oh, yes, I do. She invited him to a gala she was hosting. And I put on the invitation, William T. Newman Jr. and guest. Bill told his mother about it. I said, well, I guess I'll take so-and-so who I just started to date. You were actually going to take someone else?

Well, yeah. And my mother said, oh, no, you go to that party alone. Three years later, they married. A lavish wedding that was the social event of the season. And I said, I love this man so much. We are going to celebrate. We had 750 people at that wedding.

It was, I have to say, the most beautiful wedding. It's a nursery. It is. These days, Sheila Johnson is looking forward, not back.

And she has no intention of slowing down. I've come to reconcile the fact that we do need to walk through fire in order to come out stronger at the other end. Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning.