Posted by
P.A. Moore on Thursday, April 03, 2008 7:43:04 AM
April 1995- The photo op of a lifetime was almost missed, as logistical problems almost prevented Hillary and Chelsea from meeting Sir Edmund Hillary. Mrs. Clinton, who was traveling with her daughter on a goodwill mission to India, was to spend an evening with Sir Edmund Hillary, for whom the First Lady claims to have been named. Due to mechanical problems, Sir Edmund's flight from New Zealand had been delayed, and their time together was unfortunately limited to a few minutes on the airport runway.
Mrs. Clinton confessed that her mother, Dorothy Rodham, had read an article about the intrepid Edmund Hillary, a one-time beekeeper who had taken to mountain climbing, when she was pregnant with her daughter in 1947 and liked the name.
"It had two l's, which is how she thought she was supposed to spell Hillary," Mrs. Clinton told reporters after the brief meeting on the tarmac, minutes before her Air Force jet flew past the peak of Everest itself. "So when I was born, she called me Hillary, and she always told me it's because of Sir Edmund Hillary."
“Hillary Clinton Meets Man Who Gave Her 2 L's”
New York Times
By Todd S. Purdum
Press date: April 3, 1995