Leading With My Heart [Book]

Leading With My Heart: My Life is an autobiography written by Virginia Clinton Kelley, with James Morgan. The book’s title was derived from a friend’s statement that Kelley, mother of Bill Clinton, tended to “lead with her heart” in life, love, and everything she did. The book was published in hardcover by Simon and Schuster in 1994 (the same year as Kelley’s death) and was reprinted in a paperback edition by Pocket Books in 1995. It includes more than fifty photos from the family’s private collection. Author Joyce Carol Oates wrote in the New York Times Book Review that Leading With My Heart “fairly throbs with the author’s vitality.”

The book opens with a vignette at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC on the morning of January 20, 1993—Inauguration Day—when Kelley’s son Bill Clinton was about to become the forty-second president of the United States. Kelley does not linger on the significance of the nation’s incoming chief executive being the little boy she struggled to raise in Arkansas against all odds. Rather, over the course of several pages, she describes the daily routine of putting on her face makeup, or what she calls her “paint,” with in-depth details of the process that took Kelley forty-five minutes every day.

Virginia Dell Cassidy was born in the Ebenezer community near Bodcaw (Nevada County) in the southwestern part of Arkansas. Eventually, the family moved to Hope (Hempstead County), with Virginia Clinton Kelley later settling in Hot Springs (Garland County), her home as an adult. Although Kelley recounts it in a matter-of-fact manner, reading the ordeal of her childhood is difficult. Her mentally unbalanced, abusive mother whipped the toddler bloody for offenses unknown to the child. The mother later became a morphine addict who was eventually committed to a psychiatric hospital, where the grown-up Kelley continued to visit her rather than dwell on the abuse she suffered as a child.

The saving grace for Kelley was her good-natured father, whom she recalls fondly in the book. He was not spared the wrath of his wife, whom Kelley describes as a woman who woke up angry every day. Father and daughter were subjected to what Kelley calls regular “screaming fits,” including those at night as she was trying to sleep on the other side of thin walls.

Kelley recounts her first marriage, which took place in 1943 to William Blythe, father of her elder son, Bill. Blythe died in a car accident at Sikeston, Missouri, when Kelley was six months pregnant. Recalling a strange coincidence several decades later, Kelley describes being in a Hot Springs coffee shop with a friend, relating the story of her first husband’s death. A casual acquaintance at the next table happened to overhear the conversation, telling Kelley he had been first on the scene of the accident, filling in significant details that the authorities had not.

Her second husband, Roger Clinton, was from Hot Springs, which Kelley describes as a “wild gambling town.” After moving there, she relates that “Hot Springs let me be me with a vengeance.” In the book, she notes Spa City landmarks such as the Vapors, Oaklawn racetrack, the Belvedere, and the Southern Club, along with their family homes at 1101 Park Avenue and 213 Scully Street. Kelley states that the town of Hot Springs was “addicted to gambling,” a pastime she enjoyed. In the book, she also recounts her first-hand look at the deterioration of Hot Springs after illegal gambling was shut down.

Kelley goes on to write about her latter two husbands, Jeff Dwire and Dick Kelley, along with her younger son, Roger Clinton (Bill Clinton’s half brother). At great length, she recounts her work as a nurse anesthetist, something in which she took pride, as it allowed her to provide a good life for her sons. Citing challenges she had to overcome in her career, she writes that she and her elder son had traits in common, such as the fighting spirit that led Bill Clinton to be dubbed “the Comeback Kid” in his political life. She also states that when each of them walks into a room, they both “want to win the room over.”

In the book, Kelley includes some of the letters that Bill Clinton wrote home from college. She is also careful to give equal recognition to Roger, including her support when he was sent to prison on drug-related charges. In addition, she includes her initial reaction to meeting Hillary Rodham, as well how their relationship evolved.

Kelley began fighting breast cancer in 1990. Although the cancer spread despite a mastectomy and chemotherapy in 1991, she did not let anyone know the seriousness of the disease, instead focusing on her son’s campaign.

The night after Bill Clinton was inaugurated as president, Dick and Virginia Kelley slept in the Queen’s Bedroom in the White House. As recounted in the book, her thoughts were not on herself but were in the past: “I wished my daddy could’ve been there to watch his grandson become President [and] his daughter stretched out on the Queen’s bed. What a journey it had been. Lord, the hills we had climbed.”

On December 31, 1993, Kelley recounts attending her friend Barbra Streisand’s New Year’s Eve concert in Las Vegas. Her final words in the book are that she went to bed thinking, “morning comes early, and there’s paint to put on.” A week later, on January 6, 1994, she died in her sleep at age seventy.

The epilogue for the book was completed by Morgan, describing the caravan of cars in Kelley’s funeral procession from Hot Springs to Hope, where she was buried. Morgan quotes the eulogy by Kelley’s pastor, who stated she was like a rubber ball: “The harder life put her down, the higher she bounced.” Kelley died before the darker days that plagued the Clinton presidency, such as the Whitewater investigation and impeachment trial, with some readers no doubt wondering what her written reaction might have been.

The book earned a number of positive reviews, including the aforementioned Joyce Carol Oates in the New York Times Book Review, who stated, “There is nothing exploitative or self-congratulatory about Leading With My Heart, nothing sentimental or disingenuous.” Washington Post Book World said Kelley “tells her story and does not grind an ax…and appears to have a great time remembering it,” with the Post adding that in the book, Kelley seems to possess the “dazzle of an Auntie Mame.” Kirkus Reviews called Leading With My Heart a “folksy, mom’s-eye view of the ultimate American success story.”

For additional information:
“Clinton’s Mother Kept Her Cancer Secret.” Tampa Bay Times, April 19, 1994. https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1994/04/19/clinton-s-mother-kept-her-cancer-secret/ (accessed July 21, 2026).

Drake, Anne Caroline. “Virginia Clinton Kelley: Leading with My Heart (Book Review + More).” Life Rafts, October 28, 2011. https://annecarolinedrake.com/2011/10/28/virginia-clinton-kelley-leading-with-my-heart-book-review-more/ (accessed July 21, 2026).

Kelley, Virginia with James Morgan. Leading With My Heart: My Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.

“Kelley’s Memoirs: When Bill Brought Hillary Home to Mom.” Orlando Sentinel, April 17, 1994. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/1994/04/17/kelleys-memoirs-when-bill-brought-hillary-home-to-mom/ (accessed July 21, 2026).

“Leading With My Heart by Virginia Kelley.” Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 1994. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/virginia-kelley/leading-with-my-heart/ (accessed July 21, 2026).

“Real-Life Soap Opera.” Chicago Tribune, May 8, 1994. https://www.chicagotribune.com/1994/05/08/real-life-soap-opera/ (accessed July 21, 2026).

Nancy Hendricks
Garland County Historical Society