Her ranch upbringing had isolation, deprivation and years of financial distress, but her parents were highly cultivated people. They subscribed to the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the New Yorker, Vogue and Time. Her mother was a college graduate who ordered her clothes from Neiman Marcus and Saks; when she drove her daughter into town, 25 miles away, to get the mail, the residents would crowd around just to see what Ada Mae Day was wearing.
Nothing against her parents, but is that what you think of when you think of a highly cultured person? Wouldn't a Time subscription count as a strike against?
UPDATE: Hubby defends the Time magazine of O'Conner's childhood on the ground that it was edited by Whitaker Chambers and worth reading. Point taken, but my objection stands, I think. The Post's definition of "cultured" is: "reads us" (or people just like us).
