She married Vice President Alben Barkley, a widower, on November 18, 1949. She was his second wife, and he was her second husband. He was 71 and she was 37. Barkley's first wife Dorothy had died in 1947. Until her courtship with Barkley, Jane Rucker Hadley had been a devoted Republican. In 1940, Mrs. Hadley was working in the St. Louis office of Grand Old Party presidential nominee Wendell Willkie. When her milkman said his favorite president was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, she left a note saying, "No Willkie, no milkie". 