She then worked at Kresge's Five and Dime in Tuscaloosa, where she met George Wallace, at the time a member of the United States Army Air Corps.

Due to George Wallace's neglect of his family and frequent extramarital affairs, Lurleen filed for divorce in the late 1950s, later dropping the suit after he promised to be a better husband.

During his first term, George Wallace attempted to lift the ban but was unsuccessful due to opposition in the Alabama Legislature, including from his political rival Ryan deGraffenried Sr.

In order to retain power, he offered his wife as a surrogate candidate for governor (though George later succeeded and served three more terms, two of them consecutively).

Shy in public and lacking interest in the workings of politics, Lurleen Wallace was described by an Alabama newspaper editor as the most "unlikely candidate imaginable.

She herself said "it never even crossed my mind that I'd ever enter politics...."[10] The Democratic primary field included two former governors, John Malcolm Patterson and Jim Folsom, former congressman Carl Elliott of Jasper, and Attorney General Richmond Flowers, Sr. Lurleen won decisively with 54% and there was no runoff.

Martin campaigned with US senator Strom Thurmond and 1964 presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, focusing on the unpopular Vietnam War, inflation, and urban unrest occurring nationally under Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson as well as challenging state issues such as George Wallace handling road and school construction with "secret deals", issuing an expensive contract to a friend, and forging "conspiracies between the state house and the White House.

At her general election campaign kickoff in Birmingham, Lurleen Wallace pledged "progress without compromise" and "accomplishment without surrender ... George will continue to speak up and stand up for Alabama.

[9][17] Neither candidate sought support from African American voters, many of whom had been registered in the previous year due to the Voting Rights Act.

Lurleen was diagnosed with cancer early as April 1961, when her surgeon biopsied suspicious tissue that he noticed during the cesarean delivery of her last child.

As was common at the time, the physician did not tell the news to Lurleen but to her husband, who insisted she remain unaware, and failed to seek appropriate care for her.

Wallace's most notable independent action as governor was increasing appropriations for the Bryce Hospital and the Partlow State School, a residential institution for the developmentally disabled.

She visited both institutions in Tuscaloosa on her own initiative in February 1967 after reading a news story about overcrowding and poor staffing, and was horrified by the filthy, barracks-like settings.

[21] In January 1968, after extensive testing, Lurleen informed her staff (but not the public) that she had a cancerous pelvic tumor which was pressing on the nerves of her back down through her right hip.

[19] George Wallace continued to make campaign stops nationwide during her last weeks of life and persistently lied to the press about her condition, claiming in April 1968 that "she has won the fight" against cancer.

[23] Construction of the Lurleen B. Wallace Tumor Institute at the University of Alabama began in 1974 and was completed in 1975, seven years after the death by cancer of Gov.