Growing Up Rodham (WaPo profile)

Back then, chicken a la cheese won recipe contests, and an Amana Free-o-Frost was the answer to every woman's problems. Hugh Rodham woke up each morning in his thick-walled suburban dream home in Park Ridge, Ill., bellowing the songs of Mitch Miller and the Gang (Singalong favorites! "Ain't We Got Fun"!), and sat down each night to dinner served exactly at 6 p.m., over which he issued loud pronouncements about American self-reliance, as opposed to communists and deadbeats seeking handouts.That's when the argument would start. "Now, wait a minute," his wife, Dorothy Rodham, would suggest, voice soft as a housedress. "Sometimes things happen to people that they have no control over." Their daughter, Hillary, would follow the conversation, alternately agreeing with each, until Hugh had the last word. Fathers were the ultimate authority then. Fathers, and presidents.

It's safe to say that the dinner debate at 235 Wisner St. was never resolved for Hillary Rodham Clinton.