. >> reporter: dorothy rodman was always at her back. >> i wouldn't be here without my mother. >> reporter: her childhood shaped her daughter's values. >> i thought of what my own mother went through in her life as a child, born to teenage parents who couldn't take care of her, and when she was 8, she and her little sister were sent alone on a train across the country to stay with relatives. my mother was basically abandoned as a young girl, and by the age of 13, she was on her own. >> reporter: it was dorothy rodman who first taught a young hillary how to stand up to neighborhood bullies. >> she met me at the door and said there is no place for cowards in this house. you have to go back outside and handle your problems. >> reporter: after her husband's death in 1993, hillary's mother became a more frequent presence in washington and on clinton campaigns. >> there's only one person in the world that can really tell the truth about a man, and that's his mother-in-law. what i would like people to know about hillary is what a good person she is. >> reporter: seven years ago in a r