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The strong women who shaped Liz Cheney

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Thanks to eClub Rotarian Carol F. and former Rotarian Susan Anderson for this program.

The strong women who shaped Liz Cheney

By SUSAN ANDERSON

Happy Friday, rulers! Katie here; we’re doing something different today. We have a guest contributor: Susan Anderson, a longtime Wyoming-based journalist who has covered the Cheney Family for three decades. Given all the interest in Liz Cheney’s independent streak and willingness to buck Donald Trump, Anderson wrote for us about her  family background and how it might have shaped her character and political career, based on reporting over the years. More below. Thanks to Maya Parthasarathy for helping to put this newsletter together.

Liz Cheney WikipediaIn the past year and a half, and especially in recent months, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney has become a symbol of political courage and independence in the Republican party. She has paid a price for those qualities. In May 2021, she was removed as GOP conference chair in retaliation for her criticism of President Donald Trump and his role in the Jan. 6 riot. In the past month, Cheney has continued to demand accountability from the president and his allies as one of two Republicans on the Jan. 6 committee, where she has been a key narrator and questioner.

It's natural to wonder where such unique leadership traits come from in an era where many lament they are in short supply among politicians. One might be tempted to think Cheney’s grit, determination and independence come from her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who got the nickname "iron-ass” from former President George H.W. Bush.

But I have covered the Cheneys for decades, and I know that Liz Cheney wouldn’t have become the singular political figure she is today were it not for a generations-long line of tough women in her family. From the great grandmother who raised five kids in a tent in muddy oil fields north of Casper, Wyo., to her mother Lynne, an author and historian who taught her daughters about female role models, Cheney’s young life was filled with accomplished and tough women.

Keen to see how this icon in the making evolved, I searched through notes from meetings with her and recollections from my years of reporting in Wyoming on Dick, Lynne and Liz Cheney. Then, on March 16 this year, Liz sat down for a discussion of what in her past and upbringing led to her taking what has been a lonely and costly path for a Republican politician.

Two family pictures in Lynne’s book that Liz talked about in March capture the tough matriarchy Liz descends from. In one from about 1942, her mother, Lynne, a curly-haired toddler in the photo, digs for worms in the family’s tiny Casper victory garden, wearing a beautiful, spotless velvet dress. The dress had been made by Lynne’s mother, who herself had grown up in a rough oil field hut in the town of Midwest. Liz Cheney described that oil town shack as having sides “like two-by-fours” with a cloth roof, “so it’s like a hard-sided tent basically on the edge of the oil fields and … cold. Cold.”

Liz Cheney 1

Rough as the oil field life was, Lynne was cherished and encouraged by her mother and grandmother, which one can easily see with the velvet dress she was wearing to dig up worms. Later, Lynne won academic and baton-twirling awards that were clearly important to her mother and grandmother. “There wasn’t a newspaper notice of her baton twirling wins that her grandmother didn’t save,” according to Liz.

A second photo that Liz Cheney treasures is from the 1950s. The entire Natrona County Sheriff’s Office stands in front of a Casper courthouse. Cheney proudly pointed out in a private interview on March 16 that there are 40 men in the photo and one woman, her grandmother, a deputy sheriff.

“I’m just unbelievably proud” of her mother, grandmother and great grandmother, Liz told me. “I think there was always a real sense you have to work hard, and a lot is expected of you.”

Liz Cheney 2

Her parents, and mother in particular, were also eager to ensure Liz grew up knowing about accomplished and ground-breaking women. Liz told the story of when she was six or seven, and Lynne, a prolific author of a dozen books about influential people in American history, wrote an article about the first American woman doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell, for a magazine — possibly American Heritage magazine, Liz remembered. Afterward, Liz remembers that her mother gave her and her sister Mary the article to read. “What a tremendous thing to have a mom who was working on those issues and focused on making sure Mary and I had role models like that,” she told me.

In a late June gathering with Casper voters, Liz praised the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, and a key witness in the Jan. 6 hearings. Her warm comments about Hutchinson and other young women who testified before the committee echo what she believes women with grit can and should accomplish.

In a private interview on July 25 at the end of the summer Jan. 6 committee hearings, Cheney was more committed than ever to speaking up in the manner of the women in her family. “Right now I think a lot of the time my job is to stand up and tell people stop,” she said. “Stop attacking each other for political purposes because we have just so many really important issues and threats and challenges. We can disagree … but the vitriol doesn’t serve the country.”

 

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