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Cheney's Crew
Richard "Dick" Cheney was born in Lincoln, Neb., in 1940 and attended the University of Wyoming, earning both bachelor's and master's degrees. He married Lynne Vincent, his high school sweetheart, in 1964. In 1969, he joined the Nixon administration, serving in several offices. He later became President Ford's deputy assistant and, in 1975, his chief of staff. He continued in public office, serving five terms as Wyoming's only member of the House of Representatives, and was the first President Bush's secretary of defense, directing military operations in Panama and the Middle East.
Lynne Vincent Cheney was 13 when she met her future husband. The two were sweethearts at Natrona County High School, where she was a straight-A student and a state champion baton twirler. The two were married in 1964. Mrs. Cheney holds three degrees, including a Ph.D from the University of Wisconsin, and a number of honorary degrees. She served as chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1986 until 1993 and is the author or co-author of seven books, two of which are children's books on American history. The couple has two grown daughters, Elizabeth and Mary.
Elizabeth Cheney, 37, is a married mother of four. She recently left her job with the State Department to join the re-election campaign. She has been described as "personable" and "tough-minded."
Mary Cheney, 35, plays a fuzzier role in family politics than her sister Elizabeth. As the openly gay member of a family that espouses conservative values, she acts as the director of vice presidential operations for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.
The Bush Dynasty
Prescott Bush, the family's modern patriarch, attended Yale University (as his son and grandson would) and belonged to the secret society Skull and Bones. He was a World War I artillery captain and then worked at a Wall Street firm before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1952. A famous (and never proven) rumor says that Prescott Bush and two friends, in order to gain admission to Skull and Bones, robbed the grave of Apache warlord Geronimo and brought his skull to the society's headquarters.
Dorothy Walker Bush was the president's grandmother. Born in Missouri, Dorothy Walker was the daughter of a Wall Street tycoon. She married Prescott Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1921.
George Herbert Walker Bush was born to Prescott and Dorothy Bush in 1924. After serving as a pilot in World War II, Bush attended Yale University and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in less than three years. In 1945 he married Barbara Pierce, and after his graduation the family moved to Texas with the oil industry in mind. Before becoming Ronald Reagan's running mate in 1980, Bush served two terms as a Texas congressman, was a UN ambassador and held the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. Bush was elected president in 1988, served one term, and lost to Arkansas governor Bill Clinton in 1992.
Barbara Pierce Bush met George H. W. Bush at a Christmas dance when she was 16 years old. They were engaged less than two years later, and were married in January, 1945, shortly after she dropped out of Smith College. The couple had six children: George, Robin (who died as a child), Jeb, Neil, Marvin, and Dorothy. As first lady, she promoted literacy campaigns and strongly advocated volunteerism involving issues such as AIDS, the elderly, and homelessness.
George Walker Bush was born in New Haven in 1946 and raised in Texas. Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, he attended Yale University and was a member of Skull and Bones. Bush served in the Texas National Guard as a fighter pilot, and then earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1975. In 1984 he became the 46th governor of Texas, and during his second term announced that he would run for president. After a much-contested election in 2000, Bush was sworn in as the 43rd president of the United States.
Laura Welch Bush was born in Midland, Texas in 1946 and educated at Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas. She met George W. Bush at a dinner held by friends in 1977, and they were married three months later, when both were 31. As a former public school teacher and librarian, she has focused her energies on early education and literacy initiatives, launching Ready to Read, Ready to Learn. The First Lady is noted for remaining focused on her own causes, preferring to avoid political involvement.
Jenna and Barbara Bush are the fraternal twin daughters of George W. and Laura Bush. Barbara, born first, is named after her paternal grandmother, while Jenna, the younger of the two, is named for her maternal grandmother. In 2000, the girls started college-chatty, outgoing Jenna at the University of Texas and the quieter Barbara at her family's alma mater, Yale. While the Bush family has been somewhat successful in its attempts to shield the twins from the spotlight, Jenna and Barbara were both charged with underage drinking offenses in Texas in 2001. The twins have since graduated from college; Barbara will intern at a pediatric AIDS program in Houston, while Jenna plans to pursue a teaching job in New York.
FUN FACT: According to Gary Boyd Roberts, author of Ancestors of the American Presidents, the extended Bush family can connect the current president to Pocahontas, a handful of British monarchs including Princes Harry and William, and 16 American presidents: George Washington, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush.
