When Gerald Ford lost the 1976 election, his young chief of staff, Dick Cheney, decided to return with his family (wife Lynne and daughters Liz and Mary) to Wyoming, his home state, to run for office. “It made no sense to hang around Washington,” Cheney explains in the 2011 memoir he co-wrote with his daughter and current senatorial candidate Liz Cheney. “[I]f you want to run for office, you have to get out of D.C. and establish yourself someplace around the country where you may someday have a chance to run.”
And so in June 1977, Cheney packed the family’s belongings into a rental truck and drove to Casper, Wyoming. It was eight-year-old Mary’s job to water the houseplants during the hot trip.
Cheney writes that the family “thrived” in Casper, where Mary and Liz settled into an idyllic rhythm of school, bike rides, camping, fishing and visiting their grandparents. Both girls were active in Cheney’s first congressional campaign, handing out buttons and literature at campaign events.
Above, the Cheney family (with Basset Hound Cyrano) outside their home in Casper, Wyoming in March 1978.