Aileen and Roy: Up from the Sand Hills to the State House

About the Book

Aileen and Roy is the story of the author's parents, Roy Cochran, who rose from a sod house on a hard-scrabble farm in western Nebraska to the state house in Lincoln as governor, and his wife, Aileen Gantt Cochran, a pioneer teacher and superintendent of schools in the Nebraska sand hills. Roy Cochran's three terms as governor (1935-41) covered the most critical years in the history of the West, when the population was ravaged by drought and the Great Depression and new state-federal programs-social security, the WPA-were coming into being. Aileen Gantt grew up in the small town of North Platte at the end of the 19th century and supported her widowed mother and siblings as a teacher and county school superintendent. Their story, drawn from unpublished memoirs and family letters, provides a unique and intimate picture of life in a small western town around the turn of the century. It is also the story of two remarkable people who faced the challenge of governing in a time of despair and change.

About the Author

Mary Cochran Grimes was born in North Platte, Nebraska and is a graduate of the University of Nebraska. She received her M.A. in History from Yale University and has written a number of articles for Nebraska History. She and her husband, Lee Grimes, now live in Hamden, Connecticut.