Grand Old Partisan

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I honor Therese Jenkins, born in Wisconsin, May 1st 1853. She relocated to Wyoming at age twenty-four and married a wholesaler in Cheyenne. Her political activism began with campaigning to elect, for the 1889 constitutional convention, delegates who supported women's suffrage. Jenkins keynoted Wyoming's statehood celebration, delivering "an address which in ability, logic and eloquence has rarely if ever been equalled by any woman of the land. She was grandly equal to the occasion." The state GOP named her an alternate delegate to the 1892 Republican National Convention. She was one of the first two female delegates to a major-party national convention. Later in life, Jenkins advocated for women's suffrage in neighboring states.  Popular Science  magazine published her article 'The Mental Force of Woman'. She also worked a...

Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I salute Winthrop Rockefeller, born in New York City, May 1st 1912. He was grandson of oil magnate John Rockefeller and brother of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. He rose to lieutenant colonel during WWII. Heroism when a kamikaze plane struck his troopship garnered him a Bronze Star with Oak Leave Clusters as well as a Purple Heart. A visit in 1953 to Arkansas convinced him to settle there. Rockefeller put his wealth to good use, financing schools and clinics and a fine arts center. He entered politics with fundraising for the state GOP, and soon the party named him National Committeeman. Two years after a failed bid to unseat racist Democrat governor Orval Faubus, in 1966 Rockefeller was elected governor. Highlights of his two terms included desegregating schools and reforming prisons. Looking back on his administration, he noted th...