Lynne Cheney Spent Years Advocating for Specific Historical Teachings Across the United States
Lynne Cheney was a historian and author before she was ever the second lady.
Published Nov. 4 2025, 11:30 a.m. ET
Former Vice President Dick Cheney was thrust into the spotlight in the early 2000s as former President George W. Bush's right-hand man. As a result, so was Dick's wife, Lynne Cheney. Although their time in Washington, D.C. ended well before social media got its grip on politicians and caused new generations to wonder who is who, there are still questions and curiosity surrounding who Dick Cheney's wife and kids are.
Dick died on Nov. 4, 2025, and is survived by Lynne and their two adult daughters. During her time as the second lady and even afterward, Lynne devoted her time to campaigning for American history to be taught in schools across the United States in a way that she doesn't believe it has been. She continued her work after her and Dick's time in Washington, D.C. ended.
Dick Cheney's wife has expressed clear ideas about how American history should be taught.
According to Lynne's official White House biography, her main focus as the second lady was to bring awareness and change to schools, primarily high schools, across the U.S. She believes that American history is taught in a way that focuses too much on the negative aspects of American colonization and not enough on the positive pieces of historical information.
Lynne even founded the James Madison Book Award Fund, which was designed to award $10,000 each year to an author whose book best represents American history for young people. Lynne also wrote books of her own, both fiction and non-fiction. One of her fiction novels, Executive Privilege: A Washington Novel, is a political drama.
She also wrote or co-wrote numerous non-fiction books about American history, including The Virginia Dynasty: Four Presidents and the Creation of the American Nation, We the People: The Story of Our Constitution, and A Time for Freedom: What Happened When in America. Her non-fiction books are all focused on history in America.
Dick Cheney and his wife had two kids together.
Dick and Lynne share two adult daughters, Mary and Elizabeth Cheney. They also have seven grandchildren in total, per Today. Elizabeth, or Liz, followed in Dick's footsteps in politics. She was once the deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, and she ran for U.S. Senate in Wyoming in 2014. She later served the House of Representatives from 2017 to 2023.
Liz is a staunch Republican, like the rest of her family, but she has spoken out against Donald Trump more than once. In 2022, Politico reported that Liz appeared at an event where the topic was the Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021.
"The reality that we face today as Republicans, as we think about the choice in front of us, we have to choose," she said. "Because Republicans cannot both be loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution."
Although Dick and Lynne's younger daughter Mary is not in politics, she was, according to NPR, a campaign aid for Dick during both elections where he was Bush's vice presidential candidate. She co-founded the communications company BKM Strategies in 2010, per her Georgetown bio.
In 2015, the company merged with another company to create a firm based in Washington, D.C. So really, she isn't too far from where the family's political aspirations took flight.