A Mind of Her Own: Helen Connor Laird and Family, 1888-1982 (Wisconsin Land and Life)

A Mind of Her Own: Helen Connor Laird and Family 1888–1982 captures the public achievement and private pain of a remarkable Wisconsin woman and her family, whose interests and influence extended well beyond the borders of the state. Spanning almost a century, the history speaks to the way we were and are: a stridently materialistic nation with a deep and persistent spiritual component. "Helen Connor Laird was the eldest child of William Duncan Connor, a major figure in Wisconsin's emerging hardwood lumber industry and in Wisconsin's turbulent turn-of-the-century political scene, instrumental in Robert La Follette's phenomenal success in the gubernatorial election of 1904 and his unsuccessful bid to gain Republican support for the 1912 presidential election." "Helen spent almost her entire ninety-three years in central and northern Wisconsin. Her vast reading and probing mind, however, connected her to the world, and her early life in frontier communities as well as her home influences, Presbyterian background, and education at Milwaukee Downer and the University of Wisconsin-Madison impelled her to lead. While engaging at times in the business that absorbed members of her competitive family and sharing with them an interest in politics, she pursued a life-long passion for education, serving on the University of Wisconsin board of regents in the 1950s. By the time her third son, Melvin R. Laird Jr., became secretary of defense in 1969, she had served in leadership positions in her community, district, and state even has her family had become one of Wisconsin's leading Republican dynasties."--BOOK JACKET

A Mind of Her Own:  Helen Connor Laird and Family 1888–1982 captures the public achievement and private pain of a remarkable Wisconsin woman and her family, whose interests and influence extended well beyond the borders of the state. Spanning almost a century, the history speaks to the way we were and are: a stridently materialistic nation with a deep and persistent spiritual component.

Captures the public achievement and private pain of a Wisconsin woman and her family. Helen's home influences, Presbyterian background, education and talents impelled her to lead. This book, based on a family's history, speaks about the way we were and are, a stridently materialistic nation with a deep and persistent spiritual component.