Epilogue: Meet George Dern, the first

Remember, former Vice President Dick Cheney is a former Nebraskan who was secretary of defense during the administration of George H. W. Bush.

Although he was a childhood Nebraskan only, a kid who grew up in Lincoln, Cheney had Nebraska roots.

When he came here as vice president in 2004 to raise funds for Jeff Fortenberry's first congressional campaign, Cheney took time to visit his old neighborhood and then reminisced about his childhood during an interview in a room at the Cornhusker Hotel that had been turned into a safe fortress.

So, if Hagel wins what is shaping up to be a rough-and-tumble confirmation battle in the Senate, he would be the second Nebraskan to serve as civilian director of America's military establishment.

Right?

Nope.

George Dern.

George who?

During Franklin D. Roosevelt's first presidential term, from Roosevelt's inauguration on March 4, 1933, until Dern's sudden death on Aug. 27, 1936, he was U.S. secretary of war.

And he was born in Dodge County in 1872, graduated from Fremont Normal College, attended the University of Nebraska, was a lineman on the football team and even served as captain of the 1894 Bugeaters. Hey, that's George who.

Thanks to a prompting from the Nebraska State Historical Society, Dern surfaces now, and his colorful, unknown story ends with a trip by President Roosevelt into drought-stricken western Nebraska in 1936.

Let's go there first.

Riding aboard a nine-car presidential train in a Pullman named Pioneer, Roosevelt was in the midst of a Midlands drought tour when he was informed his secretary of war had died in Washington as a result of heart and kidney complications that developed while he was battling influenza.

Roosevelt quickly rearranged his trip, which marked the unofficial beginning of his re-election campaign, and ordered that his train be diverted so he could attend Dern's funeral in Salt Lake City.

That sent him to Sidney for an unscheduled stop.

Smiling beneath a Panama straw hat, Roosevelt embarked from the train and spoke briefly to a crowd of about 5,000 people, then was helped into a car as a 17-vehicle procession headed into farmland.

"You ought to plant some trees," Roosevelt suggested to local farmer O.D. Burris as the president assessed some of the damage.

"Yes, sir, I know it, they sure would help," Burris replied, according to a banner headline article in The Lincoln Star.

"Well, keep your chin up," Roosevelt said after talking with Burris for about 15 minutes.

Dern's funeral train met up with Roosevelt's train in Sidney and preceded it during the remainder of the trip to Salt Lake City for a ceremony at the Mormon Tabernacle. 

On the way west from Washington, the Dern train stopped for an hour in Omaha for brief condolences. Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace got off to greet a contingent of mourners.

This final chapter of Dern's story was chronicled in Nebraska History magazine in an article by Bethene Wookey Larson published in 1984.

Now, let's go back to the middle of this story and see just who he was.

After leaving the University of Nebraska, Dern accompanied his family to Salt Lake City and built his future in Utah. 

But he returned to Fremont briefly in 1899 to marry Charlotte Brown. They had seven children. 

Dern was elected to the Utah state senate in 1914 as a candidate with Democratic and Progressive Party support. 

In 1924, he was elected governor, ousting incumbent Republican Gov. Charles Mabey, and sailing atop one of the most clever campaign slogans of his day. Or any day.

"We want a Dern good governor, and we don't mean Mabey!"

Dern was a progressive governor in a conservative state, leading the way to adoption of a state income tax to help lift some of the burden from property taxes. 

In 1928, he was re-elected, subsequently became chairman of the National Governors Conference and began to form a working relationship with the governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt.  

And the rest is history that almost all of us in Nebraska do not know.

Oh, but there's also a postscript to this story: Dern's grandson is Academy Award-nominated actor Bruce Dern. His great-granddaughter is Academy Award-nominated actress Laura Dern.

And so there you are: Hagel would be third.