The October 1944 GFA Bulletin included a brief article about Nebraska Governor, Dwight Griswold:
“The honorable Dwight Griswold, Governor of Nebraska has found his name many times in the last few months in the newspapers and often in the headlines.
In the National Republican Convention he was chosen to nominate Gov. Thomas E. Dewey of New York for Chief Executive of the Unite States and he was active in shaping the platform of the party and later in planning the Republican campaign when Gov. Dewey called a meeting in St. Louis of all the Republican Governors.
The Governor has gained the confidence of the more conservative Eastern states and on August 7 he gave the “keynote speech” at the Connecticut State Convention of the Republican Party at Hartford, CT.
His ability to put his finger on the more flagrant failures of government, and his constructive suggested reforms and his forth right fearless language and sound reasoning are winning for him a larger following in both generations. In the “Republican” for May 1944 his picture is on the cover and on page 6 is a splendid article on “Dwight Griswold Pioneer Son” by Marie Claire Louisell with several interesting family pictures that gives the most information concerning his early life that has been written. It tells the following facts about him.”
A follow up article was published in the October 2024 GFA Bulletin:
Notable Griswold, Dwight Palmer Griswold mentioned in the October 1944 GFA bulletin served not only as a three-term Governor
of Nebraska in the 1940’s, but was also as an Army captain in field artillery during World War I, an editor and publisher of the Gordon Journal in Gordon, Nebraska from 1922 to 1940, a member of the Nebraska House of Representatives and State Senate in the 1920’s, and the junior member from Nebraska of the U.S. Senate from 1952 until his death in 1954. In the photo at right, Governor Griswold is shown honoring screen and radio comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello of the famous ‘Abbott and Costello’ duo with souvenir ears of corn during ceremonies at the Nebraska State Capitol in 1942 to conclude a war bond sale campaign. At the peak of their popularity, Abbott and Costello made two nationwide tours selling war bonds that raised an estimated $85 million for the U.S. government.1
Griswold was born in Harrison, Sioux County, Nebraska on November 27th, 1893 and came from one of the “first families” of Northwestern Nebraska. An Edward descendant, his parents, Dwight Hubbard Griswold (1860-1928) and Clarissa Palmer Griswold (1862-1946), settled in Sioux County in 1886 in a log cabin before the arrival of the railroad. His grandfather, Alvin Hubbard Griswold (1835-1892) settled in Iowa in 1855 and helped found the Republican Party in that state. Dwight Palmer Griswold was educated at the Kearny Military Academy, Nebraska Wesleyan University, and the University of Nebraska. Graduating from college at only 20, his first career was in banking where, according to Ted Lansdale, he worked his way from clerk to chairman of the board in just two years. Before serving during WW I, Griswold also served as a sergeant in the Fourth Nebraska Infantry on the U.S. border with Mexico from 1916 to 1917. He was also a gunnery instructor at Fort Sill, OK.2
After leaving the Governorship, Griswold served as Director of the Division of Internal Affairs and Communications for the Military Government of Germany. From 1947 to 1948, he served as chief of the American Mission Aid to Greece, a pre-Marshall Plan program designed to help stave off the advancement of communism and promote democracy.2
In 1954, following his death from a heart attack at the age of 60, syndicated columnist, Holmes Alexander described Griswold as the model among Senate members at that time of “a modern, middle-road Republican” leader.3 He was survived by his wife , Erma Elliott, and one daughter, Dorothy Griswold Gayer. He was preceded in death by his son, Dwight Elliot Griswold, who died in 1951 in his mid-twenties of polio. Dwight Palmer Griswold is buried in the Fairview Cemetery in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. None of Dwight’s children had children that survived to adulthood.
1Gaster, Patricia. “Abbott and Costello Honored for War Bond Sales.” Nebraska State Historical Society, https://history.nebraska.gov/abbott-and-costello-honored-for-war-bond-sales/
2Lansdale, Ted. “He Doesn’t Believe in Pushing People Around”. Omaha World-Herald, 22 February, 1953, p. 98. and 117.
3”Washington Columnist Describes Senator Griswold as Middle-Road Republican Leader.” Cedar County News, 25 February, 1954, p. 1.