George Romney

George Wilcken Romney (July 8, 1907 – July 26, 1995) was an American businessman and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as chairman and president of American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1962, the 43rd governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969, and 3rd secretary of housing and urban development from 1969 to 1973. He was the father of Mitt Romney, who served as United States senator from Utah and as governor of Massachusetts and was the 2012 Republican presidential nominee; the husband of 1970 U.S. Senate candidate Lenore Romney; and the paternal grandfather of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel. Romney was born to American parents living in the polygamist Mormon colonies in Mexico; events during the Mexican Revolution forced his family to flee back to the United States when he was a child. The family lived in several states and ended up in Salt Lake City, Utah, where they struggled during the Great Depression. Romney worked in a number of jobs, served as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the United Kingdom, and attended several colleges in the U.S. but did not graduate from any. In 1939, he moved to Detroit...