Texas, Her Texas, 6: The Life and Times of Frances Goff

by Nancy Beck Young, Lewis L. Gould, Ann Richards (Foreword)

Texas, Her Texas is the fascinating story of Frances Goff and her three remarkable in Texas government as legislative aide and State Budget Director; at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center; and as Director of the Bluebonnet Girls State Program of the American Legion Auxiliary. Based on Goff’s personal papers and interviews with those who knew her, including former Texas Governor Ann Richards, the book provides inside glimpses of such leaders in state politics as Coke Stevenson, Allan Shivers, and Richards herself. The fast-paced narrative also describes the founding and early years of M. D. Anderson and Goff’s key role as an aide to Dr. R. Lee Clark in building this world-renowned cancer treatment facility.

At the core of the book is the Bluebonnet Girls State Program, an annual citizenship session for young Texas women that Goff directed for four decades. More than twenty thousand high school girls experienced Goff’s charismatic leadership and took to heart her message of public service and involvement. In turn, they became part of Goff’s statewide network. Texas, Her Texas makes a major contribution to a better understanding of how this voluntary women’s group is shaping present-day Texas.

Frances Goff was a people person, and it is the portraits of those whose lives she touched that make this book so readable. From her youthful days in Kenedy to the corridors of the Texas Capitol, Goff knew the movers and shakers of Texas—Barbara Jordan, Lyndon Johnson, George Bush, Jack Cox, and Lloyd Bentsen, to name just a few—and became one herself. Goff’s biography will inspire those who knew her and those who are learning about her for the first time. She was, says Ann Richards, a “grand lionness of a woman,” and Texas , Her Texas is her story.

Number Barker Texas History Center Series

Genres: Biography

240 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1997

About the author

Nancy Beck Young is a historian of twentieth-century American politics. Her research questions how ideology has shaped public policy and political institutions. Much of her work involves study of Congress, the presidency, electoral politics, and first ladies. Dr. Young is also interested in Texas political history, especially Texans in Washington. She joined the faculty of the University of Houston in 2007 after teaching for ten years at McKendree College in Illinois. She has held fellowships at the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University and at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Along with colleague Leandra Zarnow, she was awarded funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to host a 2017 Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers entitled Gender, the State, and the 1977 International Women’s Year Conference.

Reviews

[KitCat · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a hard book to read. It seems to have been put together from audio tapes so it is very choppy. There are anecdotes that are relayed without reason and sometimes without closure to their relevance.
I was disappointed that the authors chose to defer talking about Frances Goff's role with the Texas Medical Center, instead stating there would soon be another book that would have those details.

[Tamra · Rating 3 out of 5]

The silence about Miss Goff's personal life is deafening, but Texas, Her Texas would still be an interesting read for anyone who participated in Bluebonnet Girls State or has an out-sized interest in Texas history.