[1][2][3] A year after the end of World War II, in 1946, 21-year-old Vesta Coward married 22-year-old US Navy "Battle of the Atlantic" combat veteran Albert Roy, moved to his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, and then joined The Prudential Insurance Company as a Special Sales Agent.

Roy began her political career late at the ground level as the Salem, NH Supervisor Of The Checklist and then as a Town Selectman in 1968.

It was there that Roy began to learn the state ropes and etch her statewide reputation as a respected leader among her colleagues and her constituents.

[2][5] As the result of this complicated set of events, Vesta Roy was legally - according to The New Hampshire Constitution - the first Republican woman Governor in American history.

In 1986, as Governor John Sununu finished his second term and announced he would not seek a third term, it was a foregone conclusion among New Hampshire politicos that Vesta Roy would then be the odds-on favorite to run as the 1986 New Hampshire GOP gubernatorial nominee, be easily elected due to her statewide popularity, and succeed Sununu as the sworn in Governor in 1987.

She is buried next her husband Albert in the Roy Family plot at Saint Joseph's Cemetery in East Chelmsford, Massachusetts.