Dwight D Eisenhower Facts | 34th US PRESIDENT
US President: 1953-1961
US Vice President: Richard Nixon
Political Party: Republican
Birth: October 14, 1890 at Denison, Texas
Death: March 28, 1969 (aged 78) at Washington, D.C
Offices held:
34th President of the United States (1953 – 1961)
1st Governor of the American Zone of Occupied Germany (1945)
13th President of Columbia University (1948 – 1953)
First Family
First Ladies: Mamie Eisenhower (m. 1916 – 1969)
Children: Doud Eisenhower, John Eisenhower
Biographies
Biography from Biography.com – Dwight D Eisenhower
Military Biography
Photos
Pictures from the Library of Congress
Photographs from Presidential library
Genealogy
Dwight D Eisenhower ancestry
Eisenhower/Stover genealogy
Eisenhower/Eisenhauer family history
Facts about Dwight D Eisenhower
His birth name was David Dwight Eisenhower. His mother changed it to Dwight David Eisenhower later.
Although he spent 35 years in the military and served during both world wars, Eisenhower never saw a single day of active combat.
Young Dwight Eisenhower grew up in Abilene, Kansas, where he excelled as an athlete. In 1911, he earned an appointment to West Point, where he played football and was an average student.
Dwight and Mamie Eisenhowers first son, Doud Dwight, was born on September 24, 1917. As Christmas 1920 approached, he fell ill with scarlet fever. The illness soon morphed into meningitis, and the 3-year-old died on January 2, 1921.
- He became known as a planning and logistics expert at war.
- While retaining most Fair Deal programs, he stressed fiscal responsibility in domestic affairs. A moderate in civil rights, he sent troops to Little Rock, Ark., to enforce court-ordered school integration.
- He was president of Columbia University between 1948 and 1950.
- While president of Columbia, Eisenhower took up painting as a hobby after watching artist Thomas Stephens paint a portrait of Mamie.
He had a deep presidential legacy at home. President Eisenhower’s administration saw the addition of Alaska and Hawaii as states, a massive build-out of the nations highway system, and the creation of NASA.
- Eisenhower was never seriously challenged in two presidential campaigns.
- Eisenhower became the first president to employ the new aviation technology when he rode in a two-passenger Bell H-13J helicopter to Camp David as part of a test of White House evacuation procedures.
- While president, he spent nearly two months in the hospital. During a September 1955 vacation in Colorado, Eisenhower suffered a heart attack.
- Eisenhower opposed using nuclear weapons on Japan. He believed that a Japanese surrender was imminent in the summer of 1945.
During his years in the military, Eisenhower gained a reputation as an excellent writer. He authored speeches, letters, reports and staff studies for top brass, including Douglas MacArthur, as well as the secretary of war.
Dwight D Eisenhower Childhood
Dwight D. Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas, to David Jacob Eisenhower and Ida Elizabeth Stover Eisenhower. Dwight was the third of his parents seven sons. His parents had moved from Abilene, Kansas, to Denison, Texas, before he was born. In Denison, the family lived in a tiny house near the railroad tracks while David cleaned train engines for a living.
When Dwight was a year and a half old, his family moved back to Abilene so David could take a better job at his brother-in-law’s creamery.
In Abilene, Dwight’s 10-month-old brother Paul died of diphtheria when Dwight was 4 years old. Despite the tragedy, Dwight formed happy childhood memories in Abilene that he would cherish throughout his life. Among these were his days playing baseball and football at Abilene High School.
After Eisenhower graduated from high school in 1909, he joined his father and uncle at the Belle Springs Creamery while also moonlighting as a fireman. Eisenhower used the money he earned to pay his younger brother Edgars tuition at the University of Michigan. The brothers had a deal: After two years, theyd switch places”with Edgar then working to support Eisenhower’s college education. Luckily for Edgar, he never had to live up to his end of the deal.
In 1911, Dwight landed an appointment at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, where attendance was free of charge. Once again he was a star on the football field, until a series of knee injuries forced him to stop playing. In 1915, Eisenhower proudly graduated from West Point, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant.
Where is Dwight D Eisenhower buried?
On March 29, his body was moved to the Washington National Cathedral’s Bethlehem Chapel. His body arrived to Abilene, Kansas on April 2, and was interred that day in a small chapel on the grounds of the Eisenhower Presidential Library. The president’s body was buried as a General of the Army.
How did Dwight D Eisenhower die?
On the morning of March 28, 1969, at the age of 78, Eisenhower died in Washington, D.C., of congestive heart failure at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.”