On Friday, November 2, 1979, numerous newspapers printed the story of the loss of one of America’s most endearing First Ladies.  Mamie Eisenhower, at age 82, had died early in the morning of the previous day, Thursday, November 1.  After suffering a debilitating stroke at her Gettysburg farm, she was transported by ambulance to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C.  She never left the hospital alive.

In her 82 years – only two weeks from turning 83 – Mamie had certainly made her mark, yet she was by all accounts a person who would have preferred a quiet life away from the spotlight.  She was born Mamie Geneva Doud, the second of four daughters of John and Elvira Doud, on Saturday, November 14, 1896, in Boone, Iowa.  Her father was a successful, second-generation meatpacker. 

When Mamie was still a child, the family relocated to Denver, Colorado at the turn of the century.  Mamie’s older sister, Eleanor, was in poor health.  Her parents thought the climate farther west would help.  Two more daughters joined the family: Ida in 1900, and Mabel in 1902.  When John Doud realized he wouldn’t be having sons, he nicknamed the two youngest girls “Buster” and “Mike”.  As Eleanor’s health continued to fail, the family spent their winters in San Antonio, Texas.¹

Mamie enjoyed a life of luxury, and she admitted that she “was rotten spoiled”.  She wasn’t allowed in the kitchen – there were servants for that work – and holidays were filled with gifts and elaborate decorations.  Though Eleanor died at age 12, the family continued to spend their winters in Texas.  On one Sunday afternoon, while visiting friends at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, the Douds met a young lieutenant making his rounds of the day.  He was Dwight D. Eisenhower.  The eighteen-year-old Mamie coolly observed the tall soldier, and both immediately felt an attraction.  He remembered that Mamie “attracted my eye instantly” and that “she was a vivacious and attractive girl…saucy in the look about her face and in her whole attitude.”²

Mamie’s mother adored Ike immediately, but John Doud wasn’t sure this man would be able to keep his daughter in the comforts she was used to enjoying.  Mamie and Ike were inseparable for the next several months, and by Valentine’s Day in 1916 they were engaged.  Since Mamie’s father was in Iowa on business until March, Ike formally asked for permission to marry Mamie on St. Patrick’s Day – so Mamie considered both holidays her engagement days.

The couple planned to marry in November; it was her father’s one request: to have Mamie marry at age 20.  The date was abruptly changed to July 1, because of the unrest caused along the border with Mexico by the bandit Pancho Villa.  Ike was needed for service.  The couple married in the Doud home, as there was not time to procure a church for the wedding.  They spent a brief honeymoon at a mountain resort, then took the train for Abilene, Kansas to meet Ike’s family.³  

Ike was one of David and Ida Eisenhower’s six sons and the first one to marry.  Meeting the debutante from Denver was an unusual occurrence for the Eisenhowers.  Ike and Mamie arrived at the depot at four in the morning, met only by father David.  Because of Lt. Eisenhower’s call to duty, they could only spend eight hours at the Eisenhower home.  Ida made a chicken dinner – one of her best dishes – for breakfast.  Mamie met Ike’s four surviving brothers (Paul had died as an infant), and then they boarded the train for San Antonio.

Mamie’s life changed significantly from the one she had enjoyed in childhood, but she knew she wanted Ike – she loved him fiercely and was ready to embrace the hardships of army life.  She remembered years later that Ike “put his arm around me…and said, “Mamie, there’s one thing you must always understand.  My country comes first and always will; you come second.” ⁴  

In her 53 years of marriage to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mamie lived in 28 different places, from the barracks at Fort Sam Houston to the White House, to their Gettysburg Farm.  In each place, she hung a plaque that read “This is Our Home”.⁵

On September 24, 1917, Ike and Mamie welcomed a son.  She named him Doud Dwight, after her father and husband.  His nickname was “Icky”, a diminutive form of his father’s sobriquet.  The next year, the family of three moved to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  The onset of World War I necessitated a training ground for the tank, the newest weapon of the era.  Since the open battlefield at Gettysburg was similar to the Ardennes in eastern France, Camp Colt was formed.  And Dwight D. Eisenhower was selected as its commander.  Since Gettysburg was a small town, the young family was able to live away from the barracks at a home near Gettysburg College.  The camp was in operation for several months, and its greatest catastrophe was the influenza epidemic.  Fortunately, the Eisenhowers escaped its devastating effects.  Still, there was bad news from Denver.

Mamie’s younger sister, Ida, had died in early November from a kidney ailment.  She and Icky returned to Denver for the funeral.  Ike, who was devoted to his in-laws, was unable to attend due to his military duties.  As the war ended, he needed to quickly close the camp and report for service elsewhere.  It turned out to be Camp Meade in Maryland.

While stationed at Camp Meade, Ike saw how the loss of Ida, the long journey to Colorado, and caring for a young son took its toll on his young wife.  Since he was making a little more money, he decided to hire someone to help her.  “We hired a girl in the neighborhood,” Ike recalled, “who seemed both pleasant and efficient.”  They were not aware, though, that just before hiring her, the girl had suffered from scarlet fever – and she was still contagious.  She unwittingly gave the disease to their young son, and he died shortly after the new year in 1921.⁶

Icky and Mamie were both popular at the military post.  Ike’s command had purchased a little uniform for the youngest Eisenhower, and often took him out on drill.  When Icky died, “a pall fell over the camp.”  Ike and Mamie never fully recovered from the loss.  As the decades passed, Mamie always remembered Icky’s birthday on September 24.⁷

Ike’s next assignment came in 1921 to go to Panama, to assist and guard the building of the canal.  A pregnant Mamie joined him in the jungles of Central America.  Like most of the hours of her days, she was alone or with the wives of the other military men.  Finally, in the summer, she returned to Denver to give birth to her second son.  She named him John, after her father.

After Panama, where Ike enjoyed a close friendship with his commander, General Fox Conner, he and Mamie were sent to Europe to mark the monuments of World War I.  Mamie enjoyed the trips to Europe and went with her husband often into the fields to mark the memorials.  She was grateful to spend time with him, and the trip together helped to reunite them in their marriage.  She later said to a reporter, “Let’s face it.  Our lives revolve around our men, and that is the way it should be.  What real satisfaction is there without them ?”⁸

Mamie, however, was deeply private and characteristically independent.  She had to be in order to live successfully through the years between the wars – and the four years of the terrible World War II.

For much of the 1930s, Ike lived in the Philippines as an aide to General Douglas MacArthur.  The newly independent nation had no military, and President Roosevelt had the foresight to help them build one.

Mamie did not wish to spend the years in Manila, as John needed to attend school.  But, in order to support her husband, she and John joined him there.  Ike was finally sent back to the states, to be stationed at Fort Lewis in Washington.  The family left in December 1939 – and they toured Japan on the way home.  Ike and Mamie were actually in San Antonio when they received the dreadful news about Pearl Harbor.  With the Japanese attack on the U.S. Naval fleet there, Ike received the call to report to Washington, D.C.  It marked the beginning for Mamie of four long years apart.⁹

Mamie hated to fly and she was afraid of many things: thunderstorms, being alone, dying, losing her husband, and not measuring up to others’ expectations.  Yet, she faced her fears and said goodbye to her beloved Ike.¹⁰

During the war years, Mamie was not able to join her husband in Europe.  General George Marshall, the head of the War Department under FDR, refused any wives to accompany their husbands.  The war was a deadly business and there was no safe haven anywhere in Europe.  In 1945, when hostilities reached their end, Mamie was in Florida on a vacation when she heard the happy news. Ike requested that his wife join him in Europe, but was denied.  Mamie remained in Washington, and John was, for much of the time, attending West Point.  Her loneliness must have been considerable.¹¹

As the battlefields grew silent, the world celebrated a new hero.  Dwight D. Eisenhower, now a five-star general, was the toast of Europe and America.  Already, both political parties approached Eisenhower to run for President.  Never a fan of anything political, Ike ignored them.  He instead accepted a position as President of Columbia University in New York City.  And, after the war, John had married, and grandchildren started coming.  The first, David, was born in 1948.  He was followed by three sisters, Anne, Susan, and Mary Jean.¹²

Ike soon discovered that universities were equally political, and Mamie did not like New York City – it was just too big for them.  When President Truman asked Ike to lead a NATO summit in Europe, he and Mamie agreed.

While in Europe on the NATO assignment with Mamie’s mother, whom she affectionately called “Nana”, they received news that Mamie’s father had died suddenly.  Mamie’s sister, Mike, had reached him in time, but Elvira Doud was inconsolable.¹³

As an election year loomed, Ike was again asked to run for President.  He did not like the idea, but Mamie talked to him about it, telling him that if he wanted to be President, he could be.  The war had taken a toll on her husband’s health, and she worried that “if Ike should become President, it would kill him.”¹⁴

Finally, Ike agreed to run for President.  He won, handily, against Adlai Stevenson.  Mamie, too, helped her husband in his successful bid.  The crowds loved Mrs. Eisenhower.  On the campaign, they would call out for her.  Mamie suddenly appeared from behind the curtain, or from the railroad car, and say airily, “Here I am !”  She wore dresses from mail order catalogs as well as Paris originals.  If she liked it, she wore it.  People came to call the color pink “Mamie Pink” as it was her favorite color.  When the Eisenhowers moved into the White House, she hung up her old plaque.  There would be one final place for the sign:  their Gettysburg farm, which they purchased in 1950.  The old farmhouse needed extensive repairs, but as soon as it was habitable, the Eisenhowers moved in, eager to escape from the Beltway whenever possible. ¹⁵

Ike’s two terms as President were successful, and Mamie was a thoughtful and gracious First Lady – the last to have been born in the 19th century.  She was completely apolitical.  She liked Bess Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt, and often visited them.  When the Communist hearings convened by Senator Eugene McCarthy, she disliked what the senator was doing, and was offended that he called Lucille Ball a communist.  She deliberately invited the cast of I Love Lucy to the White House in protest of McCarthy.  She and Ike spent their Christmases in the White House in order to allow their Secret Service detail have the day with their families.  In 1954, she donated her inaugural gown to the First Ladies exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of History.  She often visited the museum, and took the Queen Mother, the mother of Queen Elizabeth II, to the exhibit when the Royal family visited.¹⁶

Just as Mamie had feared, Ike’s health took a bad turn in the fall of 1955.  Suffering a near fatal heart attack, Mamie’s quick attention saved the President’s life.  The couple spent many months at their Gettysburg farm for his recuperation.  Before recovering, Ike also suffered a stroke.  Mamie was relieved when, by the winter of 1960, they would be leaving Washington and could finally retire to their Gettysburg farm.  Before the year ended, however, Mamie received more sad news; her mother, Elvira, died after a long illness.¹⁷

It was a brutally cold day in January 1961 when the Eisenhowers drove to Gettysburg.  The town came out in the snow to welcome them.  For the rest of his life, Ike divided his time between Gettysburg and Palm Springs.  Mamie, too, often came into town to show her support for a new business venture – she donated a dress, for example, when the National Apple Museum opened in Biglerville – or to attend church or an event.  Mostly, the couple enjoyed their days and evenings at home, sometimes entertaining friends with a game of bridge, or welcoming their grandchildren for the holidays.¹⁸

When Ike suffered yet another near fatal heart attack in early August 1968, he was taken to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C.  He remained there, in an apartment, under a doctor’s care, until he died on March 28, 1969.

Mamie took an adjoining room, and stayed with her husband whenever the doctor allowed it.  She deliberately kept alarming news from him, like the Vietnam War, or the assassination of Robert Kennedy.  She played records from their favorite musicals, and spoke to him of happier events.   Always ready to be by his side, she did not sleep well during those last weeks.  When he died, she was devastated.  While it had been expected, he was still the man she had always loved, and still she had a decade to live without him.¹⁹

In her final years, Mamie remained on the farm, often reclusive except for the company of John and his family or close friends.  She did, however, appear on various occasions to help the town of Gettysburg and to commemorate Ike’s birthday and the onset of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Society.  She regularly attended the Gettysburg Presbyterian Church.   “Truly ,” one reverend remembered, “she was a good neighbor.” ²⁰

On the day after Icky’s birthday, September 25, 1979, 82-year-old Mamie suffered a debilitating stroke and was rushed to Walter Reed Medical Center.  Unable to talk clearly, she still relished visitors.  When the family, as well as her good friends, the Moaneys, visited her that day, she declared that “ I am going to die tomorrow.”  John Eisenhower was the last person to see her that day, her final Halloween.  In the early hours of November 1, she passed away in her sleep.  She was buried by Ike and their son Icky in the Eisenhower Chapel in Abilene, Kansas.²¹

“Her legacy goes far beyond being Ike’s wife,” said her granddaughter Susan.  “More than any woman I have ever met, Mamie Eisenhower knew who she was.  The thread of loyalty and courage was finely woven into the fabric of her personality.”²²

It would have taken a strong woman to keep Dwight D. Eisenhower grounded and content.  And Mamie did just that.

She remains one of the nation’s most admired First Ladies – not because of the man she married, but because she was his better half.  While she definitely put Ike and their family first, she certainly held her own.  She lived a life of loyalty, to her husband and family, and to her country and to its people. 

With her airy grace and cheerful attitude, we also saw the sauciness that her husband had noticed the moment he met her.  She was unique. 

For some people there is no need for a surname.  She is one of them.  She was just Mamie, and Gettysburg will always be proud to be associated with that name.

Sources:  Angelo, Bonnie. First Mothers: The Women Who Shaped the Presidents .  New York: HarperCollins, 2000.  Anthony, Carl Sferrazza.  First Ladies: The Saga of the President’s Wives and Their Power .  New York: William Morrow, 1990.  Eisenhower, David with Julie Nixon Eisenhower.  Going Home to Glory . New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.   Eisenhower, Dwight D.  At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends .  National Park Service: Eastern Acorn Press, 1981 (reprint, first published in 1967).  Eisenhower, Dwight D.  Crusade in Europe .  New York: Doubleday & Company, 1948.  Eisenhower, Susan.  Mrs. Ike: Portrait of a Marriage .  Sterling, VA: Capital Books, 1996.  The Gettysburg Times, “Our Neighbor”, Nov. 16, 1979.  The Gettysburg Times, “Susan Eisenhower Tells of Grandmother”, Nov. 20, 1979.  The Gettysburg Times, “Smithsonian Opens Tribute to Mamie”, Dec. 17, 1979.  The Indianapolis Star, Nov. 2, 1979.  The Orlando Sentinel, Nov. 2, 1979.