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Mamie Goes Home for the First Time

On the day after Thanksgiving 1955, a small group gathered at the home of Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower for an informal ceremony.  At the appointed time, the group convened in the living room in order to hear the Reverend Edward Elson give a blessing.

He was blessing the house.

It may seem strange that Mamie Eisenhower wanted to have her new house blessed in a formal ceremony.  But this was not just any house to Mamie.  It was the first and only home that she and Ike would ever own.

Mamie personally supervised the extensive renovations to their house near Gettysburg

Life with Ike had been glaringly different from the life that Mamie had known growing up.  As one of four daughters in a self-proclaimed “girl family,” Mamie had hardly ever been deprived of anything.  After her wedding, she quickly found that the army life was a life of service — and sacrifice.  It was a life in which you had to sacrifice your own wants and needs.  You had to sacrifice them to your duty.

Early in their marriage Ike told Mamie frankly, “my duty will always come first.” 

About six months into their marriage, Ike received orders that would take him away from Mamie and their two-room quarters in San Antonio.  Mamie had been looking forward to making this house a real home.  But now her husband would be gone.  For the very first time in her life, she would have to spend the night by herself in a house — completely alone.

It would be more than a year before Mamie was allowed to join Ike.  During this time she experienced her first real taste of army life.  It was also her first real experience with housekeeping.   Mamie also gave birth to their first son, Doud Dwight, who was nicknamed “Ikky.”  During his first seven months, Ikky never saw his father for more than a few days.

The separation of the young family seemed to be a long one at the time.  But it was just the beginning of an enduring lifestyle.  In the course of their marriage, Mamie found that she would have to endure years and years of separation from Ike, and especially so during World War II, when they enjoyed just a few brief visits.

Even when they were together, Mamie spent much of her time moving her family from army post to army post.  The Eisenhowers relocated twelve times in the first twelve years of their marriage.  In the late 1930s, Mamie had to pack up and move five more times in two years.  She became a first-rate packer, mover, and unpacker, but Mamie never enjoyed this nomadic lifestyle.  She once remarked, “I feel like a football—kicked from place to place.”

To make matters worse, the places where she had to move were often less than desirable.  The Eisenhowers’ first home at Gettysburg — where Ike was commander of the Tank Corps at Camp Colt during World War I — was a tiny place that smelled foul.  It had no electricity or gas.  The heat was furnished by a potbellied stove — which Mamie did not know how to use.

During the summer of 1918, they moved into a fraternity house at Gettysburg College.  Although this house was much larger than their previous residence, it had no kitchen. Mamie had to resort to washing the dishes and doing the laundry in the bathtub.

The most difficult place for Mamie was their house in Panama, where Ike was Executive Officer of an infantry brigade from1922 to 1924.  The house was surrounded by a jungle which actually intruded into their home.  Thick vines were growing on the screens. Mildew appeared on the porch and began to weaken it.  Snakes, bats, and insects infested the house.  All the while, Mamie was pregnant with their second child. 

By the time they moved into their retirement home near Gettysburg, the Eisenhowers had lived in dozens of different places.  Mamie had lived on an unstable hillside in Panama, in the jungles of the Philippines, on the banks of the Seine, and all over the United States.  She had lived in dozens of army quarters, a fraternity house, an apartment in our nation’s capital, a mansion in New York City, and then the White House.  She had traveled all over Europe, staying in castles and conversing with dignitaries. 

In 1950, the Eisenhowers bought the farmhouse in Gettysburg, and Mamie finally had a place in which to create a real home for herself and Ike.  It was a 189-acre farm, which adjoined the Gettysburg battlefield.  The location’s historical significance appealed to Ike for obvious reasons.  Mamie, too, was very fond of the “romance of the place.” 

The house needed renovation.  This suited Mamie just fine.   It gave her the chance to redesign the place so it would suit them during their retirement.  She created large, airy rooms with beautiful views.  Though she would have preferred to keep as much of the original house as she could, it was in very poor shape.  They had to knock down almost everything except for an original wall, part of an old staircase, and a dutch oven.  The rest of the house was built around these original pieces. 

The house took many years to restore.  Eisenhower used union labor because he felt that as President he had no other choice.  This decision made the work more costly.  Consequently, money became much tighter for the Eisenhowers in the early 1950s.  Mamie pitched in money that she had been saving, for she was determined to make the old farm an absolutely perfect home for years to come.  When it was time to decorate the house, Mamie finally got the chance to take out of storage the precious furniture that she had been collecting in the previous thirty-eight years. 

When the house was finally completed, the Eisenhowers used it to entertain friends, family, and even dignitaries.  The President spent time playing golf at the Gettysburg Country Club and inspecting the Angus cattle that he kept on the farm.  Mamie enjoyed playing with her grandchildren in the large house.  After Ike’s heart attack in 1955, he spent much of his recovery time at the house up in Gettysburg.  It was dubbed the “temporary White House.”

 Most importantly, the house became the place in which Mamie and Ike could relax and get away from all the pressures of Washington.  Their favorite room was the glassed-in porch.  The Eisenhowers found it peaceful and spent many hours there throughout the day. 

No place on earth would be as dear to Mamie as the farmhouse in Gettysburg.  She spent her last moments in that house.  Perhaps one of the reasons that the Eisenhowers chose to bequeath the home to the nation as a National Park Service museum was so that no one else would ever live there — and the spirit of Mamie would never ever have to move out.