Commander, the hero of D-Day, and thirty-fourth President of the United States, Dwight David
Eisenhower, was born on the fourteenth of October 1890, in Denison, Texas.
The third of seven boys, Dwight acquired his more well-known nickname of “Ike” from
his parents, who meant it to be a diminutive of their last name. Interestingly, all of the Eisenhower boys were called some variation of “Ike” when
they were children, but only Dwight retained the nickname into his adulthood. His modest, working-class upbringing and early educational career gave little hint of the
grand accomplishments he would achieve in the coming decades. Eisenhower was descended from German, English, and Scottish immigrants to North America.
His paternal ancestors had been German Protestant farmers who had emigrated to Pennsylvania
during the 1740s. A branch of this family moved to Kansas during the nineteenth century, and there, at Lane
University, David Eisenhower met his future wife, Ida Stover. The two were married in the autumn of 1885 and settled in the town of Hope, Kansas.
The Eisenhowers opened a general store in Hope, and Ida gave birth to their first son,
Arthur, the following year. Unfortunately, the family business failed, not only because of the economic downturn
in American farming communities, but also due to the dishonest behavior and dealings of David’s business partners.
Now facing much poorer circumstances, the family was forced to relocate to Texas.
Using his college education as an engineer, David secured employment on the Missouri-Texas-Kansas
railroad for a monthly wage of forty dollars. The family rented a small house in Denison and began a slow financial recovery.
During their few years in Texas, two more Eisenhower sons were born, Edgar and Dwight.
In 1892, the family returned to Kansas, settling in Abilene. That year, Ida gave birth to the family’s fourth son, Roy, and David became a mechanic
for the Belle Springs Creamery, typically working twelve-hour shifts, six days per week,
and now earning fifty dollars per month. The Eisenhowers thereafter put down their roots in Abilene, and Dwight always considered
it his “real” hometown, despite having been born in Texas. David and Ida raised their six boisterous and competitive sons in a modest 800-square-foot
house, on the “wrong” side of the tracks in Abilene, but with enough land on their property to grow a few subsistence crops and keep a few animals.
Combined with David’s salary, the Eisenhower family were able to support themselves well enough.
Dwight later reflected on his mostly happy childhood. “I never knew we were poor,” he said.
The values stressed at home were typical of the ethical culture of people of the American
Plains regions: responsibility, hard work, faith, humility, modesty, honesty, and sincerity.
In addition to their regular chores, each of the boys was assigned a plot of the family’s property to cultivate crops and each boy was responsible for selling the crops he produced
to help support the family. David responded to any and all misbehavior on the part of his sons with firm discipline.
Ike more than occasionally found himself in trouble for his hot and quick temper, which
often landed him in fights with other boys in and out of school.
Religion played an important role in the Eisenhowers’ family life. David and Ida were members of a Mennonite sect called the “Brethren of Christ,”
also known as the “River Brethren,” for their practice of baptizing their followers in rivers.
A religious shift took place in the Eisenhower house in the spring of 1895, when the whole
family fell into deep mourning. The family’s fifth son, Paul, died of diphtheria at only ten months old.
As often happens in response to tragedy, Ida’s faith seems to have undergone an alteration
following her son’s death. Some months earlier, Ida had begun attending meetings of the International Bible Students
Association, an organization that would later become known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Following her son’s death, Ida’s association with this sect became more pronounced, and
the Abilene chapter of this group began holding meetings regularly at the Eisenhower home.
David and Ida encouraged their children in their religious education and observance,