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Family of Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Family of Dwight D. Eisenhower

The family of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, and his wife, Mamie, consists predominantly of German and Pennsylvania Dutch background. They are related by marriage to the family of Richard Nixon, who was Eisenhower's vice-president, and was later the 37th president of the United States.

The Eisenhauer (German for "iron hewer/miner") family migrated to America from Karlsbrunn (Nassau-Saarbrücken) in 1741, first settling in York, Pennsylvania. They moved to Kansas in the 1880s. Accounts vary as to how and when the German name Eisenhauer was anglicized to Eisenhower. Eisenhower's Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors, who were primarily farmers, included Hans Nikolaus Eisenhauer of Karlsbrunn, who migrated to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1741. Dwight D. Eisenhower's lineage includes German ancestors and Swiss German ancestors.

The great-grandson of Hans Nikolaus Eisenhauer was Jacob Eisenhower, a Kansas farmer. Jacob's son, David Jacob Eisenhower (1863–1942), was Dwight D. Eisenhower's father. David Jacob was a college-educated engineer, despite his father having urged him to stay on the family farm. David owned a general store in Hope, Kansas, but the business failed due to economic conditions and the family became impoverished. The Eisenhowers then lived in Texas from 1889 until 1892, and later returned to Kansas, with $24 (equivalent to $840 in 2024) to their name at the time. David worked as a railroad mechanic and then at a creamery.

Eisenhower's mother, Ida Elizabeth (Stover) Eisenhower, born in Virginia, of predominantly German Protestant ancestry, moved to Kansas from Virginia. She married David on September 23, 1885, in Lecompton, Kansas, on the campus of their alma mater, Lane University.

By 1898, the parents made a decent living and provided a suitable home for their large family. They had seven sons, of whom one died in infancy.

Of these, Milton was the most notable of the brothers other than Dwight. Milton became an American educational administrator, serving as president of three major American universities: Kansas State University (1943–1950), Pennsylvania State University (1950–1956), and Johns Hopkins University (1956–1957). On October 12, 1927, Eisenhower married Helen Elsie Eakin (1904–1954), with whom he had a son, Milton Stover Eisenhower, Jr., in 1930 and a daughter, Ruth Eakin Eisenhower, in 1938.

Earl also achieved a measure of notability, having been elected to a term in the Illinois House of Representatives, from 1965 to 1967. Earl married Kathryn McIntyre Snyder in 1933, with whom he had two children.

Edgar graduated from the University of Michigan in 1914, and began practicing law in 1915 in Tacoma, Washington; he became was known as a "shoot from the hip ultraconservative." Edgar was married three times, first to Louise Alexander Eisenhower (1893–1946) in 1911, then to Bernice Thompson Eisenhower (1902–1948) in 1940, and finally to Lucille Dawson Eisenhower (1921–2012) in 1951. Edgar had two children, both with his first wife, Merrill Jack Eisenhower (1916–1956), and Janis Louise Eisenhower Causin (1922–2000).

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