A Man, a Woman, and Joyous Acceptance
As I mentioned in the Tender Teddy post more than a year ago, in President Theodore Roosevelt’s autobiography, he wrote about the virtues necessary for a nation. He said: “. . . these virtues are as dust on a windy street unless back of them lie the strong and tender virtues of a family life based on the love of the one man for the one woman and on their joyous and fearless acceptance of their common obligation to the children that are theirs.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower grew up in that kind of family. David Jacob Eisenhower moved to Kansas in 1878 with his father, grandfather, and other members of his family. Ida Elizabeth Stover moved to the state around 1883 to join her brother there. David and Ida met at Lane College in Lecompton, Kansas. They married in its chapel two years later.
David and Ida received both of these clocks as wedding presents.
For a while, David and his brother Abraham Lincoln Eisenhower, who was also a veterinarian, ran a store in Hope, Kansas. David and Ida’s first two sons were born in Hope. The store was not successful, so David moved his family to Denison, Texas, where he worked for the railroad and where his third son Dwight was born in 1890. In 1892, the family moved to Abilene, Kansas. In Abilene, Ida gave birth to four more sons. She and David remained in Abilene for the rest of their lives.
In 1898 Abraham Lincoln Eisenhower rented his homestead, consisting of a six-room house and a three-acre plot of land, to his brother David. Along with the rental came an option to purchase the homestead. I don’t understand why the real estate transaction was handled as it was; but in 1899 the title of the land changed from Abraham Lincoln Eisenhower to Ida Stover Eisenhower for the sum of $1,000. In 1909 Ida sold the house to her husband David for $1.00.
Part of the understanding between the two brothers was that if Abraham sold David the house, David would care for their father when the time came. That time came in 1900. Grandfather Jacob lived with his son and his family until his death in 1906.
Yesterday I quoted from then-General Eisenhower’s speech in which he spoke of his parents’ efforts to train and educate their children. Like all caring parents, they worked to care for their physical needs. In Abilene, David worked twelve-hour shifts, often seven days a week, at the local creamery. Ida worked hard to feed herself and a total of eight men and boys: a husband, a father-in-law, and six boys (as I mentioned yesterday, one of their sons died when just ten months old). The family grew a large garden, and Ida canned 600-700 quarts of vegetables each year. On display is this dough box where she made nine loaves of bread every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday — 27 loaves a week — to feed her hungry family!
However, Ida also believed in teaching her boys how to take care of themselves. She taught them how to darn socks and how to cook. On Sundays Ida got time off from cooking. Each week two sons left church early and went home to make Sunday lunch. Cooking became one of Ike’s favorite hobbies.
She looks well to the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness.
Proverbs 31:27