Denison, Texas

Daughter, Tex, came to visit from Illinois. On Wednesday, we drove to Denison, Texas. Lucky us, we found Dillards, our favorite place to shop when we lived in Dallas. Since we arrived before the store opened, we went to Grandy’s for breakfast. Disappointing for me, but Tex liked hers. It wasn’t as tasty as I remembered.

Tex found the perfect outfit in record time. Since we were nearby, we toured President Dwight David Eisenhower’s birthplace.

No one knew this house had historical value until Miss Jennie Jackson, a young school teacher who lived across the street, recognized the name Eisenhower from the news. She wondered if this was the same family as her former neighbors. After corresponding with the family, she received confirmation this was the house where he was born.

Dwight Eisenhower, future Five Star General, Liberator of Europe, and 34th President of the United States, was born in this room on October 14, 1890 to Ida Stover Eisenhower and David Eisenhower, who worked for the MKT Railroad.

The shoes represent the members of the Eisenhower family who lived here in 1890, David, the father: Ida, the mother; oldest brother Arthur (born in 1886); and Edgar (born in 1889). The booties on the rocking chair are reserved for baby Dwight.

The Eisenhowers rented this house from 1889 to 1892. The furniture inside the house didn't belong to the family, it was donated by the women of Denison after the city purchased the house in 1946 to commemorate President Eisenhower.

David and Ida Eisenhower took religion very seriously. They named their son Dwight after an evangelical preacher. While their religious roots were Mennonite, and Lutheran, both parents later followed the teachings of Charles Taze Russell, who founded the Jehovah's Witnesses.

The parlor is where the family spent time in the evening or entertained visitors on Sunday. David and Ida met at a small college in Kansas. David opened a general store in Hope, Kansas, after their marriage, but the business failed after three years ... hence the move to Denison, Texas for a job. The furnishings are typical of the time period and reflect the Eisenhower's working-class status.

Dwight Eisenhower visited his birthplace for the first time in April of 1946 after he was invited by Jennie Jackson, who in 1890 visited Ida and her new-born son in this house. The city of Denison, the Honorable Sam Rayborn, Speaker of the House, and Miss Jennie Jackson hosted what is known as the "Big Texas Breakfast".

This typical 1890's kitchen is where Ida Stover Eisenhower would have baked bread, gathered eggs, and cooked corn. One of her recipes was for corn meal mush: boiled, ground corn, cooked with lard and meat scraps, shaped into a loaf, sliced and fried. 

Ida cooked on a coal-fired stove. Arthur, the eldest son, remembers picking up unspent coal along the tracks across the street with his mother and brothers to feed the stove and help save money.

The Eisenhowers shared their house with another family. Jim Redmond a fireman for the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railway, and his wife Fannie lived upstairs. Jim fetched the doctor the night Dwight Eisenhower was born. The families saved money by sharing rent expenses.

The Eisenhower statute sculpture was created by Robert Dean. He was a 1953 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He marched in President Eisenhower's 1953 inauguration parade. It was dedicated in 1973 by Julie Nixon Eisenhower, President Nixon's daughter who married President Eisenhower's grandson David. 

*The information provided in this post was obtained from signs inside the house and a handout given to me by the guide.