When vacation plans shift from fun and sun to the prospect of traipsing through a dusty library, a bright blue sky can turn cloudy in an instant.
My group tour through the Heartland took on just such a tone for me with the inclusion of a stop at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home in Abilene, a small town 90 miles north of Wichita.
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I had a flashback to childhood vacation detours my mother would slip in “for enrichment.” My initial thought was: “How fast can I get out of here?” I was prepared to hate the place. But to my surprise, I was fascinated and moved.
Going in, I knew very little about America’s 34th president. I quickly learned that the few things I thought I knew turned out to be shallow and inaccurate. In just two hours of wandering the 22-acre campus’s five buildings, my vision of vanilla Ike morphed into a brilliant, brave, compassionate person I now admire on many levels.
A short film about Eisenhower’s life is shown in the auditorium of the visitors center, which also houses a well-stocked gift shop. It’s built on the site of the former Lincoln School, where Eisenhower was an elementary student.
One of more than a dozen U.S. presidential libraries, Ike’s is a treasure trove for researchers and historians, packed with 26 million-plus manuscripts and over 1 million photographs, movies, audio recordings and other items.
The museum, dedicated in 1954, includes 30,000 square feet of gallery space. It’s rich with expertly curated permanent and revolving exhibits depicting personal moments of Ike’s life, the five-star general’s military career and the most significant accomplishments of his presidency.
I knew that as an Army general, Eisenhower was one of the architects of D-Day. But the museum provides a deeper look into Ike’s role in engineering the attack that changed the course of World War II. For example, nine months before the battle, Ike built a huge, 3-D strategic model of the assault terrain and battle points and had it shipped overseas to assist with the maneuver. The original table where Eisenhower planned the D-Day invasion is on display, along with uniforms, weapons, documents and other battle memorabilia.
Photos and text tell the story of the West Point-trained general leaving his D-Day war room to mingle with his troops just before the assault. He chatted with the men about fishing and casting — a conversation that had a dual purpose. As this formidable military commander talked lures and bait, he also told his soldiers about the coming assault’s grave risks, assuring them that their sacrifices would allow Americans to remain free to fish at home.
Before visiting the museum, I was ignorant about Eisenhower’s most significant presidential accomplishments. He doggedly pushed for construction of the interstate highway system, founded the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and, during a tumultuous time in the civil rights movement, he sent troops to Little Rock, Ark., to enforce desegregation. Throughout his presidency, Ike quietly and repeatedly used his strategic skills and diplomatic savvy to prevent the Cold War from exploding into combat.
I learned about Eisenhower’s family life and his hobbies, which included painting landscapes and portraits, many of which are on display in the museum.
Shortly after graduating from West Point, Ike married Iowa-born Mamie Doud in 1916. By the time Dwight and Mamie moved to the White House in 1953, both Eisenhowers were household names. Mamie was a popular first lady who used her well-developed social skills to organize more state dinners than any previous administration. Despite all the parties and her perennial appearance on the “best dressed” lists, pragmatic Mamie balanced the White House budget every year and built her wardrobe with a mix of clothes from top designers and off-the-rack specials from J.C. Penney.
The time I spent in Ike’s 19th-century boyhood home sealed my admiration for him. Seeing the furniture, the family photos and belongings, and the rooms where the six Eisenhower boys were reared, I could almost hear them running up and down the narrow staircase, talking over meals in the tiny dining room and doing chores. What I could not imagine was how they did all that without indoor plumbing.
Just steps from the home is the former president’s final resting place. Ike, Mamie and their first-born son, Doud Dwight, who died at age 3 from scarlet fever, are buried here in a small chapel. The building includes a place to meditate. Eisenhower, according to the facility’s website, hoped “that visitors would reflect upon the ideals that made this a great nation and pledge themselves again to continued loyalty to those ideals.”
It’s a simple, dignified resting place, anchored in family, patriotism and peace — just like Ike.
For more information, go to www.eisenhower.archives.gov.
Karen Torme Olson is a freelance writer.
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