The Ypsilanti Daily Press

GEN. D. D. EISENHOWER
Who Is Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower?

He is the commander of the American Army in Africa as you all know. He is a man who from birth has been doing the unexpected. He is a Kansan who went to Texas to be born. This early indication of unpredictability should explain to Hitler why Ike appeared in North Africa when he was expected in France.

Ike was expected to be born in Abilene, Kansas. Through the cooperation of the International Correspondence Schools where Papa Eisenhower polished off a course in engineering and a Texas temporary employer, the Eisenhower family moved to Texas just about long enough for Dwight David to be born there.

He was the third of six brothers all nicknamed "Ike" and if you would like a little more confusion at this point, both Tyler, Texas and Denison, Texas claim to be his birthplace. Abilene, probably because the other Eisenhowers were born there, also sets up an occasional futile clamor for recognition.

Just one more note of confusion now and we will go right along-- he has been known as Dwight David all his life but he was christened David Dwight.

The first Eisenhowers or Eisenhauers were Germans but by the 17th century they had transplanted their roots to Switzerland. "Ike's" ancestors came to America and settled in Pennsylvania in 1732. Their descendants helped roll the frontier of America back to the Mid-West and stopped off there. And out of the Mid-West came "Ike" Eisenhower to roll back the frontier of democracy threatened by dictatorship.

Born Oct. 14, 1890 to David J. and Ida Elizabeth Eisenhower. "Ike", the future general, was a husky, normal Kansas boy in his school days.

He went to public school and to high school. He played half-back and semi-pro first base and when he could connect with a sparetime job he connected.

The Eisenhowers were good middle-class stock who always had enough to eat on the table and they brought up their sons to know the value of a dollar-and also how to earn it.

"Ike" cut ice in the winter, pitched hay in the summer and kept in top-notch condition doing both. He still turns out at farm-boy hours and he still is in top-notch condition.

Part of his earnings went into a sort of family pool for educational purposes and the idea was for each of the Eisenhower boys to get a college education but when "Ike" was 21 he still hadn't gotten there.

Then a younger friend suggested that they both try out for Annapolis. "Ike" found that he was too old for the Navy school but that he could make West Point.

So the Navy lost a future admiral and the Army gained a future general. Scholastically he was in the first third, but not a top man. In football, he slipped in easily at his old post of half-back. And he was good enough to be considered worthy of the full attention of Jim Thorpe's Carlisle Indians. In one game he was carried off the field with a broken leg. Later he broke the same leg riding horseback.

He was graduated in 1915 and was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry. If anybody had told him then that he would be a top-flight general he would have grinned.

He grins a lot, except when somebody tells him he is "a second leading." He was willing to be the third of six "Ikes" in his family but he doesn't want to be the second of anybody else, and it doesn't seem likely that he will be.

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