Eisenhower Read Online Free Page A

Ike carried on a flirtation with one Abilene girl, Ruby Norman, swapping stories from school and home and occasionally complaining of homesickness. Home between assignments in 1915, however, he transferred his affections to Gladys Harding, who was something more than a playful pal. They attended a picture show and enjoyed a summer of shows and concerts, riding and swimming, the occasional beer. They saw The Bawlerout and The Outcast , and Ike dazzled Gladys by appearing one evening in his dress whites.
    Other girls hovered, too. Ruby worried Gladys, but Ike reassured her that Ruby “never gives me a thought, except as a good friend.” Infatuation turned to love, or at least what seemed like love to a young man and woman, especially as their summer drew to a close.
    “Girl, I do love you,” Ike wrote in August, “and I want you to know it—to be as certain of it as I am—and to believe in me and trust me as you would your dad.” Ike was up late that night, smoking, wondering whether his feelings were reciprocated, dreading the moment when he had to ship out. “Sept. 1st seems so fearfully close tonight. This parting is going to be the hardest so far in my life.”
    But Gladys was determined to pursue a career in music, and Ike had his orders. The end of summer thus meant their separation, and both approached it with dread and longing. By the time Ike had to leave for his first Army posting, Gladys described their farewell as a “sad parting.” It was, she sighed to her diary, “Love.”
    They corresponded emotionally through the fall, pining and moony. “Sweet girl of mine,” Ike addressed her. But summer loves will fade. Their romance melted away as Eisenhower settled into his new life in Texas.
    Mamie was another matter. From the start, Ike was smitten. Regarded as the prettiest of her four sisters, Mamie was well-off and slightly spoiled. Her father ran a meatpacking business so successful that he was believed to be a millionaire—he owned a car in 1904, the first man in Colorado Springs to be able to afford one. Birthdays and other holidays were extravagantly observed in the Doud home, money and jewelry lavishly bestowed. Although Mamie’s father, John Sheldon Doud, was a rugged man, he and his wife, Elvira Carlson, gave birth to small, somewhat frail daughters. Mamie’s older sister, Eleanor, was particularly weak and required nurses from the time she was eight; Mamie, though stronger, herself developed a rheumatic heart as a young girl. Worried for their health, John Doud moved his family from Colorado Springs to the lower elevation of Denver and annually shipped them to San Antonio for the warmer winter.
    Mamie had expectations of her new beau, and Ike did his best. He courted her with martial doggedness and flashes of generosity and creativity. He was still in debt from borrowing to buy his first uniforms, so he subsidized his courtship by playing poker to boost his income and skimped where he could. He stopped buying premade cigarettes and returned to rolling his own. That freed up a little cash, and he tried to keep his outings with Mamie affordable, often taking her to a local Tex-Mex restaurant or vaudeville house (more than fifty years later, Ike could still recall the price of a tamale at the Original). Economies such as those allowed him to indulge Mamie now and again, notably with an engraved, heart-shaped silver jewelry box at Christmas, an extravagant gift from a man making $147 a month—and to a girl to whom he was not yet engaged.
    The romance between Ike and Mamie moved swiftly as she dropped other suitors to concentrate on him, preferring his sturdy military bearing to the less serious rivals for her attention. By Valentine’s Day 1916, he was bold enough to propose, giving her a copy of his West Point class ring, a bulky piece that she nevertheless happily wore on her delicate hand. Ike formally asked John Doud for permission to wed his daughter, and Doud, despite some reservations