On our last visit to Gettysburg, I noticed signs to President Eisenhower’s house en route to the battlefield.
We put his Gettysburg house went on our Time Travel List and at long last, here we were!
Catching a shuttle bus from the Gettysburg Battlefield Visitor Center, we arrived at the top of a hill on a windy day.
The amazing mountains views, reminding me of childhood summers in the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, about 140 miles further north, where my mom grew up.
Despite wanting to serve in WWI, West Point graduate Dwight D. Eisenhower’s duty assignment was at Camp Colt in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, about 50 miles south of where his ancestors lived in the 18th century.
Loving the area, Eisenhower and his wife bought a farm there in 1950, complete with a red-brick farm house.
RENOVATING AN OLD FARM HOUSE
Although the house was in terrible shape, one of the key selling points was the huge kitchen perfect for the president, who loved to cook.
Soon after remodeling began, a 200-year-old log cabin was found underneath the brickwork!
Mamie asked them to salvage whatever they could.
Part of the original brickwork, summer kitchen, and the bake oven were incorporated into the new building.
Having lived on many military posts and then the White House, Mamie said in 1978: We had only one home-our farm.
Did you know that President Eisenhower was the first president to travel by helicopter?
The house tour included 8 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, butler’s pantry, glassed-in porch and his office (and more).
Nearly all the original items are still in the house.
Lots of gifts and souvenirs from their travels around the world were to be seen.
Everything was as they left it, with that distinctive 1950’s feel.
It was almost as if they’d walk into one of the rooms in any moment.
The living room fireplace was once in the 1873 White House under President Grant’s term.
A painting of Prague, Czechoslovakia was given to General Eisenhower by the country’s citizens after WWII.
One of Eisenhower’s unfinished paintings sits on the sunporch, awaiting him to pick up a paintbrush, while many of his other paintings are displayed on the walls.
In Mamie’s very pink dressing room sits her husband’s West Point picture on which he wrote: To the dearest, sweetest girl in the world…
The last room we visited was his office where we could hear the wind blowing outside.
We had a few fun discoveries in this room, including a reproduction of George Washington’s desk, made with pine boards from the White House that were taken out in the 1948-1952 renovation.
Also, we noted in Eisenhower’s bookcase a Will Durant book (we have his entire series in our bookcase at home-I highly recommend them! I used them in our homeschool high school rhetoric studies).
Various guests included Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union and Charles de Gaulle of France.
GRILLING
I read that Eisenhower grilled lots of black angus steak here.
MAMIE’S ROSE GARDEN
It was great fun sitting in Mamie’s lovely rose garden, outside the glass sunroom, with my daughter. Then my son took this picture of us…(my hair was rumpled from the windy day)
PUTTING GREEN
Our view from the garden was Eisenhower’s putting green, where various flags flew.
When President Eisenhower was home, both the Presidential Flag and the American Flag flew from the pole.
After his years of presidency were over he was reinstated as General of the Army, so from then on the five star flag flew from the pole.
BLACK ANGUS CATTLE COWBOY
We walked over to the show barn where many championship ribbons were showcased for Eisenhower’s successful Black Angus Cattle operation.
His spread included 189 acres of his own land, and 306 acres of adjoining land, which he ranched for 15 years.
Eisenhower herded cows with this jeep that was specially outfitted with a horn that moo-ed!
SECRET SERVICE
After passing the Secret Service building (where they were once housed when Eisenhower was in residence)…
…we came to the museum…
The future president met Mamie during his first duty assignment at Fort Sam in San Antonio, our hometown!
MAMIE’S SUGAR COOKIES
After the tour it was time for lunch. We rode back to the visitor center to enjoy the picnic lunch I had assembled.
For dessert I made some of Mamie’s sugar cookies, which I found online.
Since her husband did most of the cooking, Mamie claimed preparing only a few things like fudge and mayonnaise (according to the brochure).
