Mrs. Helen Eakin Eisenhower This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Penn State Diary

   www.townandgown.com/archives/m - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/1/1998   Last Visited: 5/8/2002

   President-elect Milton S. Eisenhower, his wife, Helen, and their children, Milton Jr. and Ruth, posed for this photo before moving to State College.
   ...
   Coming with him from Kansas State College were his wife, Helen Eakin Eisenhower, and their two children. They had met there as undergraduates and later returned to Kansas State when he became its president. Mrs. Eisenhower was probably the first first lady of Penn State to receive much press coverage and, sadly, the only first lady to die during her husband's term of office.
   
   In the changing society of the '50s, Mrs. Eisenhower was the first to discuss the multiple roles of a university president's wife. She understood the competition of being both a partner to a president, and a mother and homemaker. She hosted many famous visitors, including her brother-in-law, the U.S. president.
   ...
   Mrs. Eisenhower was also active in campus and community affairs and helped start a chapter of her sorority, Pi Beta Phi, on campus.
   
   At the same time, Mrs. Eisenhower loved cooking and needlework. During her first summer in State College, people discovered she shopped for her own groceries and by that fall had canned more than 100 quarts of vegetables. Her daughter, Ruth, was 12 when they arrived, and Mrs. Eisenhower wanted to be available for Girl Scout activities and school functions. Unfortunately, she also dealt with continuing illness. A month short of her 50th birthday in 1954, she died suddenly at home of a blood clot.
   
   The sadness of this event touched the community deeply. An all-faith chapel had been planned for some time, and the board of trustees took the president by surprise in deciding to name it for Helen Eakin Eisenhower. This was a building she had worked for and one that would be a fitting memorial to her spirit and openness to students in particular, and to the larger campus and community.