Abilene, KS – One goal of the tour was to visit the Evel Knievel Museum in Topeka, KS, and the other was to knock one more Presidential Museum off my bucket list. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum is in Abilene, KS. I wondered though, were there any Eisenhower family members still living in the community?

The get-it-done director of Abilene Convention and Visitors Bureau, Julie Roller Weeks, put the meet together as she introduced me to the youngest granddaughter of President Eisenhower, Mary Jean Eisenhower. “My job is to grow the businesses in this community,” said Roller Weeks. “If you’re having fun in Abilene, then you’re probably spending money in Abilene.”

We lunched at Hapisoul Cafe & Juicery.

A brief history note: Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, serving from 1953 – 1961. The Eisenhower’s had two sons, Doud and John. The first son Doud died of Scarlet Fever when he was 3 years old.

John, followed in his father’s footsteps, graduating West Point. He married and had four children. Mary Jean was the youngest, born in 1955. She saw her grandparents often at the White House since her father worked for the presidential administration as Assistant Staff Secretary in the White House, on the Army’s General Staff, and as an assistant to General Andrew Goodpaster. 

Mary Jean Eisenhower was just a delight. She wore a black top and dressy black pants, simple gold earrings, a necklace, and she had an easy smile.

Born two years into her grandfather’s first term, Mary Jean recalled an incident with a toy car when she was 5-years old and tooling around the White House lawn.

“I got my first speeding ticket at the White House,” she said. The Mattel toy company gave all four grandchildren an electric car. The siblings had to take turns, but when it was Mary Jean’s turn to drive, it was her brother who stepped in and said he had to.

“I thought it was odd… but, it was never my turn,” she said.

As the story went, one day Mary Jean’s brother was off doing something and so were her sisters and there she was alone, with the Thunderbird.

“I thought… Okay, it’s my turn,” she said. Having watched enough cartoons about driving she jumped in, turned it on and hit the gas.

“I was doing donuts in front of the diplomatic reception area,” Mary Jean said. “Suddenly there’s this hand and the man said, ‘Ma’am, I believe you’re speeding.’

“Well, I didn’t know how to brake and he told me to just take your foot off the gas. So, I didn’t know how much he would be revealing to my grandfather.”

Mary Jean took the ticket and went to her room and sat there the entire afternoon “just straining about the whole thing.”

Too young to even read the ticket, she eventually went down to dinner. “Granddad wasn’t home from ‘work’ yet… so I just looked around the table to see if anyone knew,” she said.

Two things were unacceptable in the Eisenhower family, one was to tell a lie and the other was to break the law. “I heard the elevator door and I caught granddad first and told him the whole story. I didn’t lie, but I did break the law and he basically said I was going to have to wait 11 more years until I could get my driver’s license,” she said. “I really wished he would have just sent me to my room.”

At 17, Mary Jean did have her license and on her first night out with her dad she flipped the car. “It was an old road and I hugged a turn and we flipped and I just remember seeing my dad’s neck and we had our seatbelts on, which was unusual for that day and time. I remember the top of the car was smashed but it still ran and he made me drive it home.”

The White House, is also where young Mary Jean found out the truth about Santa Claus. “My older sisters were tired of hearing me squawk about it and they told me the truth and said whatever you do don’t tell mom we told you,” she said.

Another recollection at the White House was ‘playing house’ with her sisters. Mary Jean was the youngest and they put her in a carriage… and left her. “I was screaming and nobody heard me,” she said.

During lunch several people stopped at the table to chat about things like the Abilene Rotary Club or the local bicycle trail. One woman introduced a young boy she was with. “And this is Mary Jean Eisenhower; her grandfather was President Eisenhower,” she said. The boy’s eyes lit up; you could tell he was impressed.

During her professional career Mary Jean was chief executive officer and later president of People to People International. The program was started by President Eisenhower in 1956. It focused on education, culture, student exchange and humanitarian efforts. The work took Mary Jean to 70 different countries.

“That organization became my everything,” she said. For 25 years she worked to create opportunities for people to have relationships and understand different cultures in the hopes of discouraging war with another country when you’re friends with them.

Egypt, was Mary Jean’s favorite country. She met world leaders like Mikhail Gorbachev and presidents including Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump. She met royalty including Prince Charles and Princess Anne.

Questioned if she was schooled on dignitary protocol she said, “You were encouraged just to be your civilized best.”

She cried when Princess Diana was died. “Her death was one of the few I’ve ever taken personally,” said Mary Jean. “She was my hero.”

Mary Jean also spoke about her grandmother Mamie. After her grandfather died, her grandmother would go to the hospital to see the babies. Yes, she had been the First Lady, but apparently she would walk into the nursery to hold the babies.

“Losing her child at age 3-and-a-half and I think that was always present,” said Mary Jean.

Onto the next generation, Mary Jean has one son and he has four children. “They all look like little Eisenhowers,” she said.

Walk around Abilene… and for that matter much of Kansas and the Eisenhower name is found everywhere including schools, street names, and even a resurrection of banners and pins.

Mary Jean now makes her home in Abilene. “When I was 14 and my grandfather died, I remember saying I want to live here,” she said. “Life took me in other directions…. It took me 50 years but I finally came back.”

One added note – during the conversation I had to ask how her grandfather handled the media. Mary Jean told the following story.

“I came across this picture. My brother is in shorts and it’s Easter and he’s kneeling down and he’s got a toy gun.

My grandfather is holding a meeting with the press and if they started harping on him too much, he would clap his hands three times and David would know to pull out his toy gun and then all the attention would go to him. They took pictures of him and he was cute and it was very clever.”

Tidbits from the tour…

• Even several days after lunching with Mary Jean Eisenhower I was still on cloud nine. The Evel Knievel Museum is going to have to work pretty hard to top that.

• Stopped in Manhattan, KS for a brief break as I made my way from Junction City to Topeka, KS. There was a small bakery on the end cap of a strip mall. I saw someone from my tribe, a fellow biker and struck up a conversation. “Where are you from,” he said. I responded the Milwaukee area, but 40 miles north. “I grew up in the Milwaukee area,” he said. I did too. “Whitefish Bay,” he said. Me too. “Lived on Elkhart and then moved to a house on Kent,” Elkhart was one block to the east of where I grew up. Small world. John Uhlarik – WFB HS Class of 1961.

• Headed out of Junction City, KS on a very busy Hwy 57. I had to pedal 6 miles south to get 6 miles north and then to Hwy 18. The road was paved and quiet. The air was so still and there was a sweet smell of the country. The atmosphere was ripe for a dog attack.

• On the 6 miles out I found a gravel cross road that could cut a mile off my backtrack. A brown bull eyed me up from behind a barbed wire fence. The gravel was packed hard. I didn’t mind – a fall would only give me road burn. Soon the terrain changed to large stones and what’s best described as a cliff. I unclipped one foot and pushed along – dragging that foot to slow me down while choking my breaks. This fall would be ugly. Those rough rocks could tear open my knee and then the rocks would lick their bloody lips and gash me to the bone. The shortcut saved me time… but it was harrowing and a numbskull idea.

• Didn’t make it to Topeka but got as far as St. Marys, KS. Rode in on the Oregon Trail Road. Met a couple teens girls and asked for directions. It took a couple tedious rounds. “When you grow up in a small town you know where everything is, until you have to explain it to someone,” said one of the gals.