Tag: Pat Nixon

On Visiting An Old Home

Take it from someone who has rented far more than he has owned: Moving often from place to place stinks. And temporary homes can be difficult places to create family memories. Before us we have the case of a small family of four who lived in a house for three years before having to move out. The husband, wife, and two small kids moved into a place south of Baltimore in the early 1960s because of the husband’s work. While there, the wife had lost an infant son, so there was that trauma the family went through while living there. On the other hand, the family also experienced some joy there, as families do, on holidays and birthdays and the like.

Then, in the third year there, the husband passed away suddenly. The young widow had to move, and she decided that she and the two children under the age of 6 should move in with family up north. The owners of the property were sympathetic to the tragic circumstances; they allowed the woman and her kids to take all the time they needed to pack up. However, knowing that she really couldn’t stay there (and another family waited for them to vacate), the woman managed to organize a move from the house within two weeks after her husband’s funeral.

Years passed.

As the children grew, the woman often thought of that house that had held such mixed memories for her. On the other hand, she also recognized that the place was the only house in which her kids shared any memories of their dad. So, she made arrangements to take her children, by then aged 13 and 10, back to the old house for a visit. She wrote to the then-occupants of the residence and asked if she and and the children could drop by sometime for a quick visit.

She received a warm letter in return welcoming the family back. And so it was, in 1971, that the widow–who had since remarried–and her two children went back to the house where they had lived almost 8 years earlier. Those occupants of the house welcomed them warmly because they understood that, even if the house was a temporary home, it was still home because of the memories made there, memories both good and bad.

The two children were taken in hand by the current occupant’s two older daughters. The four kids played with the family’s dogs while the adults visited. The widow quietly but sincerely thanked the occupants for being so accommodating in allowing them to intrude. The short visit concluded with good wishes, and when the family returned home, both children wrote letters of thanks back to the host family, telling them how wonderful it was to be in the only place where they remembered their dad.

The woman also penned a heart-felt thank you note.

“You can’t imagine the wonderful gift the your family gave me, and my children,” Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wrote to Pat Nixon.

On a Spaniel Puppy

Pat’s two daughters desperately wanted a dog. The problem was that kids under the age of 10 usually don’t understand the responsibility to come with pet ownership. All the girls knew was that puppies were cute, and they did not have one. Pat asked her husband about getting a dog for the girls, but he, as usual, didn’t really seem too interested in that issue. The household, after all, was his wife’s domain.

So, Pat mentioned to some people that if an appropriate animal could be found, she would like to get a dog, preferably a pup, for her daughters. The family lived in the metropolitan Baltimore, Maryland area, and, like a lot of young families in the early 1950s, they were living the American Dream. Pat’s husband was a veteran of World War II, like many of their friends, and he had gotten a government job in the Baltimore area after the war. The family moved there from California.

One day, Pat received word that a package had arrived for them down at the Baltimore train station, and the family drove down there in their station wagon to see what it was. Lo and behold, it was a crate, inside of which was a black-and-white spaniel puppy. The girls were ecstatic. Pat’s husband shrugged sheepishly and said he guessed that they could keep it if he didn’t have to do anything with it. The look on the girls’ faces told Pat that the family had a new addition.

Pat’s husband, by the way, was in some trouble at work at that time. Some of his acquaintances had accused him of mishandling government funds and even of taking bribes. To defend himself, her husband made an official statement saying very clearly that the family lived a very middle-class existence and that no fiscal malfeasance had taken place. He added, however, that the family did receive one gift: The spaniel puppy. He was also adamant that, because the girls loved the dog so much, that they would not be returning the dog.

The statement by the man was so sincere, and the sweet references to the girls and the puppy seemed so sweet and down-to-earth, that it served to erase all doubts that Pat’s husband was anything but an honest government employee.

Indeed, some people say that this speech by Richard Nixon saved his career.