HYDE PARK, NEW YORK: ROOSEVELT PRESIDENTIAL MUSEUM AND LIBRARY

We love Presidential Museums and Libraries. There are thirteen, and with our visit to the Franklin D. Roosevelt site, we have toured twelve of them. The only one we have left to go is the Gerald R. Ford site, which is actually divided between two places: the Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The FDR Museum and Library is located in Hyde Park on the large estate where Franklin, the only son of wealthy parents, grew up.

One area of the museum gives information about Franklin's and Eleanor's ancestry and childhoods:

FDR's illustrious ancestors:

The 10 lb. baby boy referenced below is none other than FDR, and that's his bassinet on the right:

The picture on the left shows Eleanor (Franklin's 5th cousin) with her two little brothers, and the picture on the right shows her at age 14:

Franklin was 20 and Eleanor was 18 when they began courting. They were married in 1905, and Eleanor's uncle--President Teddy Roosevelt--gave away the bride.

HYDE PARK. NEW YORK: ROOSEVELT'S HOME

About 90 miles due north of New York City, just north of Poughkeepsie and on the Hudson River, lies Hyde Park, the hometown of the 32nd President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

With about 22,000 residents, Hyde Park is relatively small compared to some of its famous neighbors, but it's a pretty upscale place, a fitting hometown for one of America's royal families--the Roosevelts.

And there they are, Eleanor and Franklin, waiting to entertain any visitors in their outdoor reception area:

The statue was adapted from a picture taken of the couple in 1933 right here in Hyde Park.

ABILENE, KANSAS: DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY, MUSEUM, BOYHOOD HOME, AND MAUSOLEUM

After driving through Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska, we headed for our fourth and last state: Kansas. During the next few days, our plan was to visit Abilene, Wamego, Topeka, Lawrence, and Kansas City (Kansas side):

(Wamego? What's in Wamego? You'll have to wait and see.)

The first leg, from Lincoln, Nebraska, to Abilene, Kansas, was 165 miles of corn fields. Some people would call this a soothing drive; others might say it's mind-blowingly boring. By this point in the trip, I'd probably go with the latter except for the fact that we had a good audiobook going, so the drive was great.

Our first Kansas stop was the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum, and Boyhood Home in Abilene. Like the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library site we visited earlier in the trip, this is a sprawling park that obviously includes much more than just the museum. Those Midwesterners like their space.

1. EISENHOWER'S CHILDHOOD HOME
Eisenhower's family moved to Abilene from Texas in 1892 when Ike was two years old, and to this house in Abilene in 1898. Ike lived here with his five brothers and his parents until he left for West Point in 1911 at age 20. Ike's parents lived here until they died in 1942 and 1946.

WEST BRANCH, IOWA: HERBERT HOOVER PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM, THE HOOVER BIRTHPLACE, AND WHERE TO EAT

Our next destination was the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum (the second PLM of our trip) in West Branch, just 12 miles east of Iowa City.

I have to admit that I've always viewed Hoover as somewhat of a place-holder in history. He got stuck with the Great Depression, not really his fault, and he mostly just had to be the figurehead in the White House until someone else could replace him.

I got a completely different view of him from visiting his PLM.

Hoover was the first President born west of the Mississippi. He was born in 1874, and the first census in West Branch wasn't until 1880, when the city had a booming population of 500.

Hoover's father died in 1880 and his mother in 1884, leaving him an orphan at age nine. He eventually went to live with an uncle in Oregon. After initially failing his college entrance exams, he was accepted into the inaugural class of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, from which he graduated in 1895 with a degree in geology and a girlfriend named Lou Henry, a banker's daughter and fellow Iowan.

Herbert on the bottom left

INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI: TRUMAN PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

On this trip to the Midwest, Bob and I visited three Presidential Library and Museum (PLM) sites, bringing our total to eleven of the thirteen official sites. (We still need to visit Gerald Ford's in Michigan and Teddy Roosevelt's in New York.)

The Truman PLM was the first library created under the 1955 Presidential Libraries Act, which established a system of privately built but federally maintained libraries. The dedication in 1957 was attended by previous President Herbert Hoover, Chief Justice Earl Warren, and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1972, funeral services for President Truman were held here before he was interred in the back courtyard, and ten years later his wife was buried by his side.

A mural by Thomas Hart Benton covers 495 square feet of the lobby walls, its swirling clouds, rolling landscape, and busy figures almost jumping off the surface:

Detail of area above the door

Detail of left panel below main painting

Detail of right panel below main painting

Truman and Benton became good friends during the painting of Independence and the Opening of the West. Truman himself even applied a few brushstrokes to this mural.

DALLAS: GEORGE W. BUSH PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

George W. Bush, also known as "#43" (as in the 43rd POTUS), built his Presidential Library on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Three Mustangs, 11-foot-tall bronze statues on SMU campus

The building, designed by the Dean of the School of Architecture at Yale University, was completed and dedicated in April 2013. Only the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, is larger.

Living past-presidents and the current president typically gather for a presidential library dedication, and there were five of them (with their wives) at the Bush Library dedication: Jimmy Carter, Geroge H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Geroge W. Bush, and sitting President Barack Obama. Each of the three democrats--Carter, Clinton, and Obama--spoke. I am intrigued by the "old boy network" that past presidents form. I hate extreme partisanship, the kind that leads to name-calling on Facebook, the Glenn Beck Show, and the New York Times. Listening to these speeches given by political "enemies" at the dedication,  I see none of that. Rather, I get the feeling that these men are actually friends, that they consult with each other, and that they have respect for each other's accomplishments.

ARKANSAS, LITTLE ROCK: CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

Love him or hate him, you have to be intrigued by Bill Clinton, In America, we love our rags to riches stories, and Bill's is a pretty good one.

Bill Clinton was born in Hope, Arkansas, a small town 112 miles from Little Rock. His father was killed in an accident three months before he was born, so Bill lived in this cute little frame house with his maternal grandparents for the first four years of his life while his mother studied nursing in New Orleans.

When his mother remarried, he moved to another house in Hope before eventually moving to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he graduated from high school. Clinton went to college at Georgetown University on a scholarship--I'm guessing that was not something that happened often to Hot Springs High School graduates. Upon graduation he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, following which got his JD from Yale University. After graduation he married Hilary, and a few years later he returned to Arkansas, where he was elected governor in 1978 at age 32.

Impressive stuff for a little boy from Hope.

Clinton notes that when it came time to build his library, members of his graduating class at Georgetown offered him $30 million if he would build it in Washington, D.C.  He told them he couldn't do that. "I have to put it in Arkansas, and I have to put in in Little Rock, because I would never have become president without the people of Arkansas," he said.

The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park is a complex that includes the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, housed in what was once a train depot, followed by a newspaper office, and then--believe it or not--a Spaghetti Factory restaurant. Perfect for a president known for his love of carbs.

In contrast, the building next door, the Clinton Presidential Library, is a somewhat sterile modernist steel and glass building cantilevered over the Arkansas River. (There are those who criticize it for looking like "a trailer on stilts.")

YORBA LINDA, CALIFORNIA: RICHARD NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY, Part 2,Nixon's Legacy

The second half of 1973, the first year of Nixon's second term, was very rocky. Watergate hearings got underway in July, and in November Nixon delivered his "I am not a crook" speech. In May 1974 impeachment hearings began, and on August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned the Presidency.

I expected that a large section of the Presidential Library would be devoted to the Watergate Affair. There are 2,719 hours of White House recordings covering conversations from February 1971 through July 1973 available for listening, and besides, the word "Watergate" has become synonymous with "Nixon." However, there was room after room of other Nixon-related memorabilia before we got to the Watergate display.

It's pretty common to have a re-creation of the Oval Office in Presidential museums, but this is the only replica of the White House East Room.  It is not just a pretty room, however. It can be rented for wedding parties. Was Nixon a party animal? From what  I have read, it sounds like he hated parties, but he felt compelled to give a lot of them--and to micromanage every detail.

I loved the room full of displays related to Nixon's international connections. This structure protects the shipping box that brought the one of the first giant pandas, a gift from the People's Republic of China, to the U.S. in April 1972:

They were named Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, and we Americans fell in love at first sight.

A piece of the Berlin Wall stands before a model of Moscow's St. Basel's Cathedral. Nixon looked over the Wall and made a speech there in 1969:

Nixon looks over the Wall from a platform.  Photo from here.

NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY: RICHARD NIXON AND ELVIS PRESLEY

A few months ago Bob and I visited the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California and I saw once again this famous photo of Nixon and Elvis Presley:

The National Archives gets more requests for permission to reproduce this photo than for any other image, including the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution.

Elvis had written a five-page letter to Nixon requesting a meeting. He wanted to talk about his desire to be appointed to the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs as a "Federal Agent-at-Large." It wasn't that he wanted to join the fight on drugs; rather, he hoped to have a badge that would allow him to carry all the drugs and weapons he wanted to with impunity. Nixon invited Elvis to the Oval Office on December 20, 1970. Either Nixon believed Elvis's claim that he wanted to be a force for good in the fight against illegal drugs, or Nixon was just plain star struck. It's hard to believe, but Nixon got him the badge.

Elvis came dressed for the occasion in a purple velvet jumpsuit, a cape, and a heavy gold chain, and he brought Nixon several gifts, including a silver-plated World War II-era Colt-.45 pistol that, along with Elvis's letter to Nixon, is on display in the Nixon Library.

We Americans have a weird fascination with Elvis. In some ways, he was the Justin Bieber of his day--a pretty boy gone a little crazy.

The other day I ran across a wonderful poem that hooks Elvis up with another American icon: Emily Dickinson. A more unlikely pair is hard to imagine, but then Tricky Dick and Elvis weren't exactly running in the same social circles either.

EMILY DICKINSON AND ELVIS PRESLEY IN HEAVEN
by Hans Ostrom

They call each other 'E.' Elvis picks

wildflowers near the river and brings

them to Emily. She explains half-rhymes to him.

In heaven Emily wears her hair long, sports

Levis and western blouses with rhinestones.

Elvis is lean again, wears baggy trousers

and T-shirts, a letterman's jacket from Tupelo lHigh.

They take long walks and often hold hands.

She prefers they remain just friends. Fover.

Emily's poems now contain naugahyde, Cadillacs,

Electricity, jets, TV, Little Richard and Richard

Nixon. The rock-a-billy rhythm makes her smile.

Elvis likes himself with style. This afternoon

he will play guitar and sing "I Taste a Liquor

Never Brewed" to the tune of "Love Me Tender."

Emily will clap and harmonize. Alone 

in their cabins later, they'll listen to the river

and nap. They will not think of Amherst

or Las Vegas. They know why God made them

roommates. It's because America

was their hometown. It's because

God is a thing without

feathers. It's because

God wears blue suede shoes.

Finally, here is an added bonus, a reading of the poem by the poet himself:

YORBA LINDA, CALIFORNIA: RICHARD NIXON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY, Part 1, Nixon's Career

Richard Nixon's combination of brilliance and paranoia makes him, at least for me, one of the most fascinating politicians in America's history. On a recent visit to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California, I learned a lot more about Nixon's career.

YORBA LINDA, CALIFORNIA: RICHARD NIXON BIRTHPLACE

The Nixon Library and Birthplace was dedicated in July 1990. We have lived just 50 miles away during the twenty-four years it's been open, but we had never gone to Yorba Linda for a visit. A few months ago, we finally rectified that problem, and now we are wondering what took us so long.

As indicated by the name, the museum is built on the property next to the home where Richard Nixon was born.

The walk up to the house passes by the very simple graves of Pat (1912-1993) and Richard (1913-1994):

"Even when people can't speak your language,
they can tell if you have love in your heart."

"The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker."

ATLANTA, GEORGIA: JIMMY CARTER LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

We love Presidential Libraries/Birthplaces/Museums. Looking at history in the context of one individual's contributions is enlightening. This was particularly true of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, which happens to be next door to but run separately from the Carter Center, a non-profit human rights agency founded by Jimmy and Rosalyn in 1982.

The approach to the Library and Museum includes a roundabout lined with state flags.

 The library is built on the spot where Union General William T. Sherman orchestrated the Battle of Atlanta in 1864

Carter took office in January 1977, the middle of my senior year of high school. His was the first presidency that meant something to me on a political level. I remember that my mother, usually a Republican, voted for him because of his stance on human rights. I still find him to be one of our most interesting Presidents, partly because of his farm boy roots, something I can identify with.