Hannah Milhous Nixon

Hannah Milhous Nixon (March 7, 1885 – September 30, 1967) was the mother of President Richard Nixon.

Hannah Milhous Nixon
Born	Hannah Elizabeth Milhous March 7, 1885 near Butlerville, Indiana, U.S.
Died	September 30, 1967 (aged 82) Whittier, California, U.S.[1]
Spouse(s)	Francis A. Nixon ​ ​ (m. 1908; died 1956)​
Children	Harold Nixon Richard Nixon Francis Donald Nixon Arthur Burdg Nixon Edward Calvert Nixon
Parent(s)	Almira Park Burdg Milhous Franklin Milhous
Relatives	Pat Nixon (daughter-in-law) Tricia Nixon Cox (granddaughter) Julie Nixon Eisenhower (granddaughter) David Eisenhower (grandson-in-law) Jennie Eisenhower (great-granddaughter)

Richard Nixon described his mother as "a Quaker saint".[2] On May 9, 1970 (Richard Nixon's visit to the Lincoln Memorial), Nixon insisted on stopping at the United States Capitol, where he took his former seat in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives and instructed his valet Manolo Sanchez to make a speech.[3][4] Sanchez spoke of his pride in being a citizen of the United States and Nixon and some female cleaners who were present applauded. One of the women present, Carrie Moore, asked Nixon to sign her bible, which he did, and holding her hand told her that his mother "was a saint" and "you be a saint too".[5]

Hannah Nixon is acknowledged to have exerted a tremendous effect on her son's outlook throughout his life.[6] In Richard Nixon's final remarks at the White House on August 9, 1974, he stated about her, "Nobody will ever write a book, probably, about my mother. Well, I guess all of you would say this about your mother – my mother was a saint. And I think of her, two boys dying of tuberculosis, nursing four others in order that she could take care of my older brother for 3 years in Arizona, and seeing each of them die, and when they died, it was like one of her own. Yes, she will have no books written about her. But she was a saint."[7]

Early life

She was born Hannah Elizabeth Milhous near Butlerville, Indiana, the daughter of Almira Park (née Burdg; 1849-1943), who was from Columbiana County, Ohio, and Franklin Milieus (1848-1919), a native of Colerain Township, Belmont County, Ohio.[8]

Family

She was married to Francis A. Nixon and had five sons:[2]

• Harold Samuel Nixon (June 1, 1909 – March 7, 1933)
• Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994), 37th President of the United States, married to Thelma Catherine Patricia Ryan and had two daughters.
• Francis Donald Nixon (November 23, 1914 – June 27, 1987), married to Clara Jane Lemke and had three children, including Donald A. Nixon
• Arthur Burdg Nixon (May 26, 1918 – August 10, 1925)
• Edward Calvert Nixon (May 3, 1930 – February 27, 2019)[2]

In popular culture

Mary Steenburgen portrayed Hannah Nixon in the 1995 Oliver Stone film Nixon.[9]

References

1. "The Nixon Family". Nixon Library and Museum. Archived from the original on 21 October 2013. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
2. Nixon Fun Facts via Nixon Foundation.
3. Appy, Christian (2016). American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity. Penguin Publishing Group. p. 199. ISBN 0143128345.
4. "Nixon's Weirdest Day". WETA. April 23, 2015. Retrieved March 6, 2017.
5. Evan Thomas (June 16, 2015). Being Nixon: A Man Divided. Random House Publishing Group. p. 279. ISBN 978-0-8129-9537-4.
6. "Richard M. Nixon". Encyclopædia Britannica
7. "AllPolitics – President Richard Nixon's Final Remarks At The White House". CNN. 1974-08-09. Retrieved 2015-06-18.
8. Archived April 16, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
9. Linville, Susan E. (1 June 2004). History Films, Women, and Freud's Uncanny. University of Texas Press. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-292-70269-1.