The General's Lady

For the benefit of U.S. citizens who are about to see the wife of General Eisenhower for the first time next week as a prospective First Lady, an officer at SHAPE in Paris gives an estimate: "Take an average pretty Iowa girl, transplant her to Colorado, give her parents enough money to take winter holidays, let her bump around the world with the Army, give her a modified Lillian Gish hairdo complete with bangs, and that's Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower." A friend added: "Mamie doesn't change much, but that's the reason for Mamie's charm. Mamie won't be an Eleanor. She isn't a girl who wants publicity. I don't think she's ever made a speech. In a way, she'd just as soon go back to Denver or the general's farm at Gettysburg. Just the same, Mamie will never be stuffy."

How to Buy a Hat. It was a point on which many another of Mamie Eisenhower's friends gave testimony. To illustrate, more than one of them recalled a Washington banquet for General George Marshall at which Ambassador Joseph C. Grew served as toastmaster. Amid one burst of emotional oratory, Grew's tongue slipped: General Marshall, he said, wanted nothing more than to retire to Leesburg with Mrs. Eisenhower. Flustered, as the room rang with laughter, the ambassador halted to apologize "to the general." Smiled Mamie: "Which general?"

On the record, Mamie Eisenhower is not a woman to be awed by fame, but neither is she the sort who seeks for herself, or strives to reflect, the fame of others--even of her husband. In the rarefied atmosphere at SHAPE she has seen no reason to be anybody but the same Mamie Eisenhower who was a belle in Denver (everyone said she really looked a lot like Lillian Gish), the wife of an obscure young subaltern in the 1920s (she still plays piano by ear at parties, as she did in the old garrison days), and a woman who has always managed to bridge the years with old friends. At 55, her figure is still good; she stands about 5 ft. 4 in., and her weight, as it has for years, stays around 138 Ibs.

She has been a successful hostess in Paris by acting, in many ways, just about as she did in the late 19203, when the Eisenhower apartment on the Rue d'Auteuil--occupied while Ike served with the American Battle Monuments Commission --was known as "Club Eisenhower" to their friends, and nearby Mirabeau Bridge as "Pont Mamie."

Like many U.S. wives, Mamie Eisenhower manages the family finances, and, after years in the handling of a prewar officer's pay, still has a tendency to treat each dollar with great care. In Paris, she attends dress shows but rarely buys. "Do you see me paying $800 or $900 for a dress?" she cries. If she is complimented on a hat, she is likely to say that she saw it in an advertisement in the Sunday New York Times, and bought it by mail for $16.95. She is a doting grandmother, and writes weekly to her son, Infantry Major John (who last week received orders to report to the Far East this summer--see NEWS in PICTURES). She smokes Philip Morrises and plays canasta tirelessly. Until three months ago, when her doctor asked her to swear off alcohol because of a heart murmur, she drank old-fashioneds at parties.

How Not to Be a Cook. For all her love of people and parties, Mrs. Eisenhower is essentially a homebody, most relaxed and contented when dealing with the problems of domesticity. One of the few rigid rules of her marriage is: "You take care of the office--I'll run the house." The general, however, has established one enclave in the household domain; he likes to cook, and Mamie does not. Her mother never learned to cook, on the theory that a woman who couldn't wouldn't. Mamie didn't try very hard either.

Mamie's father, John Doud--a prosperous meat packer who retired from business in Boone, Iowa to leisure in a big house in Denver at the age of 36--did not oppose this female whimsy. But he was firm on the subject of Sunday afternoon tours in his Packard twin-six. "Papa," Mamie's sister Mabel recalls, "was dreadful. We all had to go." As a result, one afternoon in 1915, when the family was wintering in San Antonio, Mamie was bundled off on a drive to Fort Sam Houston. Then & there, she met her husband-to-be.

The young second lieutenant of infantry was about to inspect the guard. He invited Mamie to walk with him. Mamie did. But when he blithely telephoned for a date the next evening, Mamie, a girl with quite a few beaus in town and garrison, had to refuse. Young Ike persevered, finally got a date for a night a whole month off. They were married eight months later.

After a honeymoon visit to Ike's family in Abilene, Kans.--and a bitter quarrel over Ike's imperturbable refusal to come home from a hometown poker game until 2 a.m.--Mamie joined the Army. It was often a trying life; in one year she had to set up housekeeping on seven different Army posts.

She faded with grief after her first son died in 1921. After her second son, John Eisenhower, was born, she never quite conquered a feeling of anxiety for him. But Mamie seemed a born soldier's wife. She hustled along through the years--to Camp Colt, Pa., Panama, Fort Leavenworth, Kans., Washington, Paris, Manila --like other Army wives, a one-woman cheering section for her particular soldier.

When Ike skyrocketed to power and responsibility in World War II, Mamie stayed out of the limelight, and settled down in Washington's Wardman Park Hotel. She sat out the war playing mahjong and pooling meat-ration coupons with seven other war-separated generals' wives. They had dinner together almost every night. Mamie did not take her turn at cooking, but she always washed the dishes. After the war, in New York, Washington, Paris, Mamie stayed on in the background, and her friends predict that if she goes to the White House, she will still avoid the spotlight.

"But," said one of Mamie's old girl friends last week, "don't worry about Mamie rising to any occasion. I saw her in Europe. I was terribly impressed with all the royalty and officialdom, but Mamie wasn't. There was this King Haakon, and there was Mamie, talking with her hands, just as peppy as ever."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.