Ron Reagan - My father at 100

My

Father

at 100

Ron Reagan

v i k i n g

My Father at 100

My

Father

at 100

Ron Reagan

v i k i n g

v i k i n g

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) . Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England . Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) . Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) . Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi110 017, India . Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) . Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England First published in 2011 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright Ron Reagan, 2011

All rights reserved

Excerpt from Kitty Bawn OBrien, music and lyrics by Allister MacGillivary. Copyright Cabot Trail Music.

Used by permission.

Photograph credits: Insert pages 5 (bottom) and 6 (top left): Photographs by Elizabeth Bee Frey Drew. By permission of the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home (Dixon, Illinois) on behalf of the family of Elizabeth Frey Drew; 11 (bottom): Jane McCowan / General Electric; 12 (top and bottom): Courtesy Ronald Reagan Library; 13 (top): Murray Garrett, Garrett-Howard Inc.; 15 (top and bottom): AP Photo / Walter Zeboski. All other photographs courtesy Ronald Reagan Family.

library of congress cataloging in publication data Reagan, Ron.

My father at 100 / by Ron Reagan.

p. cm.

ISBN 1-101-46720-7

1. Reagan, Ronald. 2. Reagan, RonaldFamily. 3. PresidentsUnited StatesBiography.

I. Title. II. Title: My father at one hundred.

E877.R325 2011

973.927092dc22

[B]

2010045833

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To all the family members

whose stories I never knew

and

To Doria,

whose story is forever intertwined with my own.

Acknowledgments

As a fi rst-time author, I would have floundered without the help of many generous souls. I owe Clare Ferraro a debt of gratitude for taking a chance on me in the fi rst place. Editor Rick Kot provided invaluable advice; his thoughtfulness and thoroughness are matched only by his deft, light touch. Thanks also to Laura Tisdel, Kyle Davis, Rachel Burd, Francesca Belanger, and Gregg Kulick. No book would have been possible without the hard work of Laurie Jacoby, a friend and ally for many years, and Lydia Wills. Im profoundly grateful to both. There were helping hands all along the way.

At the Reagan Presidential Library my job was made considerably easier by Mike Duggan, Steve Branch, Kirby Elizabeth Hanson, Joanne Drake, and Wren Powell. In Tampico, Illinois, I received invaluable help from Joan Johnson along with David and Judy Jacob-son. In Dixon, I was warmly received and aided by Connie Lange, Sue Little, Phyllis Scherer, Arlene Waterhouse, Marla Tremble, and William Jones. Eureka College also rolled out the welcome mat. Special thanks to Eurekas president, Dr. J. David Arnold, Brian Sjalko, Anthony Glass, and Jyl Krause. Jim Santanella provided invaluable technical help. Deepest thanks as well to my mother, Nancy Reagan, for her enthusiastic support every step of the way and to my wife, Doria, for her love and patience.

Contents

My Father at 100

Introduction

Through the sepia of the old photograph, I can make out the man, his left foot casually crossed over the right, leaning against the corner post of a storefront window display. He has removed his jacket, keeping buttoned a vest of dark wool that matches his neatly pressed trousers. With his arms folded, his white shirtsleeves cross his chest, revealing stiffl y starched cuffs fastened

by cuff links. A bright white collar with a dark necktie snugly knotted beneath sets off a noticeably bronzed complexion, but the features of his face, awash in morning sunlight, are hard to make out beyond a thick flop of hair over the left brow and a pair of noticeably prominent ears. Above him, a sign announces: Clothing Sale. I read the handwritten inscription on the pictures lower border: Suppose you know the fellow in his shirtsleeves...

It takes me a moment to put things together, but then I suppose I do. The man in the doorway of the H. C. Pitney Variety Store in Tampico, Illinois, is my grandfather, John Edward (Jack) Reagan.

The photograph appears to have been taken between 1906 and 1914, right around the time of my fathers birth, which would put Jack in his mid- to late twenties. The inscription, written years later by his wife, Nelle, my grandmother, was most likely intended for one of her two sons, John Neil (Moon) or Ronald. This is the first time Ive laid eyes on it.

Im sitting in the research room of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library in Simi Valley, California, some 1,600

miles and roughly a century removed from that sunny morning in Tampico, feeling a bit like an archaeologist sifting through the scant 2

My Father at 100

relics of my familys ancient past. Actually, Im feeling like a very fortunate and pampered archaeologist. Many folks these days are exploring their family histories; not many have an entire research facility eagerly helping with the effort. A Spanish-style edifice of ochre stucco commanding a rolling ridge of grass and chaparral north of Los Angeles, the Reagan Library holds, as you would expect, a vast trove of presidential papers as well as documents from my fathers days as governor. But it has also become a repository for various and sundry items connected to my family, including the kind of personal artifacts that have a way of turning up in the bottoms of trunks or slipping from between the pages of family Bibles.

Where, I wonder, did this photo and several others like it come from? Mike Duggan, the librarys supervisory archivist, cant say.

He carefully removes several musty Dixon High School yearbooks from their tissue paper wrappings, cautions me to handle them using the white cotton gloves he has provided, and heads off to check with Steve Branch, who is in charge of audiovisual material. Steve, it turns out, believes the pictures must have been sent over by my mother after one of her periodic housecleaning campaigns. When I check with her later that night, however, she pleads ignorance. From my description of the photos, she doesnt believe shes familiar with them. Im left wondering whether my fatherso reflexively guarded in his privacyfor some mysterious reason kept hidden from his loved ones a small treasury of family photos, including many of his own father as a young man and some of the only pictures Ive ever seen of his aunts and uncles. That would be odd, my mother agrees. Yes , I think to myself, but not altogether surprising.