Reagan
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Dr. L. W. Munhall’s tabernacle: Tampico [IL] Tornado, July 13, 1906.
“It is an interesting sight”: William H. Lamon, letter published in “As Others See Us” column, Tampico [IL] Tornado, Aug. 23, 1907.
“it was often after midnight”: Ibid.
“My first appearance”: Neil Reagan, interview, UCLA Center for Oral History Research, June 25, 1981, p. 11.
“Nelle would count”: “Nelle loved the apartment in the spring.” Nicely, “Remembering Reagan.”
believed that a true: Dr. Junius Rodriguez, interview with author, May 4, 2015.
“tried very hard”: Gordon P. Gardiner, “Nelle Reagan,” Bread of Life, May 1981, p. 3.
As a prerequisite: There is a story that after Neil’s birth a priest, Father Defore, reminded Nelle of her promise to baptize the baby. She responded that such a promise was never made. As Neil recounts it: “And the priest turned to my dad and said, ‘Jack, Nelle says nothing was told to her about bringing the children up Catholic. Why is that?’ Jack snapped his fingers and said, ‘Father, I completely forgot.’” Ibid.
On Easter Sunday in 1910: Ibid., p. 6.
“one of the worst blizzards”: Tampico [IL] Tornado, Feb. 6, 1911.
“Jack feared for her life”: AE, p. 34.
“midwives with a hardiness”: Nicely, “Remembering Reagan.”
When the baby finally: RR birth certificate, RRPL, PP/HF.
Dr. Terry informed Nelle: She suffered a prolapsed uterus during childbirth. Morris, Dutch, p. 688.
All along, she had planned: Ron Reagan, My Father at 100, pp. 42–43.
“For such a little bit”: WTROM, p. 7.
Dutch—he would be Dutch: “We never used [Ronald] until he came out [to Sacramento]. We always called him Dutch—I still do.” Neil Reagan, interview with Lou Cannon, 1968, LCA, p. 4.
“evidently came about because”: “The letter in your recent issue regarding my ‘name change . . . ’” RRPL, PP/H, Box 47.
“Now you can go home”: Neil Reagan, interview, UCLA Center for Oral History Research, June 25, 1981, p. 38.
that Ronald was destined: “I always say that Ronald is my mother’s boy.” Ibid., p. 43.
Yes, Jack “loved shoes”: “He sold them as a clerk, managed shoe departments and his own stores.” WTROM, p. 7.
Jack won a 160-acre farm: Myron S. Waldman, “Ronald Reagan’s America,” Newsday, Jan. 18, 1981.
He immediately jumped: “John Reagan . . . was a passenger over the Burlington Tuesday night, going to Aberdeen.” Tampico [IL] Tornado, Oct. 8, 1909.
“looking forward to God’s plan”: Nicely, “Remembering Reagan.”
she would pass her son: “They used to pass the president through there when Mrs. Reagan wanted to do some shopping.” Burkhard, “Tampico: Birthplace of a President.”
“Upstairs flats were not”: Ibid.
“a nice, white bungalow”: Nicely, “Remembering Reagan.”
the old Burden House: “Jack Reagan has moved from the flat in the Graham building to the Burden House south of the depot.” Tampico [IL] Tornado, May 5, 1911.
“We spent a few minutes”: Neil Reagan, interview, UCLA Center for Oral History Research, June 25, 1981, p. 10.
“They’d give you a piece”: MI, Sept. 17, 1986, p. 18.
“with a hissing burst”: AAL, p. 23.
In the spring of 1912: “He really went off the track with his drinking over a girl . . . he had hoped to marry, but she jilted him.” AE, p. 35.
“seriously ill . . . unable to leave”: Fulton [IL] Journal News, Apr. 23, 1912.
“he has not appeared”: Fulton [IL] Journal News, Apr. 3, 1914.
Jack eventually committed: “The commission declared that [Will Reagan] was mentally deranged and ordered him taken to Watertown [sanitarium] for treatment.” Fulton [IL] Journal News, May 10, 1919.
a Ford Model T: Tampico [IL] Tornado, May 17, 1913.
“It was an old touring car”: MI, Dec. 22, 1986, p. 44.
“steering gear . . . failed to work”: Fulton [IL] Journal News, Dec. 16, 1913.
lifelong struggle with claustrophobia: “I’ve always wondered if that’s the time it came about.” MI, Dec. 22, 1986, p. 44.
“intense dramatic action”: Playbill for A Woman’s Honor, Jan. 13, 1906.
“A pin dropped”: Sterling [IL] Gazette, April 21, 1913.
“Well, yo’ see, missus”: Lizzie May Elwyn, Millie the Quadroon (Clyde, OH: Ames Publishing, 1981).
THREE: “THE HAPPIEST TIMES OF MY LIFE”
“We moved to wherever”: AAL, p. 23.
“a city that was to forge”: Nelson Algren, Chicago: City on the Make (New York: Doubleday, 1951).
“a congested urban world”: AAL, p. 24.
“I got a larruping”: MI, Sept. 17, 1986, p. 25.
“accepted a good position”: Tampico [IL] Tornado, July 31, 1914.
“the store of the people”: Booklet published by the Fair Store, Chicago, 1915.
“We were poor”: Neil Reagan, UCLA Center for Oral History Research, May 25, 1981, p. 43; “We were never anything but poor.” RR, interview, Feb. 10, 1989, LCA, Box 23, Folder 77, p. 10.
“We didn’t have a cat”: Neil Reagan, interview, undated, 1968, LCA, Box 23, Folder 67.
of “backdoor beer”: “Neil remembers bringing Jack butter-greased pails slopping over.” Edmund Morris, Dutch (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 25.
“There were times”: Neil Reagan, interview, May 19, 1988, LCA, Box 23, Folder 67, p. 2.
“I can remember overhearing”: RR interview, Feb. 10, 1989, LCA, Box 23, Folder 77, p. 10.
“She always tried to protect us”: Neil Reagan, interview, May 19, 1988, LCA.
“She told us that we must not turn”: RR, interview, Feb. 10, 1989, LCA.
Marx Brothers were given: Tom Wilson, Remembering Galesburg (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2009), p. 125.
town boss Omer N. Custer: “He owned the bank, the radio, the newspaper, everything.” Tom Wilson, interview with author, May 5, 2015; “Custer didn’t want any more factories. He felt the town was just right as it was.” Patty Mosher, interview with author, May 5, 2015.
like grass snakes: WTROM, p. 12.
“Well, read me something”: Ibid.
Nelle would walk the boys: Tom Wilson, interview with author, May 5, 2015.
“I could pick up something”: AAL, p. 25.
“booby-trapped for adults”: Neil Reagan, interview, LCA, undated 1968, p. 2.
Occasionally, when things boiled over: “Sometimes . . . my mother bundled us up and took us to visit one of her sisters.” AAL, p. 25.
She even petitioned: Patty Mosher, archivist, Galesburg Public Library, interview with author, May 5, 2015.
Dutch remembered hearing: “My brother and I often heard him telling Nelle that he would soon be doing better.” AAL, p. 25.
under cover of night: “Jack Reagan, literally overnight, moved the family to Monmouth.” Tom Wilson, interview with author, May 5, 2015. Confirmed by Patty Mosher, May 5, 2015.
a booming wartime economy: “Monmouth was a town on-the-grow. . . . The economy was soaring.” Jeff Rankin, director of communications, Monmouth College, interview with author, May 5, 2015.
“with his jaw set”: questionnaire of Gertrude Romine to Anne Edwards, Feb. 11, 1986.
rescue a nest of birds: Jeff Rankin, interview with author, May 5, 2015.
the Knot Hole Gang: Ibid.
The city ordered its schools: Monmouth [IL] Daily Review, Oct. 13, 1918.
“The house grew so quiet”: “I sat watching for the [doctor] with the black bag.” Modern Screen, March 1943.
“keep [Nelle] stuffed”: WTROM, p. 13.
moved back to Tampico: Fulton [IL] Journal-News, Sept. 29, 1
919.
“a graduate of the American School”: Tampico [FL] Tornado, Sept. 29, 1919.
“the most fortunate shift”: WTROM, p. 13.
they played tag across: Betty Burkhard, “Boyhood Chum Recalls,” DET, Feb. 4, 1984.
“The Sermon on the Mount”: RR radio address, undated 1976, courtesy of Peter Hannaford.
“photographic memory for dates”: “President’s ‘Roots’ Deep in Tampico,” DET, Feb. 4, 1984, p. 38.
“Nelle ran the . . . church”: Paul Kengor, “Jack and Nelle,” May 5, 2008. education.org/articles/catholic_stories/cs0124.html [inactive].
“in tragic tones”: WTROM, p. 15.
“horsehair-stuffed gargoyles”: Ibid.
“Immediately they tried to sell”: Paul Nicely, quoted in “President’s Roots Deep . . . ”
“the happiest times of my life”: WTROM, p. 13.
FOUR: READY TO SHINE
John Dixon bought it from him: Dixon took over Ogee’s property on April 11, 1830, but the deed wasn’t recorded until 1832 in Galena. The deed is filed in Book A, pp. 163 and 164, March 1, 1832.
In fact, a young Captain Lincoln: Greg Langan, interview with author, Oct. 7, 2013.
the O. B. Dodge Library: Lynn Roe, interview with author, May 7, 2015.
the general admission of one dollar: George Lamb, Dixon: A Pictorial History (St. Louis: G. Bradley Publishing, undated), p. 121.
“for special occasions only”: “Typically, Mrs. Reagan would . . . tell the boys, ‘Don’t set foot in the room. It’s not for everyday use.’” Brandi Lagner, RR Homestead, Dixon, IL, interview with author, Oct. 7, 2013.
“She’d never had a guest room”: Ibid.
“He went through this period”: Neil Reagan, interview, LCA, undated 1968, p. 3.
“The teachers didn’t allow”: Esther Haack, interview with author, Jan. 28, 2014.
“I simply thought that”: WTROM, p. 18.
“a lot of heartache”: AAL, p. 35.
Ed O’Malley recalled how: Dan Miller, “Friends Take Pride in ‘Dutch’ Reagan,” DET, Feb. 4, 1984; Myron S. Waldman, “Ronald Reagan’s America,” Newsday, Jan. 18, 1981.
“something of a goody-goody”: W. L. Stitzel, quoted in James M. Perry, “Reagan’s Roots,” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 8, 1980; John Crabtree quoted in same article: “Young Reagan came pretty close to being a goody-goody.”
“[Dutch] was the slowest one”: Waldman, “Ronald Reagan’s America.”
a handful of torpedoes: “‘Torpedoes’ my father would later call them.” Ron Regan, My Father at 100 (New York: Viking, 2011), p. 94.
from atop a stoplight: “Dutch just climbed up on one of those stop lights and sat there.” Perry, “Reagan’s Roots.”
the police chief, J. D. Van Bibber: “Miscellaneous Information: Police Dept.,” Polk’s Dixon City Directory, 1921–22.
“If you neglect to do that”: Brandi Lagner, interview with author, Oct. 7, 2013.
He and Ed O’Malley joined: “We were in Boy Scouts and the YMCA band.” “Remembering Ronald Reagan,” pamphlet (Dixon, IL: Loveland Museum, 2001), p. 11.
“The library was really”: RR, letter to Helen P. Miller, Sept. 3, 1981, RRPL, PPL.
What’s more, he could check: Lynn Roe, interview with author, May 7, 2015.
he called it “undisciplined”: “My reading I suppose was undisciplined and undirected and went through phases.” RR, letter to O. Dallas Baillio, undated, RRPL, PPP Series II: Handwriting Files, Box 45.
“read over and over”: AAL, p. 31.
“Then I discovered Edgar”: RR, letter to Baillio, RRPL.
“spread out as if he were crucified”: WTROM, p. 8.
truth happens to an idea: “It becomes true, is made true by events.” William James, Pragmatism, “Lecture 1,” 1907.
“people follow the church”: Harold Bell Wright, That Printer of Udell’s (New York: A. L. Burt Co., 1902), p. 114.
into “two classes”: Ibid., p. 122.
“I found a role model”: RR, letter to Jean B. Wright, daughter-in-law of Harold Bell Wright, Mar. 13, 1984, RRPL, PP/HW.
“I’d like to be like him”: MI, Feb. 9, 1988, p. 178.
“I want to declare my faith”: RR, letter to Jean B. Wright, RRPL.
“you had to be ready”: “She made sure that I really meant it.” MI, Sept. 17, 1986, p. 22.
refused to baptize children: The pastor was Ben Cleaver, Margaret Cleaver’s father. Garry Wills, Reagan’s America: Innocents at Home (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), p. 21.
“Shh, we’re going to get baptized”: Edmund Morris, Dutch (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 42.
She was immediately elected: “C. C. Elects Officers,” DET, Jan. 24, 1921.
She even became president: “Christian Church Notes,” DET, Dec. 11, 1922.
often as the soloist: MI, Sept. 17, 1986, p. 24.
“she sandbagged merchants”: Neil Reagan, interview, undated 1968, p. 5, LCA.
“She would take her Bible”: “Remembering Ronald Reagan,” p. 4; “When I was a kid, she went down once a week to the county jail . . . and she would talk to them, to the men.” MI, Feb. 9, 1988, p. 176.
“So she would often invite”: Brandi Lagner, interview with author, Oct. 7, 2013.
On Thursdays, she took: Helen Lawton, quoted in “Remembering Ronald Reagan,” p. 17.
“I love you, Daddy”: Wills, Reagan’s America, p. 25.
“George Had a Grouch”: DET, Jan. 21, 1922.
“Pageant of Abraham Lincoln”: “Pageant One of Greatest Productions,” DET, Jan. 11, 1924, p. 1.
“How the Artist Forgot”: DET, June 3, 1920.
“On the Other Train”: DET, Nov. 24, 1923.
“My mother inveigled me”: MI, Sept. 17, 1986, p. 17; “Ronald would help her.” Lynn Roe, interview with author, May 7, 2015.
called “About Mother”: DET, May 6, 1920.
“The Sad Dollar and the Glad Dollar”: DET, June 3, 1920.
“Lavinsky at the Wedding”: Parts I, II, III, IV, Columbia Graphophone Co., 1910.
“I think that’s where”: MI, Sept. 17, 1986, p. 17.
“practipedist,” as the store’s ads: “Mr. Reagan . . . is an experienced shoe man and also a graduate practipedist, and understands all foot troubles and the correct methods of relief for all foot discomforts.” DET, Feb. 22, 1921.
“I remember my father”: MI, date, p. 19.
“Mrs. Wallace, it just isn’t”: Jean Wallace Rorer, quoted in “Remembering Ronald Reagan,” p. 5.
“Jesus walked barefoot”: AE, p. 57.
“the first salesman in Dixon”: Wills, Reagan’s America, p. 100.
“oatmeal meat”: “It was moist and meaty, the most wonderful thing I’d ever eaten.” Ibid., pp. 28–29.
insisted on tithing: “Nelle had raised us to believe the Lord’s share was a tenth.” WTROM, p. 55.
Dutch offered to contribute: “I have 12 rabbits. . . . And I am going to kill three and eat them.” RR letter to Gladys Shippert, undated 1922, RRPL, Pre-Presidential files.
Moon went door-to-door: “Come Friday night . . . I’d get the squabs . . . and I’d snap their heads off and clean them . . . and I never failed to sell all the squabs and rabbits.” Neil Reagan, interview, UCLA Center for Oral History Research, June 25, 1981, p. 9.
Jack took a lease: “Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Reagan and sons are moving their household goods from 816 Hennepin Avenue to the new house built by John Huffman on West Everett Street.” DET, Mar. 12, 1923.
“No need to put up curtains”: AE, p. 62.
Saturday nights everyone headed: “The businesses were open. People came downtown. They did shopping, but more than that. They came to visit and talk with each other.” Greg Langan, interview with author, Oct. 7, 2013; “Saturday n
ight was always busy in Dixon.” Esther Haack, interview with author, Jan. 28, 2014.
“The whole street was up”: MI, Dec. 22, 1986, p. 43.
Red Vaile’s pool hall: “Moon was always around Red Vail’s [sic].” Ed O’Malley quoted in Waldman, “Ronald Reagan’s America”; “I would go down to the one pool hall in town that was downstairs under a store, where your folks couldn’t see you if they happened to walk by.” Neil Reagan, interview, UCLA Center for Oral History Research, p. 9.
an element of cruelty: “Moon is . . . a young man who used humor to belittle, whose teasing was not good-natured”; also “Moon’s ‘needling manner’ . . . could bring Dutch to tears.” Ron Reagan, My Father at 100, pp. 94–95.
viewed as “quiet”: Neil Reagan, interview, UCLA Center for Oral History Research, p. 8.
“down moments”: “There was no such thought of, you know, putting my arm around his shoulder and saying, ‘Let’s talk this over.’” Ibid.
“as a scared kid burying”: Ron Reagan, My Father at 100, p. 95.
“We didn’t have what”: Neil Reagan, interview, UCLA Center for Oral History Research, p. 8.
“Nelle had left her eye-glasses”: AAL, p. 37.
FIVE: “EVERYONE’S HERO”
Klean Kids Klub: RR is elected a lieutenant in “B Company.” “Klean Kids of Y Organize at Sunday’s Meet,” DET, Sept. 17, 1923, p. 2.
“hippodrome strut” along: “William Rossiter remembers the flashy ‘hippodrome strut’ with which Reagan led the band.” DET, Special Presidential Edition, Feb. 28, 1981.
During a memorable Memorial Day: RR relates this story often, including in AAL, p. 37.
standard set of patriotic anthems: Special Pres. Edition, Op. Cit., Sec. A, p. 12, DET.
Dutch, ever the standard-bearer: “Our drum major continued going straight down the street while the band followed the rest of the parade and made a turn.” G. Warren Buckaloo, quoted in “Remembering Ronald Reagan,” pamphlet (Dixon, IL: Loveland Museum, 2001), p. 6.
Ed Worley’s brother Bill: Myron S. Waldman, “Ronald Reagan’s America,” Newsday, Jan. 18, 1981.
“They changed the movies often”: Esther Haack, interview with author, Jan. 28, 2014.
L. G. Rorer, the procrustean: Greg Langan, interview with author, Oct. 7, 2013.