37. Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon was born January 9, 1913, in Yorba Linda, California, in the family’s frame house that Nixon’s father had built from a kit. The Nixons were Quakers who operated a small lemon farm during Nixon’s early childhood, but financial struggles forced them to sell the farm and move in 1922 to Whittier, California, where Nixon’s father ran a gas station and grocery market. As a small child Nixon had two near brushes with death. He fell from a wagon at the age of three and was badly sliced, and a year later he narrowly survived a severe bout of pneumonia. One of five brothers, Nixon grew up helping with chores, working at the family’s store, and attending the local schools until he enrolled at Whittier College. Nixon’s birthplace is now included as part of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.
--Andrew B. Leiter
At the Nixon birthplace, I was most fascinated with the fact that Richard's father had build the home from a mail-order kit that arrived in crates on the train. More than the act of building a house this way, the inevitable family story about daddy building the family house from a mail order kit surely had an impact on young Richard. It struck me that these family stories told and retold over time illuminate and form our understanding of who we are. Was this one of the defining stories for Richard or was it his close brushes with death that had more of an impact? Are any of these stories and childhood events directly traceable to the kind of leader he turned out to be? As I've written in other posts, my thoughts about these things inevitably turn inward. This project as a whole and Nixon's birthplace specifically has led me to reflect upon and examine my own childhood stories and more pertinently, the stories my wife and I highlight for our own kids. What are we teaching them about who they are, and in turn teaching them who to be?
--Matthew Albritton