94 Facts About Pat Nixon

Thelma Catherine "Pat" Nixon was the first lady of the United States from 1969 to 1974 as the wife of President Richard Nixon.

Pat Nixon served as the second lady of the United States from 1953 to 1961 when her husband was vice president.

Pat Nixon attended Fullerton Junior College and later the University of Southern California.

Pat Nixon paid for her schooling by working multiple jobs, including pharmacy manager, typist, radiographer, and retail clerk.

Richard Nixon was elected vice president in 1952 alongside General Dwight D Eisenhower, whereupon Pat became Second Lady.

Pat Nixon did much to add substance to the role of the vice president's wife, insisting on visiting schools, orphanages, hospitals, and village markets as she undertook many missions of goodwill across the world.

Pat Nixon oversaw the collection of more than 600 pieces of historic art and furnishings for the White House, an acquisition larger than that of any other administration.

Pat Nixon was the most traveled First Lady in US history, a record unsurpassed until twenty-five years later.

Pat Nixon accompanied the President as the first First Lady to visit China and the Soviet Union, and was the first president's wife to be officially designated a representative of the United States on her solo trips to Africa and South America, which gained her recognition as "Madame Ambassador"; she was the first First Lady to enter a combat zone.

Pat Nixon suffered two strokes, one in 1976 and another in 1983, and was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1992.

Pat Nixon worked on the family farm and at a local bank as a janitor and bookkeeper.

Pat Nixon, who was only 12, assumed all the household duties for her father and her two older brothers, William Jr.

Pat Nixon had a half-sister, Neva Bender, and a half-brother, Matthew Bender, from her mother's first marriage; her mother's first husband had died during a flash flood in South Dakota.

Pat Nixon paid for her education by working odd jobs, including as a driver, a pharmacy manager, a telephone operator, and a typist.

Pat Nixon earned money sweeping the floors of a local bank, and from 1930 until 1931, she lived in New York City, working as a secretary and as a radiographer.

Pat Nixon held part-time jobs on campus, worked as a sales clerk in Bullock's-Wilshire department store, and taught touch typing and shorthand at a high school.

Pat Nixon supplemented her income by working as an extra and bit player in the film industry, for which she took several screen tests.

Pat Nixon accepted a position as a high school teacher in Whittier, California.

Pat Nixon courted the redhead he called his "wild Irish Gypsy" for two years, even driving her to and from her dates with other men.

Pat Nixon then joined the United States Navy, and while he was stationed in San Francisco, she resumed work for the OPA as an economic analyst.

Pat Nixon, in turn, felt that her husband was vulnerable and sought to protect him.

Pat Nixon campaigned at her husband's side in 1946 when he entered politics and successfully ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives.

Pat Nixon was elected in his first campaign to represent California's 12th congressional district.

At the time of her husband coming under consideration for the vice presidential nomination, Pat Nixon was against her husband accepting the selection, as she despised campaigns and had been relieved that as a newly elected senator he would not have another one for six years.

Pat Nixon thought she had prevailed in convincing him, until she heard the announcement of the pick from a news bulletin while at the 1952 Republican National Convention.

Pat Nixon encouraged him to fight the charges, and he did so by delivering the famed "Checkers speech", so-called for the family's dog, a cocker spaniel given to them by a political supporter.

Pat Nixon accompanied her husband abroad during his vice presidential years.

Pat Nixon traveled to 53 nations, often bypassing luncheons and teas and instead visiting hospitals, orphanages, and even a leper colony in Panama.

Mrs Pat Nixon upheld her reputation of always looking neat, no matter how long her day has been.

Pat Nixon was named Outstanding Homemaker of the Year, Mother of the Year, and the Nation's Ideal Housewife, and once admitted that she pressed all of her husband's suits one evening.

Pat Nixon was featured prominently in the effort; an entire advertising campaign was built around the slogan "Pat Nixon for First Lady".

Pat Nixon conceded the election to Kennedy, although the race was very close and there were allegations of voter fraud.

Six years later, Richard Pat Nixon ran again for the presidency.

Pat Nixon was reluctant to face another campaign, her eighth since 1946.

Pat Nixon's husband was a deeply controversial figure in American politics, and Pat had witnessed and shared the praise and vilification he had received without having established an independent public identity for herself.

Pat Nixon consented and participated in the campaign by traveling on campaign trips with her husband.

Pat Nixon felt that the First Lady should always set a public example of high virtue as a symbol of dignity, but she refused to revel in the trappings of the position.

When considering ideas for a project as First Lady, Pat Nixon refused to do something simply to emulate her predecessor, Lady Bird Johnson.

Pat Nixon decided to continue what she called "personal diplomacy", which meant traveling and visiting people in other states or other nations.

Susan Porter, in charge of the First Lady's scheduling, noted that Pat Nixon "saw volunteers as unsung heroes who hadn't been encouraged or given credit for their sacrifices and who needed to be".

Pat Nixon herself belonged to several volunteer groups, including Women in Community Services and Urban Services League, and was an advocate of the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973, a bill that encouraged volunteerism by providing benefits to a number of volunteer organizations.

Pat Nixon became involved in the development of recreation areas and parkland, was a member of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, and lent her support to organizations dedicated to improving the lives of handicapped children.

Pat Nixon eventually asked Sarah Jackson Doyle, an interior decorator who had worked for the Nixons since 1965 and who decorated the family's 10-room apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York with French and English antiques, to serve as a design consultant.

Pat Nixon hired Clement Conger from the State Department to be the Executive Mansion's new curator, replacing James Ketchum, who had been hired by Jacqueline Kennedy.

Pat Nixon developed and led a coordinated effort to improve the authenticity of the White House as an historic residence and museum.

Pat Nixon added more than 600 paintings, antiques and furnishings to the Executive Mansion and its collections, the largest number of acquisitions by any administration; this greatly, and dramatically, expanded upon Jacqueline Kennedy's more publicized efforts.

Pat Nixon created the Map Room and renovated the China room, and refurbished nine other rooms, including the Red Room, Blue Room and Green Room.

Pat Nixon worked with engineers to develop an exterior lighting system for the entire White House, making it glow a soft white.

Pat Nixon ordered the American flag atop the White House flown day and night, even when the president was not in residence.

Pat Nixon ordered pamphlets describing the rooms of the house for tourists so they could understand everything, and had them translated into Spanish, French, Italian and Russian for foreigners.

Pat Nixon had ramps installed for the handicapped and physically disabled.

Pat Nixon instructed the police who served as tour guides to attend sessions at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, and arranged for them to wear less menacing uniforms, with their guns hidden underneath.

The tour guides were to speak slowly to deaf groups, to help those who lip-read, and Pat Nixon ordered that the blind be able to touch the antiques.

Pat Nixon invited former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and her children Caroline and John Jr.

Pat Nixon had ordered the visit to be kept secret from the media until after the trip's conclusion in an attempt to maintain privacy for the Kennedys.

Pat Nixon invited President Kennedy's mother Rose Kennedy to see her son's official portrait.

Pat Nixon opened the White House for evening tours so that the public could see the interior design work that had been implemented.

Pat Nixon oversaw the White House wedding of her daughter, Tricia, to Edward Ridley Finch Cox in 1971.

Pat Nixon spoke out in favor of women running for political office and encouraged her husband to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court, saying "woman power is unbeatable; I've seen it all across this country".

Pat Nixon was the first of the American First Ladies to publicly support the Equal Rights Amendment, though her views on abortion were mixed.

Pat Nixon held the record as the most-traveled First Lady until her mark was surpassed by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In President Nixon's first term, Pat traveled to 39 of 50 states, and in the first year alone, shook hands with a quarter of a million people.

Pat Nixon undertook many missions of goodwill to foreign nations as well.

On such trips, Pat Nixon refused to be serviced by an entourage, feeling that they were an unnecessary barrier and a burden for taxpayers.

The First Lady of South Vietnam, Madame Thieu, said Pat Nixon's trip "intensified our morale".

Pat Nixon toured damaged regions and embraced homeless townspeople; they trailed her as she climbed up hills of rubble and under fallen beams.

Pat Nixon's trip was heralded in newspapers around the world for her acts of compassion and disregard for her personal safety or comfort, and her presence was a direct boost to political relations.

Pat Nixon became the first First Lady to visit Africa in 1972, on a 10,000-mile, eight-day journey to Ghana, Liberia, and the Ivory Coast.

Pat Nixon later donned a traditional native costume and danced with locals.

Pat Nixon was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Most Venerable Order of Knighthood, Liberia's highest honor.

Women's Wear Daily stated that Pat Nixon had a "good figure and good posture", as well as "the best-looking legs of any woman in public life today".

Pat Nixon preferred to buy readymade garments rather than made-to-order outfits.

Many fashion observers concluded that Pat Nixon did not greatly advance the cause of American fashion.

Pat Nixon did not sport the outrageous fashions of the 1970s, because she was concerned about appearing conservatively dressed, especially as her husband's political star rose.

At the time the Watergate scandal broke to the media, Pat Nixon "barely noticed" the reports of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

Pat Nixon did not know of the secret tape recordings her husband had made.

Julie Pat Nixon Eisenhower stated that the First Lady would have ordered the tapes destroyed immediately, had she known of their existence.

Pat Nixon sat on the edge of a couch and held her chin high, a sign of tension to her husband.

Pat Nixon was listed on the Gallup Organization's top-ten list of the most admired women fourteen times, from 1959 to 1962 and 1968 to 1979.

Pat Nixon was ranked third in 1969, second in 1970 and 1971, and first in 1972.

Pat Nixon remained on the top-ten list until 1979, five years after her husband left office.

In late May 1975, Pat went to her girlhood hometown of Artesia to dedicate the Patricia Nixon Elementary School.

On July 7,1976, at La Casa Pacifica, Pat Nixon suffered a stroke, which resulted in the paralysis of her entire left side.

Pat Nixon said that her recovery was "the hardest thing I have ever done physically".

Pat Nixon sustained another stroke in 1983 and two lung infections the following year.

Pat Nixon attended the opening of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, in November 1991.

Pat Nixon's health was failing, and the house was smaller and contained an elevator.

The funeral service for Pat Nixon took place on the grounds of the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda on June 26,1993.

President Pat Nixon sobbed openly, profusely, and at times uncontrollably during the ceremony.

Pat Nixon's husband survived her by ten months, dying on April 22,1994.

In 1994, the Pat Nixon Park was established in Cerritos, California.

Pat Nixon was sung by soprano Carolann Page in John Adams' opera Nixon in China 1987 world premiere in Houston, Texas; a New York Times critic noted that the performance captured "the First Lady's shy mannerisms" while one from the Los Angeles Times described the subject as the "chronically demure First Lady".

Pat Nixon speaks of coming from a poor family and tells the obliging children that for a while she was a schoolteacher.

Kelly, you sense Mrs Pat Nixon wistfully pondering the much different life she might have had.