Doud Dwight Eisenhower

Doud "Icky" Eisenhower, the Eisenhowers' first child.

ENHS Photo

Quick Facts

Significance:

First-born child of Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower

Place of Birth:

San Antonio, TX

Date of Birth:

September 24, 1917

Place of Death:

Fort Meade, MD

Date of Death:

January 2, 1921

Place of Burial:

Abilene, KS

Cemetery Name:

Eisenhower Presidential Library Chapel

Doud Dwight Eisenhower was the first-born child of Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower. Though he is oft forgotten today, "Icky" as he was nicknamed, was a crucial part of the Eisenhower family, and his tragic story lived on with Ike and Mamie for the rest of their lives.

Doud Eisenhower was born on September 24, 1917, at the infirmary at Fort Sam Houston. At the time, his father, Captain Dwight David Eisenhower, was stationed at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, where he was training officer candidates in trench warfare. His grandmother came down from Denver to help Mamie with the birth, which was uneventful.

Mamie immediately nicknamed Doud "Little Ike", which was eventually shortened to "Icky". Captain Eisenhower would not meet his son for the first time until after Christmas that year when he was allowed to return to Fort Sam Houston for three days while Mamie was ill with pneumonia. The family remained separated until the following spring when Captain Eisenhower received orders to report to Camp Colt, a new tank training camp in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Ike's job was to use the battelfield grounds of Gettysburg to prepare U.S. soldiers for tank warfare in the Great War. 

Mamie and Icky’s arrival in Gettysburg was not overly auspicious. There was unexpected snowstorm in early April and little Icky was running a fever which was soon confirmed as chicken pox. This difficult moment set the tone for the remainder of the Eisenhowers' time in Gettysburg. The family faced many difficulties, such as moving three times from the spring to the fall while Ike struggled with a challenging command. Still, for the family, Gettysburg was their first home where all three of them lived together. Icky celebrated his first birthday in Gettysburg and his parents were enamored with the little person he was becoming.  

After the Armistice in November of 1918, the Eisenhowers found themselves split up again. Ike was stationed at Fort Meade, MD, and was trying to find his future in the smaller peace time army. Due to difficulty finding house, Mamie and Icky moved to her old family home in Denver. There, Mamie's parents were delighted to help raise their grandson.

It wasn’t until the summer of 1920 that Icky was reunited with both of his parents. The army had allocated a few unrenovated wartime barracks for army officers to use at Fort Meade. Paying out of their own pocket, the Eisenhowers would renovate and refurbish one so they could have a true family home.

While living at Fort Meade, Icky turned three years old. By this point, he had turned into a charming little boy who was admired not only by his doting parents, but by the soldiers stationed at the fort. Doud seemed to thoroughly enjoy the hustle and bustle of army life, so much so that the young boy was gifted a little uniform of his own and was named the “Mascot of the Corps.” Ike would later write about this moment in his life, “I was inclined to display Icky and his talents at the slightest excuse, or without one, for that matter. In his company, I’m sure I strutted a bit and Mamie was thoroughly happy that, once again, her two men were with her.”The fall of 1920 would be some of the happiest days of young Icky’s life.  

Unfortunately, the happy times were fleeting. On Christmas Eve, 1920, Icky fell ill. He was diagnosed with Scarlett Fever. All that could be done was place Icky into quarantine as there was no cure for the disease. Mamie also fell ill, so in the early morning hours of January 2, 1921, Ike was alone with his son when Icky succumbed to his illness. He was three years old. 

Icky's death stayed with Ike and Mamie for the rest of their lives. In his autobiography, Ike wrote, “this was the greatest disappointment and disaster in my life, the one I have never been able to forget completely. Today when I think of it, even now as I write of it, the keenness of our loss comes back to me as fresh and as terrible as it was in the long dark day soon after Christmas, 1920.”

Initially, Icky was interred at the Doud family's burial plot in Denver. In 1966, however, with Ike's health going downhill, then former President Eisenhower saw that his son's remains were reinterred in a chapel in Abilene, Kansas, one where Ike and Mamie would themselves be buried. Today, Ike, Mamie, and their beloved Doud rest side by side in a small chapel at the Eisenhower Presidential Library, in Abilene.