David Jacob Eisenhower

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David Jacob Eisenhower (September 23, 1863–March 10, 1942) was a American engineer, the father of U.S. President Dwight David Eisenhower and educator Milton S. Eisenhower.

David was born in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, the eleventh of fourteen children, to Jacob Frederick and Rebecca Matter Eisenhower. He lived in Elizabethtown until he and his family moved to a 160-acre ranch near Hope, Kansas, in 1878. He lived there until his enrollment at Lane University, where he mastered Greek and German.

There, Eisenhower met future wife Ida Elizabeth Stover. They were married in 1885 at the University Chapel. Eisenhower was given, by his parents, another 160-acre farm which was soon destroyed by locusts. After the farm was destroyed, the new couple moved to Abilene, Kansas.

The Eisenhowers had seven sons:

Arthur Bradford 1886 - 1958
Edgar Newton 1889 - 1971
Dwight David 1890 - 1969
Roy J. 1892 - 1942
Paul Dawson 1894 - 1895
Earl Dewey 1898 - 1968
Milton Stover 1899 - 1985

In 1914, Eisenower started working as an engineer for the Home Gas Company, in which he became the manager for the City of Abelene in 1918. He retired on the first day of 1931.

David Jacob Eisenhower was known to be fond of his work, and was an avid reader of English and American colonial history. His son, Dwight, once said of him:

"I remember him as a modest, studious, and intelligent person . . . His integrity, his training, his discipline of his sons had resulted in dividends . . .His finest monument is his reputation in Abilene and Dickinson County . . . His word has been his bond and accepted as such."