Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
This Kennett-area man knows his presidents
I’m fascinated by the most powerful person in the world—the President of the United States.
When asked as a little boy what I wanted to become when I grew up, I didn’t say fireman or police officer.
“I want to be the president!” I said.
Things and times have changed. I no longer want to work those long hours and it would be a chore to fund-raise and ask folks for cash.
Oh, what could have been.
So, you’ll understand that I jumped at the opportunity to interview Southern Chester County’s Walter Eckman, a presidential historian and author of the book, “Meet the Presidents.” The 82-yearold is preparing a separate book on first ladies.
Eckman lectures about those larger than life characters on cruise ships and for fraternities and other organizations including Daughters of the American Revolution. He’ll even sometimes play a game of “Stump the Author.”
“People love to talk about two things, the weather—which they can’t do anything about— and presidents,” Eckman said with a wry smile and sense of humor.
The 1954 Coatesville High School graduate talked about his hobby visiting presidential libraries and homes.
What follows are some of his favorite stories about presidents:
Eckman likes our first president the most.
“Washington sacrificed more than all the other 44 presidents,” he said.
Washington spent eight years as commander of the military, while defeating the most powerful army and navy in the world with a bunch of “lobstermen and squirrel hunters,” and eight years as president. He would have much rather been planting crops at Mount Vernon.
Before there were bridges and McDonald’s, Washington also rode a horse from Philadelphia to Boston. The first president helped design the White House, but was the only president to never live there. He hung his hat at a house in Philadelphia, at Independence Mall, on the corner of Market and 6th streets.
“When studying the presidents we are following the progress of technology,” Eckman said.
He pointed to one of the world’s great inventions: the steam locomotive. Sailing ships were not used much anymore and a time schedule could be followed since trains aren’t dependent on the wind.
The presidential scholar’s favorite Presidential Library is Ronald Reagan’s in Santa Barbara CA.
There is a display concerning the charismatic Reagan’s movie star days. Two Reagan jeeps feature license plates reading, “THE GIPPER.”
“He loved America,” Eckman said about Reagan. “He revived our patriotism.
“It’s a great country, no question.”
The Penn State graduate favors the JFK Boston library on the Charles River, and also favors another located on water, Teddy Roosevelt’s Long Island Sound home.
Harry S. Truman is buried in the courtyard near his library in Independence, Missouri.
“If Truman wanted to go to work, it was not far from the courtyard to his office,” Eckman joked.
Richard Nixon’s Yorba Linda, California, library features spectacular fountains. It contains his birth home and his meticulously manicured gardens.
Jimmy Carter still teaches Sunday school in Plains, Georgia.
“Jimmy Carter accomplished more after he left the White House than in the White House,” Eckman said. “His ability to communicate with foreign leaders was excellent.” Eckman also noted that at 94, Carter is the longest living president.
Abraham Lincoln grew up poor in Kentucky.
“Lincoln had less than one year of school,” he said. “He taught himself to read in a log cabin with a dirt floor smaller than a one car garage, with the Bible, a candle and a dictionary. The scholar said that Lincoln also wrote the best presidential speech, the Gettysburg Address.
Eckman said that Monticello is not his “cup of tea” but Jefferson, was such an intellectual.
A visit to Ford’s Theater in D.C., the site of Lincoln’s shooting is an eye-opener. And Eckman is even interested in shooter John Wilkes Booth’s family.
“I want to find that farm where the assassin’s family lived,” he said.
That same night Lincoln was shot, at 10 p.m., prospective killers were set to kill the vice president and secretary of state. A gun misfired and one assassin got too drunk to shoot anybody.
Eckman developed his love of the presidency as a child when his grandfather took him to a whistle stop campaign appearance by Harry S. Truman. He quipped that Truman said his wife Bess, an outstanding tennis champ, softball player and shot-putter, was “the boss” and his daughter, Margaret was “the boss’s boss.”
Eckman remembers listening to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fireside chats on the radio. Movie theaters would pause the film. With windows open, in Coatesville, the passersby could hear the president from every opening.
Teddy Roosevelt experienced his wife and mother’s death in the same house, just four hours apart, on Valentine’s Day.
Calvin Coolidge was quiet. A women once approached him and said she had made a bet with a friend that he would say more than two words.
“You lose,” is all that he said.
Coolidge was Reagan’s favorite president.
Although Woodrow Wilson could not read until age 12, he is the only president to earn a PhD.
Not every president had the best health. FDR was confined to a wheel chair because of polio, Wilson suffered eight stokes (his wife Edith helped run the show and was referred to as the first woman president.) Eisenhower had seven heart attacks.
I have a favorite; Teddy Roosevelt. He was an explorer and outdoorsman. He helped create many national parks and even has a North Dakota national park named after him. He got around.
My favorite library is Clinton’s in Little Rock. The oval office was recreated here and it is spectacular.
May Eckman keep on lecturing, traveling and cruising. He’s got much to share. You may purchase his book, “Meet the Presidents,” at amazon.com and barnes&noble.com Bill Rettew is a weekly columnist and is a Chester County native. He has breathed the same air as all the living presidents. You may contact him at brettew@dailylocal.com