Pat Nixon: The high school business teacher from Whittier, California, who became our nation’s 37th First Lady. She served from 1969 to 1974. Photo Credit: US National Archives

Many well-known political personalities were once schoolteachers. One of these is Pat Nixon, who served as our nation’s First Lady from 1969 to 1974. She was employed during the 1930s as a business teacher at Whittier Union High School in Whittier, California. In fact, Pat was working as an educator when she met her future husband, a young and ambitious city attorney named Richard Nixon.

Pat Ryan Nixon was born into a family of farmers on March 16, 1912, in Ely, Nevada. She grew up in a rural community now known Cerritos, California. Her mother died of cancer in 1924, when Pat was only 12 years old. After her mother’s death, the young girl kept house for her father and two older brothers, William, Jr., and Thomas. It was a big responsibility for such a young girl.

In spite of her challenges, Pat graduated from Excelsior High School in 1929, and then worked her way through college working a variety of odd jobs. These jobs included retail sales, pharmacy manager, typist, and telephone operator. After her high school graduation, she first attended Fullerton Junior College in Fullerton, California, and then transferred to the University of Southern California, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Merchandising, cum laude, in 1937.

In her first year of teaching, Pat Nixon earned only $180 a month, a princely sum considering the poverty in which she grew up. A pretty and popular teacher, the former Miss Ryan instructed courses in typing, bookkeeping, business principles, and stenography. On her performance evaluations, her supervisors wrote that she had a “splendid attitude toward young people,” they praised her ability to get “good results from them.” She was highly respected for her careful balance of friendliness, high expectations, and strict classsroom discipline. Her students remembered her fondly, writes daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower in a detailed and personal biography published in 1986. The book is called Pat Nixon: the Untold Story, and is available on amazon.com.

In the political arena, Pat served her country as the wife of the Vice President from 1953 to 1961, and then as First Lady during her husband’s presidency, which spanned the years of 1969 to 1974. Her major platform as First Lady was to promote volunteerism. Through this platform, she encouraged Americans to address social problems at the local level through volunteering at civic organizations, hospitals, and rehabilitation centers. Like the First Lady, many teachers are known for emphasizing the importance of citizenship.

Pat Nixon passed away on June 22, 1993, in Park Ridge, New Jersey. She was 81 years old. She is interred next to her husband at the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California.