- Francis A. Nixon
Francis Anthony "Frank" Nixon (
December 3 1879 –September 4 1956 ), father of United States PresidentRichard Nixon , was born inVinton County, Ohio , his parents were Samuel Brady Nixon and Sarah Ann Wadsworth. Nixon moved toCalifornia at the turn of the century after having been frostbitten working as a motorman in an openstreetcar inColumbus, Ohio . After working as a farmhand and oil roustabout, he attempted to cultivatelemon s outsideLos Angeles . Frank was born aMethodist , but converted toQuakerism to marryHannah Milhous on June 25, 1908.They had five children:
*
Harold Samuel Nixon (June 1 1909 –March 7 1933 )
*Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9 1913 –April 22 1994 )
*Francis Donald Nixon (November 23 1914 –June 27 1987 )
*Arthur Burdg Nixon (May 26 1918 –August 10 1925 )
*Edward Calvert Nixon (May 3 1930 )After Richard was born, Frank abandoned the lemon grove, and the family moved to the Quaker community of
Whittier, California . Frank focused on the family business, a store that soldgroceries andAtlantic Richfield gasoline but the family remained impoverished.Frank's life was marked by the deaths of Richard's brothers, Arthur and Harold, from
tuberculosis . He has been described as a "restless, frustrated, and angry man, a mean-spirited person who psychologically abused his five sons and sometimes beat them." However, Richard Nixon always spoke highly of his parents. He often spoke lovingly of his mother as a "Quaker saint," and began his memoirs with the words "I was born in a house my father built."Frank Nixon was played by Tom Bower in the 1995
Oliver Stone film "Nixon".References
* [http://www.nixonfoundation.org/index.php?src=gendocs&link=FunFacts&category=Home Nixon Fun Facts] via Nixon Foundation
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