A clip from a great great aunts journal

Here goes, I will type this in my Great Great Aunt Sadie’s words……

(top of the page ) Was elected January 1953 and elected for second term Jan. 1957

Trace Ike Ancestors into Lykens Valley (President Dwight Eisenhower)

Lykens Valley and its inhabitants, especially those residing in the area around Millersburg and Elizabethville, are highly complimented by the recent election and inauguration of president Dwight D. Eisenhower. He is the first president whose ancestors lived in that area.

In November 1741, Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Eisenhower and their family of three sons and a daughter landed at the port of Philadelphia. They were among the other immigrants who had come from the Rhineland in Europe and sailed from Holland on the Europa. Nicholas and his family immediately headed west and settled at Bethel (House of God) then in Lancaster County but now part of Lebanon Co.

It is claimed that Frederick Eisenhower, great grandfather of President Eisenhower, at one time lived at the homestead where Rufus R. Romberger and family now live. Jacob Eisenhower, the presidents grandfather, was born about four miles east of Harrisburg in 1827. After his marriage to Rebecca Matter, he moved in 1854 to the spacious 96 acre farm at the western edge of Elizabethville which he had purchased from Samuel Baker.

Jacob and his father Fredrick both belonged to the Baker River Brethren Church. In 1863 Jacob succeeded Jacob Landis as the preacher of the Lykens Valley District.

David Eisenhower the president’s father was born Sept 23, 1863. It was in 1878 that Jacob Eisenhower moved his family to Kansas. He frequently visited the Brethren in Lykens Valley and some of the older residents recall his visits and the sermons he preached. The president was born in Texas but lived as a boy in Kansas.

Six of Jacob Eisenhower’s children as well as a brother and his mother are buried on the hillside at Free Grace cemetery. It is through Annie Eisenhower that the Eisenhower tradition is perpetuated in Lykens Valley. She married Joseph Novinger and they had five children. Mrs. Sarah E. Lebo, now cherishes a personal letter from cousin Ike which he sent her while he was supreme commander of the NATO forces in Europe. A number of descendants of Rebecca Matter, the presidents grandmother, also reside in the Valley.