Richard Nixon's First Engagement
An Account of the Engagement of Richard Nixon to a Fellow Student
Long before Richard Nixon married Patricia Ryan and went on to the US Presidency, he had been engaged to a young woman who was a fellow student at Whittier High School.
Ola Florence Welch
was a 'sultry, statuesque' young woman whose high cheekbones and deep-set eyes gave her a rather exotic appearance . On May 2,1929, she appeared with Richard in leading roles in Whittier High School play 'The Aeneid.' However, the acting did not go well and they were booed and made victims of boisterous laughter after the final scene of this tragic play. Nixon, undaunted, insisted that Ola Florence come home with him to meet his parents...no time to remove that theatrical makeup that was caking her face. This was Richard Nixon's first serious love.
Frank and Hannah Nixon
accepted Ola immediately and she would visit often and even went for a week to a Milhous relative's place with the family. However, Ola's mother took a dim view of the situation, thinking that the Nixons, with their little grocery store, were a cut below the Welch family. As the relationship grew more serious, Ola's mother became more perturbed. Apparently she "couldn't stand Dick. She wouldn't speak to him when he came to the house," according to Ola's younger sister Dorothy.
Engagement
On June 10, 1933, after four years together, the couple announced their engagement .Ola remembered, "Everything about that night was so beautiful, the flowers, the music, the atmosphere. Dick was really moved." It was that night that Nixon first told Ola how much he loved her. He was also a very generous young man, and would never allow Ola to pay for anything when on a date together.
A difficult engagement,because of frequent quarrelling over Nixon's meanness and mood swings, the couple nevertheless managed to hang on, and then came the separation when Dick was admitted to Duke University Law School. Returning home in 1935 after the first year of law school Nixon was dismayed to find that he had competition in the person of Gail Jobe, a young man Ola had been seeing for part of that year.
The Breakupoccured that summer when Nixon phoned and discovered Jobe was at the Welch home one afternoon.Full of frustration Nixon slammed the phone down and told Ola, "If I never see you again it will be too soon."
Howvever, Nixon did not give up and remained in touch with Ola for the first part of his new term at Duke.The engagement was broken in December, 1935, but he kept writing pleading letters to Ola who repeatedly asked him to stop.
Patricia Ryan
That Nixonwas hurt by the turn of events is obvious from his letters. But he soldiered on, never discussing the breakup with friends or family. Ola went on to marry her Gail Jobe and apparently they had a good life. As for Nixon, It wouldn't be too long before a tall, slim, titian-haired beauty named Patricia Ryan would come into his life...they also met while acting in a play...and his world would change forever.
Source: "Nixon, A Life" by Jonathan Aitken. Regnery Publishing Company, Washington, D.C.1993
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