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Thelma Catherine "Pat" Nixon (née Ryan; March 16, 1912 – June 22, 1993) was the wife of Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States, and First Lady of the United States from 1969 to 1974. Born in Ely, Nevada, she grew up with her two brothers in what is now Cerritos, California, graduating from high school in 1929. She attended Fullerton Junior College and later the University of Southern California. She paid for her schooling by working multiple jobs, including pharmacy manager, typist, radiographer, and retail clerk. In 1940, she married lawyer Richard Nixon and they had two daughters. Nixon campaigned for her husband in his successful congressional campaigns of 1946 and 1948. Richard Nixon was elected Vice President in the Eisenhower administration, whereupon Pat undertook many missions of goodwill with her husband and gained favorable media coverage. She assisted her husband in both his unsuccessful 1960 presidential campaign and later in his successful 1968 presidential campaign. As First Lady, Pat Nixon promoted a number of charitable causes, including volunteerism. She oversaw the collection of more than 600 pieces of historic art and furnishings for the White House, an acquisition larger than that of any other administration. She was the most traveled First Lady in U.S. history, a record unsurpassed until twenty-five years later. She accompanied the President as the first First Lady to visit China and the Soviet Union and her solo trips to Africa and South America gained her recognition as "Madame Ambassador"; she was the first First Lady to enter a combat zone as well. These trips gained her favorable reception in the media and the host countries. Her tenure ended when, after being re-elected in a landslide victory in 1972, President Nixon resigned two years later amid the Watergate scandal. Her public appearances became increasingly rare later in life. She and her husband returned to California, and later moved to New Jersey. She suffered two strokes, one in 1976 and another in 1983, then was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1992. She died in 1993, aged 81. ==Early life== Thelma Catherine Ryan was born in the small mining and farming town of Ely, Nevada, the day before Saint Patrick's Day. Her father, William M. Ryan Sr., was a sailor, gold miner, and truck farmer of Irish descent; her mother, Katherine Halberstadt, was a German immigrant.〔 "Pat" was a nickname given to her by her father, referring to her birthdate and Irish ancestry.〔 Upon enrolling in college in 1931 she dropped her first name of Thelma, replacing it with Pat and occasionally rendering it as Patricia; the name change, however, was not a legal action, merely one of preference. After her birth, the Ryan family moved to California, and in 1914 settled on a small truck farm in Artesia (present-day Cerritos). Thelma Ryan's high-school yearbook page gives her nickname as "Buddy" and her ambition to run a boarding house.〔Illustration in a ''New York Times'' article by Judith M. Kinnard, entitled "Thelma Ryan's Rise: From White Frame to White House" (August 20, 1971).〕 During this time she worked on the family farm, and also at a local bank as a janitor and bookkeeper. Her mother died of cancer in 1924. Pat, who was 12 at the time, assumed all the household duties for her father, who died in 1929 of silicosis, and two older brothers, William Jr. (1910–1997) and Thomas (1911–1992). She also had a half-sister, Neva Bender (born 1909), and a half-brother, Matthew Bender (born 1907), from her mother's first marriage;〔 her mother's first husband had died during a flash flood in South Dakota.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pat Nixon」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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