A question I had in my latest reading of Stephen Ambrose's Nixon: The Education of a Politician
is how Richard Nixon and the lady he would marry, Thelma (Pat) Ryan,
fit so many activities into each day. I think particularly of the
time that they were students. Richard Nixon as a student at Duke Law
School studied a lot, worked at the library, engaged in extracurricular
activities, did exercises in the afternoon, and the list goes on. And
not only did he survive in an intense and competitive law school, but he
graduated with a high class rank. (I should also mention that he lived
in a shack during some of that time in order to save money.) Pat Ryan
went to school, worked at the bank, took care of her father (who had
tuberculosis) after her mother died, was involved in dramatics, etc.
How did they do all of these things each day?
I found a passage on
pages 95-96 of Ambrose's book to be somber yet profound. Author
Jessamyn West (remember the lady who went to Frank Nixon's Sunday School
class) interviewed Pat Nixon in 1970, and Pat said that she (meaning
Pat) never got tired. West reflected: "That statement and Pat Nixon's
belief in it probably grew out of her experiences as a girl; began in
those days when, motherless, her father ill, she, a student, housekeeper
and breadwinner all in one, no doubt told herself, 'You cannot be
tired. You dare not be tired. Everything depends on you. You are not tired."