President
Ronald Wilson Reagan
Compilation by D.
A. Sharpe
President Ronald Wilson Reagan was
born February 6, 1911 in Tampico, Whiteside County, Illinois. He is the seventh cousin, once removed to me. The
Ancestors in common between President Reagan and me are Susannah Coldman and
her husband, John Bishop. They
are my seventh great grandparents from the 1600's
Reagan was the 40th President of the
United States (1981-1989) and was elected earlier as the 33rd Governor of the
State of California (1967 - 1975). Prior
to his political successes, he was a professional screen actor and elected
President of the Screen Actors Guild. He
is the only U. S. President who also served as a labor union president.
Ronald Reagan was
raised in a poor
family in small towns of northern Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and worked as a sports announcer
on several regional radio stations. After moving to Hollywood in 1937, he
became an actor and starred in a few major productions. Reagan was twice
elected President of the Screen Actors GuildÑthe labor union for actorsÑwhere he
worked to root out Communist influence. In the 1950s, he moved into
television and was a motivational speaker at General Electric factories. Reagan had always been a Democrat until 1962 when he became a
conservative and switched to the Republican Party. In 1964, Reagan's speech, "A Time for Choosing", supported Barry Goldwater's foundering presidential campaign and
earned him national attention as a new conservative spokesman. Building a
network of supporters, he was elected Governor of
California in
1966. As governor, Reagan raised taxes, turned a state budget deficit to a
surplus, challenged 
the protesters at the University of California, ordered National Guard troops in during a period of protest movements in 1969, and was re-elected in 1970. He twice ran unsuccessfully for the
Republican nomination for the U.S. presidency in 1968 and 1976; four years later, he easily won the
nomination outright, becoming the oldest elected U.S. president up to that
time, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980.
Entering the
presidency in 1981, Reagan implemented sweeping new political and
economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated tax rate reduction to spur economic
growth, control of the money supply to curb inflation, economic deregulation,
and reduction in government spending. In his first term he survived an assassination attempt, spurred the War on Drugs, and fought public sector labor. Over his two terms,
the economy saw a reduction of inflation from 12.5% to 4.4%, and an average
annual growth of real GDP of 3.4; while Reagan did enact cuts in domestic
discretionary spending, tax cuts and increased military spending contributed to
increased federal outlays overall, even after adjustment for inflation. During 
his re-election bid, Reagan campaigned
on the notion that it was "Morning in America", winning a landslide in 1984 with the largest electoral college
victory in American history. Foreign affairs dominated his second term,
including ending of the Cold War, the bombing of Libya, and the IranÐContra affair. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an "evil empire", and during his famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate, President Reagan challenged Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!". He transitioned Cold War policy from dŽtente to rollback, by escalating an arms race with the USSR while engaging in talks with Gorbachev,
which culminated in the INF Treaty, shrinking both countries' nuclear
arsenals.[1] Reagan's presidency came during the
decline of the Soviet Union and just ten months after the end of his term, the Berlin Wall fell, and on December 26, 1991, nearly three years
after he left office, the Soviet Union collapsed.
When Reagan left
office in 1989, he held an approval rating of sixty-eight percent, matching
those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and later Bill Clinton, as the highest ratings for departing presidents in
the modern era.[2] He was the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower to serve two full terms, after a succession of five
prior presidents did not, some under unusual circumstances. Although he had
planned an active post-presidency, Reagan disclosed in 
1994 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease earlier that year. He appeared publicly for the last
time at the funeral of Richard Nixon. He died ten years later in 2004 at the age of 93. Reagan had
the second-longest life out of all the presidents; the current
longest lifespan of a president is held by Gerald Ford, who died two years after Reagan. An icon among Republicans, he is
viewed favorably in historian rankings of U.S. presidents, and his tenure constituted a realignment toward conservative policies in the U.S.
He married actress Jane Wyman in
1940, and they divorced in 1949. He
married Nancy Davis in 1952.
According to Paul Kengor, author of God
and Ronald Reagan, Reagan had a particularly strong faith in the
goodness of people; this faith stemmed from the optimistic faith of his mother
and the Disciples of Christ faith, into which he was baptized in 1922. For the
time, Reagan's opposition to racial discrimination was unusual. He recalled the time in Dixon when the
proprietor of a local inn would not allow black people to stay there, and he brought them back to his house.
His mother invited them to stay overnight and have breakfast the next morning.
After the closure of the Pitney Store in late 1920 and the family's move to
Dixon, the Midwestern "small universe" had a lasting impression on
Reagan.
Reagan attended Dixon High School, where he developed interests in
acting, sports, and storytelling. His first job involved lifeguarding at the Rock River in Lowell Park in 1927. Over a
six-year period, Reagan reportedly performed 77 rescues as a lifeguard. He
attended Eureka College, a Disciples-oriented liberal arts
school, where he became a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, a cheerleader, and studied economics and
sociology. While involved, the Miller Center of Public Affairs described him as an "indifferent
student". He majored in economics and sociology, and graduated with a C
grade. He developed a reputation as a "jack of all trades", excelling
in campus politics, sports, and theater. He was a member of the football team and captain of the swim team. He was elected
student body president and led a student revolt against the college president
after the president tried to cut back the faculty.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan
On Reagan's 87th
birthday, in 1998, Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National
Airport by a
bill signed into law by President Bill Clinton. That year, the Ronald Reagan Building and
International Trade Center was dedicated in Washington, D.C. He was among 18
included in Gallup's most admired man and woman
poll of the
20th century, from a poll conducted in the U.S. in 1999; two years later, USS Ronald
Reagan
was christened by Nancy Reagan and the United States Navy. It is one of few Navy ships christened in honor of a
living person and the first aircraft carrier to be named in honor of a living former president.
Ronald Reagan was a
man to express his Christian faith.
Here is a quotation:
ÒOf the many
influences that have shaped the United States of America into a distinctive
Nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than
the Bible É The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding
FathersÕ abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual Ð rights
which they found implicit in the bibleÕs teachings of the inherent worth and
dignity of each individual.Ó
Source: Reagan, ÒProclamation 5018 Ð Year of the Bible, 1983,Ó American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40728
When Reagan addressed
a Prayer Breakfast in Dallas, Texas in August 1984, during the Republican
National Convention in Dallas where he was made the PartyÕs Presidential
candidate for his second term, we hear a quote that reinforces his Christian
view:
ÒWithout God, there
is no virtue, because thereÕs no prompting of the conscience. Without God, weÕre mired in the material,
that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceived. Without God, there is a coarsening of
the society. And without God,
democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that weÕre One
Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under!Ó
It was the privilege
and honor for Suzanne and me to be volunteers at the 1984 Republican National
Convention when it met in Dallas, Texas, where we lived, to witness the
nomination of Ronald Reagan to be the Republican PartyÕs candidate in November
that year for his second term!
Ronald Wilson Reagan
died on June 5, 2004 at age 93 in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California. The cause of death was pneumonia,
complicated by Alzheimer's disease. His final resting place is at the Ronald
Reagan Presidential Library and Center.
Compiled by
Dwight Albert (D. A.) Sharpe
805 Derting Road East
Aurora, TX 76078-3712
817-504-6508