Widow Won’t Be Cast Out, Nixon Aides Vow

Aides to former President Richard M. Nixon and Yorba Linda city officials, scrambling to avoid a public relations nightmare, said Tuesday that they have no intention of forcing a 93-year-old widow from her home to make way for a presidential library that will be built near Nixon’s boyhood home.

City officials said Monday that they want to include the half-acre plot owned by Edith Eichler in a nine-acre parcel that will become the home of the long-delayed Nixon library.

Upon learning of the plans, Mrs. Eichler said she didn’t want to leave the home she has lived in for more than 62 years, and officials Tuesday said they have no intention of booting the frail but still active woman out.

“President Nixon and the (Richard Nixon Presidential Archives) foundation are aware of the situation, and it is their position that if Mrs. Eichler doesn’t want to move, then she should not have to,” said Nixon special assistant John Taylor from his New York office.

“In our discussion with the city, they have said they have every intention of working out a solution that will be acceptable to everyone,” he said.

Taylor said the former President will probably visit Mrs. Eichler “to pay his respects” when he returns to his hometown for ground-breaking

ceremonies, which are scheduled for September.

Yorba Linda City Manager Arthur Simonian said the city will continue with plans to appraise the Eichler property and will make her an offer. If Mrs. Eichler still does not want to sell, the city will consider other options, he said, including moving the house to another location.

“There are a number of scenarios we can look at,” Simonian said. “But the bottom line is, we are not going to remove her from her home if she doesn’t want to go.”

Yorba Linda officials had previously announced that they planned only to buy a six-acre portion of the site--where the vacant Richard M. Nixon Elementary school is located--from the Yorba Linda School District for $1.3 million.

But at Monday’s press conference, they said they wanted the entire nine-acre parcel that made up the original homestead owned by Nixon’s father, Francis. The site is bounded by Yorba Linda Boulevard on the south, Eureka Avenue on the west and the El Cajon bicycle and equestrian trial on the north.

Mayor Roland Bigonger said the entire nine-acre triangular site was needed to “preserve the historical integrity” of the former President’s life.

Nixon was born in 1913 in a small wooden house at 1806 Yorba Linda Blvd. The home is now owned by the Nixon Birthplace Foundation but is not open to the public. The Richard Nixon Presidential Archives Foundation, a private group that will operate the Nixon library, has agreed to restore and furnish the home and open it to the public.

Edith Eichler has lived just up a hill on Eureka Avenue for more than 62 years, in a small wood frame home furnished with overstuffed chairs and couches and a lifetime’s collection of antique plates and crystal.

The Eichler property was bought, ironically, from Nixon’s father before the Nixon family moved to Whittier. Mrs. Eichler recalled knowing the Nixon parents well, she and Hannah Milhous Nixon, the former President’s mother, had formed one of the first women’s clubs in the area.

The former elementary school teacher said she too cares about historical integrity but right now will wait to see what the city offers.

“It’s a good, logical place to put the library,” she mused. “But I only have a very small home here. There is plenty of room.”