David Eisenhower America, and former Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe during World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower. His father would go on to be a brigadier general in the U.S. Army Reserve, U.S. Ambassador to Belgium (1969–1971), and a renowned military historian. His grandfather would become president of Columbia University (1948–1953), and later the 34th President of the United States (1953–1961). After assuming the presidency in 1953, President Eisenhower named the presidential mountain retreat, formerly Camp Shangri-La, Camp David, after his grandson. Eisenhower graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1966. He received his B.A. degree in history
Dwight D. Eisenhower vary as to how and when the German name Eisenhauer was anglicized to Eisenhower. Eisenhower's Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors, who were primarily farmers, included Hans Nikolaus Eisenhauer of Karlsbrunn, who migrated to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1741. Hans's great-great-grandson, David Jacob Eisenhower (1863–1942), was Eisenhower's father and was a college-educated engineer, despite his own father Jacob's urging to stay on the family farm. Eisenhower's mother, Ida Elizabeth (Stover) Eisenhower, born in Virginia, of German Protestant ancestry, moved to Kansas from Virginia. She married David on September 23, 1885, in Lecompton, Kansas, on the campus of their alma mater, Lane University. David owned