John Edward Ike

West Point, 1949

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Terry Powers on December 18, 2022:

John Edward Ike was born in Norfolk, Madison County, Nebraska. The 1930 census places him in Lincoln, NE. John was the son of Lester Edward Ike and his 1st wife, Emily Carlson. John's mother Emily sadly died in 1924, a few months after John's birth, due to childbirth complications. His father was a traveling salesman for the Rexall Drug Company and relied on his sister Auntie B. to help rear John while his father was gone for days at a time. Lester Ike then married Clara and they had John's sister Nina, who still resides in Seattle. The Ike's were of Swedish heritage as were many others in northwestern Nebraska. John was fascinated with gleaming locomotives that were commonplace as they plied the railways of the west, transporting goods and people. His father was both experimental and entrepreneurial, having designed and patented a "car Bed" that no doubt answered his personal needs of sleeping overnight in the faraway places of his sales route stretching across northeastern Nebraska. John Ike attended Norfolk High School whose greatest claim to fame was Johnny Carson who was a class behind John. John then attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln where he enrolled in Naval ROTC and attended flight school in Pensacola, Florida. He applied for and received a commission to West Point during the final year of World War II and entered as part of the class of 1949. Later, in parties held in his house after the Army-Navy game, he was referred to as "General". John was a bomber pilot in Korea and flew night bombing missions to destroy supply trains supplying the North Korean and Chinese forces over enemy territory. He flew the coolest airplane in the world - a highly modified Douglas B26 filled with first generation high-tech avionics. One model is now at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. After returning to the U.S., John and family lived in New York City where he studied at Columbia University in preparation for teaching at West Point. As the war wound down, John was discharged and jointed Procter & Gamble in New York. Soon he was transferred to headquarters in Cincinnati. In Cincinnati, the family lived first in Milford, Ohio and John joined the Saint Thomas Episcopal Church as treasurer. The family then moved to Terrace Park where the children grew up. John was an avid golfer. One year he announced that he had played 71 rounds of golf! Leland Cole was a member of one of his foursomes. John moved from P&G and served as controller and treasurer for a couple of different smaller Cincinnati companies. After a year in Quincy, Illinois, he again returned to Mariemont in the Cincinnati area and lastly worked at Hilltop Concrete, again in finance. John's love, in addition to his wife Nancy and children Leslie, John Jr. and Peter, was Golf, listening to Jazz and tracking his investments. Above all was Golf! Source: Finf A Grave

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