Mother in the Spotlight

In the pageant of President Eisenhower's official tour, one American woman had a spotlight all to herself. The only trouble was that Barbara Thompson Eisenhower, 33, is the kind of woman who would much prefer to avoid the spotlight. But as wife of Major John Eisenhower, daughter-in-law of the President, and (in Mamie's absence) a kind of unofficial U.S. First Lady on the trip, Barbara Eisenhower began to relax last week and have a happy time.

In normal days, John Eisenhower's wife, with only part-time help, runs her own house in Gettysburg (at the edge of Ike's farm). She gets three (of four) children off to public school, does her grocery shopping at a supermarket, tries to spend a day a week at the Red Cross office--filing, typing, helping with organizational chores. She is a qualified nurse's aid, serves part-time in the local hospital, plays bridge with the girls, attends P.T.A. meetings, keeps her Washington social life to a minimum, and on the whole, keeps her children from the public glare as well as her pretty face out of the papers.

Daughter of Army Colonel Percy W. Thompson (now retired), Barbara lived on Army posts, went to high school in Gainesville, Fla., attended Purdue for a while before her father was transferred to Vienna in 1946. There, in the normal round of Army social events, she met Captain John Eisenhower, U.S. Infantry, who was a company commander. They got married less than a year later in Virginia, at a big wedding attended by 200 guests, including Army Chief of Staff Dwight Eisenhower.

"She is a very practical person," says her father, who lives in Gainesville, Fla., "but at the same time, she manages to get enjoyment out of everything she does." In India last week, Barbara was doing just that. She went for a bumpy ride on an elephant with her husband ("Johnny kept rocking the box"), shopped for souvenirs for her children, picked up a few saris for herself ("I love them, but someone will have to show me how to wear them"), visited a village and Red Cross headquarters, chatted with India's leading lady political and social workers at a reception given in her honor by Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter.

After reporting that the President's daughter-in-law likes golf, dancing and horseback riding, one Indian newsman wrote delicately that "it is therefore hardly surprising that, though a mother of four, she has the figure and complexion of a teen-ager."

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