Thelma Ryan was only 13, a freshman at Excelsior Union High School in Artesia, Calif., when her mother Kate, a German immigrant and Christian Scientist from South Dakota, died from liver cancer at 45.

In the modern era, Patricia Nixon was probably the most private person to ever occupy the White House. Roanoke writer Heath Hardage Lee has put those years into perspective in a keen, brightly written ...

Being a wife was job one for Pat Nixon. “I have sacrificed everything in my life that I consider precious to advance the political career of my husband,” she once said. Tagged as “Plastic Pat” for ...