Abilene Manufacturing Company business check, 8.5 x 3, filled out by a company secretary, payable to Dwight Eisenhower for $8.75, July 9, 1910, endorsed on the reverse in pencil, "Dwight Eisenhower." In fine condition, with expected check wear. Accompanied by a full letter of authenticity from PSA/DNA.
Eisenhower grew up in Abilene, Kansas, where he graduated from Abilene High School in the class of 1909. It seems that he worked only briefly at the Abilene Manufacturing Company during the summer of 1910, where he made steel bins for storing grain. The Eisenhower family's financial situation made it impossible for both Dwight and his brother Edgar to attend college at the same time, so they formed a pact to alternate years studying and working to pay for each other's tuition. Ike allowed Edgar to take a second year at college, and so he spent his first two years out of high school working in Abilene to help support his brother. Then, encouraged by a friend, he applied to the tuition-free military academies at Annapolis and West Point. Although eminently qualified for both, by this point Eisenhower's years working had pushed him beyond the Naval Academy's age limit and so, essentially by default, he received an appointment to West Point. Eisenhower checks of any sort are rare, and as an extremely early example symbolizing his period of growth from high school senior to West Point cadet this is a supremely desirable piece.
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