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Gopher from The Love Boat was best man at a wedding that united two Presidential families
Fred Grandy was a school chum of the kid Camp David is named after.
Beginning in the early 1940s with FDR, when U.S. Presidents have needed a break, they have retreated to the woods surrounding Catoctin Mountain in Maryland. You know the place as "Camp David." It wasn't always called that. Roosevelt dubbed it "Shangri-La." It was Eisenhower who named the retreat "Camp David," in honor of his son, David Eisenhower.
Young David was sent to boarding school in New Hampshire, to the exclusive private institution the Phillips Exeter Academy. He had a roommate you probably know — Fred Grandy. Though you might know him better as "Gopher" from The Love Boat.
The young Eisenhower and Grandy bonded, staying friends into adulthood. When both were 20 years old, in 1968, Eisenhower tied the knot. The wedding happened to fuse two major families of American politics. David Eisenhower married Julie Nixon, the daughter of President-Elect Richard Nixon, who had won office just a month earlier.
The best man at the wedding? Fred Grandy! You can see a photo of the young Grandy beside the groom and bride here.
Grandy grew up in Iowa. Before he landed a role aboard The Love Boat, he worked as a speechwriter for Iowa Congressman Wiley Mayne. The politics bug never left his system. In 1986, after The Love Boat had wrapped, Grandy ran for congress himself, winning a seat as a representative of Iowa's 6th (and later 5th) district, holding office from 1987–95. Grandy served on the Ways and Means Committee. We're assuming not as the "Yeoman Purser."
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15 Comments
Which President Eisenhower had no business doing. His personal tastes in nomenclature had no relevance to U.S. government property.
I guess the Staff Writers "could" be phoning in their copy. But I wouldn't assume every one is being affected by the wildfires and landslides. Although we DO have a lot of other stuff going in this State that is germane.
