By SANDRA RHODES
ANF Visitors Bureau The headline could read “Dwight Eisenhower comes to Eldred.” Well, if not in person, then a pretty good understudy.
Bruce Hoff will give three presentations as Gen. Dwight Eisenhower over Memorial Day weekend, May 28, May 29 and May 30, at the Eldred World War II Museum, 201 Main Street, Eldred, Pa.
The presentations begin at 2 p.m. and are free and open to the public.
Hoff will dress as Eisenhower, look like Eisenhower and talk like Eisenhower. However, the San Antonio, Texas, man favors the term interpretation over impersonation.
“I try to give the listener what Ike would have done himself,” Hoff said. “They can make judgment as though they were meeting Ike.
“I cannot sound just like him. I try. He had a very staccato walk of talking,” Hoff said, adding he has spent many hours studying the man.
Hoff explained that the hour-long presentation will consist of about 40 minutes of him talking. The remaining 20 minutes will be devoted to questions from the audience.
“I will answer questions as exactly as he would have done,” Hoff said.
Each of his presentations are custom designed for the audience – “who are they and what do they want to hear.” Hoff does two forms of Eisenhower - during his general years or presidential years.
Of course, the talks he will give at the Eldred World War II Museum will be military based, and each will coincide with a day in history.
On May 28, for the “Taking the Lead” talk, the audience can travel back to Sept. 1, 1944. This is the date Eisenhower assumed direct command in the field and moved the headquarters to Europe. Hoff said this presentation will be, in part, a briefing of the audience of what was happening at that time, discuss supplies and a recent talk with Winston Churchill.
Day two – May 29 – will fast forward a year to “Memories of Guildhall.” On June 12, 1945, Eisenhower gave his famous “Guildhall Speech” in London. This was the anniversary of the day he first arrived in Normandy. He received honorary citizenship and celebrated the end of the Nazi regime. He will talk about the reasons for World War II and what he experienced and saw, including the Concentration Camps.
The topic on May 30, Memorial Day, will be “To the American Soldier” - Feb. 7, 1948 – the day Eisenhower resigned as the U.S. Army chief of staff and was succeeded by Gen. Omar Bradley.
This presentation will be particularly poignant. Tim Roudebush, chairman of the Eldred World War II Museum, asked if this could be a way to honor the current servicemen. When he resigned, Eisenhower wrote a memo addressed to the American soldier.
Hoff started his interpretations of Eisenhower about five years ago after spending 30 years in the financial business. It seemed as though he was destined to do Eisenhower, the man who would later become the 34th president of the United States. “I have always had a love of history,” he said. That love intensified when he was living in London during the 50th anniversary of D-Day.
“It was the last great reunion of all veterans living in London and I was working at the Norfolk House on St. James Square.” This building served as the headquarters for the planning of the D-Day invasion under the direction of Eisenhower.
His geographic location with history made way for his love of history to bloom. “I walked in and out the same door as Eisenhower.” He soon would walk in the footsteps of Eisenhower in another way. While living in Europe, he could follow the path Eisenhower took many years before.
When Hoff eventually retired and moved to San Antonio, he started working with the University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures. When he decided he wanted to do an interpretation, he narrowed his selection to two presidents from Texas – Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson. “I figured I would take and do Eisenhower,” Hoff said. “I don’t know if I could do LBJ - he was an extremely complicated man.”
And as it turns out, Hoff and Eisenhower are about the same age as he was when Eisenhower was president, are the same height and “part our hair the same way.” They are also two men who were born in the Midwest and ended up in Texas. Again, Hoff was following in Eisenhower’s footsteps.
Hoff said it is important that people remember Eisenhower as well as all the great figures in history. “We really don’t teach history properly,” he said. “We don’t know the people. History should be taught biographically. If not for the people, you don’t have history.”
Hoff describes Eisenhower as someone who did a lot of things not for the glory, but because it was the right thing to do.
“He desegregated the military. He desegregated Washington, D.C.,” Hoff said. “He didn’t do it with a lot of fanfare. People didn’t think he was doing anything, but he was. It’s time to set the record straight.”
Hoff also cited Eisenhower’s – as well as the United States’ – position on the Cold War. “How did that change where we are in the world today, not only with our relationship with what was the Soviet Union, but also Red China.” “The position he took on not getting involved, not committing troops to Vietnam.” There’s also the start of the space race, the interstate highway system and civil rights.
Eisenhower also did not hide from his faults. In matters such as the Battle of the Bulge or the U-2 crisis, he took the stance that if anyone was to blame, it was himself.
“The character of the man is important. We need to take and bring out those lessons. People need to know and follow themselves.”
For additional information on Memorial Day events at the Eldred WW II Museum visit
www.eldredwwiimuseum.org, for travel information in the region, contact
www.visitANF.com or phone 800-473-9370.
Pictured, Bruce Hoff of San Antonio, Texas, is dressed as Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. Hoff, who does interpretations of Eisenhower, will give three talks Memorial Day Weekend at the Eldred World War II Museum in Eldred, Pa.
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