A NICE PLACE TO VISIT: The Seymour/Reagan Window

Reagan and Nokes

Most of the attention when people visit Ronald Reagan's birthplace is appropriately on the actual apartment where he was born on February 6, 1911 in the middle of a severe snow storm (we will feature the apartment in a future article).  However, there is a nice bit of history located on the enclosed back porch connected to the apartment also that is rarely seen or discussed.  There on that back porch is a story worth telling of one of the many people in Illinois whose life touched that of "Dutch" Reagan: Mrs. Daisy Seymour Nokes.  

Our son Nicky at
The Window

   The Reagans lived above a bakery (which would become a bank
   in 1919) when Ronald Reagan was born at 111 Main Street,

   Tampico, Illinois.  Next door to the bakery was the Seymour

   Grocery Store, and living above that was the Seymour family. 

   Previously, when the back porch of what would eventually be

   the Reagan apartment was enclosed with walls and a ceiling, it

   created a rather unique design where a big window of the

   Seymour apartment opened directly into the enclosed porch of

   the Reagan homestead.  The window of the Seymour's apartment

   was, in fact, now part of a party wall shared by both

   apartments.  Instead of having to go next door a conventional

   way, the Reagans and the Seymours would chat through the

   window on the back porch.  When in need of a babysitter,

   mother Nelle Reagan would pass baby Dutch and his brother

                                           Neil through the connected window to the Seymours.



One of those who helped take care of baby Dutch was then 24 year old Daisy Seymour Nokes.  In January of 1981, in recognition of her 93rd birthday the previous November, then President Elect Reagan sent a letter of congratulations to Daisy, someone whose kindness he never forgot.  "I think so often of my old home, the town, and folks I loved back there" Reagan shares.

Today, a copy of that letter and a photo of Ronald Reagan and Daisy Seymour Nokes adorns the wall of the enclosed porch in remembrance of times and persons past.  When at the Ronald Reagan birthplace for a tour, it is definitely worth visiting the Seymour/Reagan window.  



111 Main Street and the
birthplace of Ronald Reagan



The enclosed porch of the
Reagan's apartment