Park to Get Statue of a Young Pat Nixon

The graceful image of a young Pat Nixon standing on the front porch of her childhood will mark the Cerritos site where the former first lady grew up, the City Council has decided.

Council members last week selected the likeness for an $85,000 bronze statue at Pat Nixon Park, where the work is expected to be unveiled March 16 to commemorate the former first lady’s 85th birthday.

The life-size statue will be crafted by New York artist Ivan Schwartz, who created many statues at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda.

Pat Nixon was born Thelma Catherine Ryan in 1912. Her family moved a year later to rural Artesia. There, in an area that became Cerritos by the late 1940s, she spent 19 years of her life on an 11-acre plot at the corner of South Street and Ely Avenue, part of which now hosts a senior citizens center. She died of lung cancer at age of 81 in Park Ridge, N.J.