Edward Nixon

Edward C. Nixon, the youngest and last surviving brother of former President Richard M. Nixon and a faithful guardian of his White House legacy, died on Wednesday February 27 2019 in Bothell, Wash., near Seattle. He was 88. Mr. Nixon, a geologist and energy consultant by profession, was 17 years younger than his brother Richard. He worked on his brother’s 1968 presidential campaign and was co-chairman of his re-election committee in 1972. Edward Calvert Nixon was born on May 3, 1930, in Whittier, Calif., where his father, Frank, ran a grocery store. He once described his mother, Hannah (Milhous) Nixon, as “the judge” and his father as “the executioner.” Like the other brothers, Harold, Francis Donald (known as Don) and Arthur, Edward Nixon was named for an English king. Harold died when he was 23, Arthur when he was 7. Don died in 1987, and the former president in 1994. Edward earned a bachelor of science degree in geology from Duke University in 1952 and a master’s in geological engineering from North Carolina State University in 1954. He served in the Navy as an aviator, helicopter flight instructor and in the Naval Reserve as a professor of naval science at the University of Washington. He was the president of Nixon World Enterprises, an energy consulting firm, from 1971 until his death. In 1957 he married Gay Lynne; she died in 2014. His survivors include their daughters, Amelie Peiffer and Elizabeth Matheny.