Eleanor Davies was born on April 27, 1904 in Watertown, Wisconsin, to Joseph Edward Davies, a lawyer and diplomat, and Mary Emlen Knight. The family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1912 when Joseph Davies accepted a high-level post in the Wilson administration. Eleanor was educated at the Holton Arms School and Vassar College. She was very active in the social life of Washington. In 1926 she married Thomas Cheesborough of Asheville, North Carolina. This marriage produced two children, Joseph (b. 1926) and Eleanor (b. 1932), but ended in divorce in April 1935. In December of the same year Eleanor married Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland, who subsequently adopted both children.
Eleanor Tydings Ditzen became very active in social and political life of the District of Columbia and Maryland throughout the remainder of Tydings' political career, including his electoral defeat at the hands of Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his allies in 1950. She remained politically active through the 1950s and served as Adlai Stevenson's campaign manager in Maryland in the presidential election of 1956. Millard Tydings' health began to decline in the mid-1950s, and he died in 1961.
Eleanor Tydings Ditzen worked with and supported various charities, including the creation of the Washington Hospital Center. In 1965, she met the Reverend Lowell Ditzen, a national leader of the Presbyterian Church. They were married in 1966; he died in 1987. Her later years were filled with international travel, family gatherings, and parties. She died in 2006 at the age of 102.
From the guide to the Eleanor Tydings Ditzen Papers, 1836-2001, 1930-1970, (State of Maryland and Historical Collections)
