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Ronald Reagan’s Daughter Says He Married Nancy Over Pregnancy

In her new memoir, Patti Davis says Reagan had a pact with his former wife to not remarry until she did.

Ronald Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis, says her mother, Nancy Reagan, convinced the former president to get married by getting pregnant with her in 1952, according to her upcoming book Dear Mom and Dad: A Letter About Family, Memory, and the America We Once Knew. Ronald Regan had been married to actress Jane Wyman before divorcing her, and according to Davis, had “made a pact” with Wyman that he wouldn’t remarry before she did. Davis wrote that her father was happy playing the field and “was not exactly anxious to get married again.” Davis was born six months after the couple married in March of 1952 and writes “Traveling back, you realize that the whole story of your family is bigger, messier, and often more tender than you once believed.”