Hannah Van Buren was the wife of Martin Van Buren who became the eighth United States President eighteen yeas after her death. Both Martin and Hannah were residents of the closely knit Dutch community of Kinderhook, New York, a small town near Albany, New York. The Van Burens were members of...
Ellen Axson Wilson was the first of President Woodrow Wilson's (1913-1921) two wives. Ellen Wilson died on August 6, 1914. Her death devastated and profoundly depressed the president to the extent that he became unfocused and indecisive in the presidency, in significant contrast to his determined and brisk decision-making of...
Three American First Ladies died, compared to eight US Presidents who expired while president. The three are Letitia Tyler, Caroline Harrison, and Ellen Wilson. Two died from the delayed complications of childbirth while Mrs. Harrison was a victim of pulmonary tuberculosis. Letitia Tyler was a most obscure First Lady. Little is...
Melania Trump has moved into the White House and has assumed the traditional responsibilities of a First Lady. Her role became apparent during the Trumps' recent Mideast and Europe trip. She was prominently photographed at ceremonial dinners, during the Trumps' visit to the Vatican, and at appearances at childens' hospitals....
Ivanka Trump Kushner, the daughter of President Donald Trump, has a significant, but as yet undefined role in her father's White House. Not only is she the wife of Jared Kushner, the senior advisor to the present, but also she serves as an unpaid special assistant to her father. No doubt...
MELANIA TRUMP II IS IVANKA, HER DAUGHTER-IN-LAW, HER SURROGATE FIRST LADY? On January 20, 2017 Melania Trump became First Lady of the United States upon the inauguration of her husband Donald Trump as our forty-fifth president. Mrs. Trump is only the second American First Lady to be born overseas. She was born...
MELANIA TRUMP The Incoming First Lady, The Wife of America's 45th President. The First Lady-designate is 46 years of age, stands five foot eleven inches in height, and is in good health. The author could discover neither significant illnesses nor chronic health problems in Melania Trump's medical history. It appears that...
First Ladies of America What Are Their Responsibilities. The United States Constitution does not establish either an office, or a role, for a First Lady of the United States. Hence, there is no established set of responsibilities or duties for her role as one of the First Ladies of America. A...
One of the most interesting and successful first lady surrogates was Priscilla Cooper Tyler, the daughter in law of President John Tyler, the tenth United States president (1841-1845). Letitia Tyler, his wife, was severely disabled, and ultimately died (September, 1842) from cerebrovascular disease. Tyler, still president, remarried two years later. Until...
Martin Van Buren was the eighth president of the United States (1837-1841). He had been Andrew Jackson's vice president, and like Jackson, was a widower. Unlike his predecessor, Van Buren's wife perished many years before he entered the White House. This president was the father of four sons, all of whom...
Jackie, Michelle, Hillary, Lady Bird, and Rosalynn Carter in Top Ten. Rating the First Ladies I For many decades, Presidents of the United States have been evaluated, compared, contrasted, and ranked by experts and professional historians. Top ten and Bottom ten lists of our past leaders have been a source of comment,...
The Family Misfortunes of the Nation's Inaugural First Lady [caption id="attachment_314" align="alignleft" width="224"] Martha Washington[/caption] Martha Dandridge Custis, an extremely wealthy widow, married George Washington on January 6, 1759. Their near forty-one year marriage, although very affectionate and supportive, was childless. Previously, eighteen-year old Martha Dandridge wed Daniel Parke Custis, a rich Virginia...
[caption id="attachment_518" align="alignleft" width="224"] Margaret Truman[/caption] Margaret Truman was the daughter and only child of President Harry and First Lady Bess Truman. Thereby she experienced at close hand (1945-1953) the trials, travails, successes and accomplishments of a president and his wife. After completing biographies of both her father and her mother, Margaret...
Biographer of her mother, First Lady Ellen Wilson [caption id="attachment_511" align="alignleft" width="220"] Ellen Axson Wilson[/caption] Several of America's First Ladies have been subjects of admiring biographies by their daughters (Margaret Truman, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Patti Davis) or granddaughter (Susan Eisenhower). Eleanor Wilson McAdoo, the youngest daughter of Woodrow and Ellen Wilson, probably...
The wife of Martin Van Buren, Hannah Van Buren died many years before her husband became the eighth president of the United States. The Van Burens were childhood sweethearts from the Dutch community of Kinderhook up the Hudson from New York City. Martin and Hannah married in their mid twenties...
Martha Jefferson (1748-1782), Rachel Jackson (1767-1828), Hannah Van Buren (1783-1819), Ellen Arthur (1837-1880) [caption id="attachment_462" align="alignleft" width="300"] Martha Jefferson[/caption] The wives of four future presidents died before their husbands were inaugurated as President of the United States. Two (Rachel Jackson and Ellen Arthur) passed away less than a year before they would...
Margaret Truman was the daughter and only child of President Harry and First Lady Bess Truman. Thereby she experienced at close hand (1945-1953) the trials, travails, successes and accomplishments of a president and his wife. After completing biographies of both her father and her mother, Margaret embarked on a career of...
Mary Margaret Truman, the only child of President Harry and First Lady Bess Truman, died in 2008 at the age of 84, blessed with inheriting her parents' longevity gene. Margaret's mother, Bess, did not author an autobiography although most recent First Ladies, beginning with Lady Bird Johnson, have. Margaret Truman more...
The wife of Martin Van Buren, Hannah Van Buren died many years before her husband became the eighth president of the United States. The Van Burens were childhood sweethearts from the Dutch community of Kinderhook up the Hudson from New York City. Martin and Hannah married in their mid twenties...
[caption id="attachment_314" align="alignleft" width="224"] Martha Washington[/caption] Martha Washington brought two children to her marriage with George Washington. She also brought great wealth; the married couple lived on one of her Virginia estates, prophetically called The White House Plantation. Martha Dandridge (18) married Daniel Parke Custis a rich planter twenty years older. They...
Rumor and innuendo suggested a romantic attachment between twice-widowed Edith Bolling (after the death of first husband Norman Galt and after the death of President Woodrow Wilson) and Sterling Ruffin M.D., her physician. Edith “seems to have taken the initiative as a young woman in regard to Dr. Sterling Ruffin, the...
“A Romance” between the Future and Former First Lady and Her Physician Sterling Ruffin M.D., “…a man of distinguished appearance, of great dignity of manner, and of outstanding ability” (1) was a well-trained and respected internist who practiced medicine in the District of Columbia for many years. Edith Bolling Galt identified...
Woodrow Wilson, two-term president of the United States (1913-1921), was psychologically and emotionally dependent upon women. After his first wife Ellen died in 1914, President Wilson quickly and actively courted Edith Bolling Gault; they married in December, 1915, a scant sixteen months after Ellen was buried. Woodrow quickly took Edith into...
The wife of President William Howard Taft (1909-1913) was the first presidential wife to see her memoirs in print. Recollections of Full Years was written within two years after Nellie Taft exited the White House; it was published by Dodd, Mead and Company of New York in 1914, and in...
After her husband left the presidency he became a professor at the Yale Law School. Nellie Taft after being first lady and a cultural force in Washington, became bored in New Haven, CT, the location of the law school. Her husband and daughter encouraged Nellie as an antidote to write...
Nellie Taft, was the wife of the 27th president of the United States, William Howard Taft. Since being a White House guest at the age of sixteen, she employed her impressive intelligence, executive skill and persistence towards a return to the White House as its mistress. She saw in her...
Both the wives of Presidents Richard Nixon and William Howard Taft were smokers. Nellie (Helen) Taft took up the habit when she was nineteen (1880) at a time when the thought of well-bred women smoking was anathema to proper society. For Nellie it was a way to escape the strictures that...
Future First Lady Helen Herron (Nellie) Taft became a baseball fan, as many mothers have since, by accompanying her young sons to the baseball park. Her park was the home field of the Cincinnati Reds; the Tafts frequented the Reds’ stadium during the 1890s. My own mother became a fan of...