A few First Ladies
Like how this picture implies that I’m reading at a lake, instead of just holding a book at a lake?
Me, too.
Some, but not all, of the facts and doodles below were inspired by First Women, The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies by Kate Anderson Brower.
Check out my reel if you want to take a 30-second zip through the book.
As Laura Bush pointed out, America may have elected their husbands … but the first ladies are thrust into their positions because they were elected by one man.
First Lady Betty Ford was told “You are constitutionally required to be perfect.” No pressure.
Bess Truman (along with her family) thought of the White House as the “Great White Jail.”
Keep on scrolling for a disjointed collection of tidbits about this unique group of women.
Frances Clara Folsom Cleveland was the youngest First Lady. She married President Cleveland at 21 years old.
Frank, as she was called, had known Uncle Cleve since she was a baby. He bought her baby stroller. This is definitely not weird at all.
Not even when you add the fact that she was the daughter of his friend/law partner. Or the fact that he was once her legal guardian.
She outlived Cleveland by 39 years. After enrolling in Princeton’s classical archaeological program, she married a retired businessman. She’s buried with Grover, even though she was married to her second husband longer… and he outlived her.
The only other widowed FLOTUS to remarry was Jackie Kennedy.
Nelly Taft spent a week in the White House as a teenager because her dad was friends with President Hayes. She decided she wanted to marry someone “destined to be President of the United States.”
Taft didn’t want to be president — his ultimate career goal was to be on the Supreme Court.
Nelly suffered a stroke early in his presidency and needed an extended break from the duties she’d coveted for so long.
Following the exceedingly punctual Pat Nixon, her chronically tardy successor was known as “the late Mrs. Ford.”
But before she was a tardy First Lady, Betty went through some stuff. Holy crap.
When she was 16 years old, her dad died of asphyxiation working under a car while it was running.
She endured a miserable, lonely marriage to a traveling salesman and decided she wanted out. As she was writing to let him know, she got a call that he was in a diabetic coma. She took care of him for two years. As soon as he could walk and work, she filed for divorce.
Didn’t want to be with someone who was away all the time. Married Ford. He travelled nonstop.
Betty helped reduce the stigma surrounding both breast cancer and addiction.
Abigail was Millard Fillmore’s teacher. She was the only pre-20th century First Lady to continue working after getting married.
Eliza Johnson taught her illiterate husband, future president Andrew Johnson, how to read and write. (I can’t help but wonder how things might have turned out if he didn’t pick up those skills…)
Mary Todd Lincoln held séances to try to communicate with her son Willie.
Edith Wilson held them as well, to communicate with Woodrow.
Want more ladies?
Visit my new (but still in progress!) First Ladies webpage. Or check out First Ladies National Historic Site. Their list is complete, visually accurate, and includes the women who served but weren’t married into the job. (And it’s on my bucket list of places to visit in real life.)
Like what you see here?
Sign up for The POTUS Notice! My free monthly email newsletter goes out the first Saturday each month. (Just like Pat Nixon, it is exceedingly punctual.) Occasionally, I also send a bonus Presidential Briefs email. No more than two emails a month, I promise. The POTUS Notice contains additional content not necessarily repeated in the blog. And it generally looks cooler, too. Plus, subscribers get a free trading card and chances to score POTUS merch!
Follow along on Instagram for more doodles and presidential trivia.
