Born: 1860
Died: 1924

Florence Kling took after her father, a rich and iron-willed Ohio entrepreneur. He taught her business and sent her to music school, but at 19 she eloped with ne’er-do-well Henry DeWolfe and bore her only child. Divorced at 25, Florence was teaching piano when she fell in love with the glib and handsome, but hopelessly malleable Warren Harding. Five years her junior, he published the local newspaper, the Marion Star. With their marriage in 1891 Florence could at last put her business acumen to use. As circulation and advertising manager she boosted the Star’s revenues and its profile until it was one of the most influential dailies in the state. Then she turned her energies to Warren’s political career, promoting his 20-year rise to the White House.

First Lady at 61, Florence had her work cut out for her. Warren was woefully unsuited for the Presidency and both Hardings suffered from illness and stress. Moreover, a fortune teller had given Florence the unsettling advice that her husband would die in office. But “the Duchess,” as Warren called his wife, forged ahead, ignoring her husband’s infidelities, his drinking parties (it was Prohibition), his cronyism, and focused on work, helping veterans, meeting the public, and cultivating the press. She was with the President when he died on a trip out West, just as the scandals of his Administration were coming to light.

Twenty-Ninth President
Warren G. Harding

Born: 1860
Died: 1914

Ellen Axson and Woodrow Wilson shared a common heritage. Their fathers were both Presbyterian ministers in the South. Ellen grew up in Rome, Georgia, the oldest of four children. She helped raise her siblings after her mother died, but her passion was art. At 22, she went to New York City to study at the Art Students League. Besides painting, she took in lectures by social reformers and volunteered at a mission school. She also kept up a correspondence with 25-year-old Woodrow, a lawyer she’d met at her father’s church who was off pursuing his Ph.D. After marrying in 1885, Woodrow taught at successive colleges while Ellen raised their three girls. Sharing her husband’s interest in public policy, she contributed ideas for his speeches at Princeton and later in politics. He considered her his greatest advisor.

Ellen was First Lady for only 17 months before she died at 54 of Bright’s disease. But in that time, she accomplished much. Appalled by the slums in Washington, Ellen motivated Congress to enact housing reform — the Alley Dwelling Act of 1914. She also continued painting (her work was well-received by experts), and promoted the crafts of the Appalachian women. And, within a six month period, she held White House weddings for two of her daughters.

Twenty-Eighth President
Woodrow Wilson

Born: 1861
Died: 1948

Edith Carow and Theodore Roosevelt grew up in neighboring brownstones on New York City’s posh Union Square. Two years apart, “Edie” was best friends with Teddy’s sister and often visited the family at their summer home in Oyster Bay. In 1880, Edie attended Teddy’s wedding to a beauty he’d met at Harvard, Alice Lee. When Alice died in childbirth in 1884, her grief-stricken husband took their baby, Alice, to a Dakota ranch to heal. He returned to New York in 1885 and married Edie the next year. She was private and reserved, he was flamboyant and loved the spotlight, but together they made a perfect pair. Edie provided five sturdy children (she also raised Alice), a stable and well-organized domestic life, intelligent but never intrusive company, and an intrepid spirit that rivaled Teddy’s own.

McKinley’s assassination thrust the Roosevelts into the White House. Teddy at 42 was already a celebrity because of his exploits in the Spanish-American War, but now the public was fascinated with his boisterous family as well. Determined to protect their privacy, Edie organized access, hiring a social secretary, fashioning protocol, and supervising media relations. The construction of a new office wing enabled her to renovate the White House living quarters, and she hung portraits of the First Ladies, including her own, downstairs.

Twenty-Sixth President
Theodore Roosevelt

Born: 1847
Died: 1907

Growing up in Ohio as the privileged daughter of one of the town’s leading families, Ida Saxton was attractive, confident and strong-willed. After completing school and a grand tour of Europe, she went to work at her father’s bank and met newcomer William McKinley, a lawyer three years her senior. Right away she took to calling him “Major” because of his rank in the Union Army. They wed in 1871, but Ida’s happiness was short lived. Within five years, she lost her two children, her mother, and her health, developing epilepsy and depression. An invalid for the rest of her life, she nonetheless accompanied William throughout his political rise — as Congressman, Governor and President. For his part, William did everything possible to satisfy Ida’s needs. He campaigned for President from his Ohio front porch so she could be nearby. A docile man, McKinley was influenced by others — his monied supporters, the newspapers, his wife. She urged him to retain the Philippines following the Spanish-American War so the native peoples could be Christianized.

As First Lady, Ida received guests, but held a bouquet to discourage tiring handshaking. She sat next to William at dinners so he could cover her face with a handkerchief if she had a seizure. But mostly, she knit slippers, donating hundreds of pairs to charity. When William was shot and fatally injured in his second term, his first worry was how Ida would be told.

Twenty-Fifth President
William McKinley

Born: 1832
Died: 1892

Caroline Harrison was a multi-talented woman who made the most of her role as First Lady. Keenly interested in history, she became a founder and the first President-General of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She agreed to head a fund drive for Johns Hopkins Medical School on condition that the School admit women. These pursuits were balanced by a near dogged domesticity. A grandmother when she entered the White House, “Carrie” invited her extended family to live there too. Finding the mansion in dire need of repair, she managed its first overhaul in 70 years, adding electricity. She sewed, played the piano, raised orchids and painted. A gifted watercolorist, she designed her own White House china and collected the patterns of prior Presidents.

Carrie’s varied interests were encouraged by her father, a minister and Ohio college professor who made sure his three only daughters got a fine education. Carrie’s wit and exuberance captivated the reserved Benjamin Harrison, a freshman at her father’s school. They wed in 1853 and had two children. During Ben’s rise in Indianapolis law and politics, Carrie taught Sunday school and led the Women’s Club. She continued her volunteer work in Washington when Ben was a Senator and then President, but her health declined. Two weeks before Ben lost his rematch against Grover Cleveland, Carried died of tuberculosis.

Twenty-Third President
Benjamin Harrison

Born: 1864
Died: 1947

At 21, Frances “Frankie” Folsom became the youngest First Lady in history when she married the 48-year-old President, Grover Cleveland, in a White House ceremony. She had known him all her life. Her father had been Grover’s law partner in Buffalo, NY. He died when Frankie was 11 and Grover became an unofficial guardian to Frankie and her mother. By the time Frankie entered Wells College, Grover, by then President, wrote and sent weekly flowers. Upon her graduation, they became secretly engaged and wed following her tour of Europe. Despite the age difference, they were by all accounts well matched.

America loved its beautiful First Lady. Women copied her hairstyle and clothes, and clever merchandisers used her face to sell their products. She started receptions on Saturdays so working women could attend, and promoted women’s higher education. When Grover lost reelection to Benjamin Harrison in 1889, Frankie predicted they’d be back in the White House in four years time. She was right. In the interim, she bore her first child, a daughter who died at 12. Her next two girls arrived during Grover’s second stint in office — highlights in an otherwise difficult term. The Clevelands retired to Princeton, NJ where they completed their family with two sons. Five years after Grover died, Frankie married an archeology professor.

Twenty-Second President & Twenty-Fourth President
Grover Cleveland

Born: 1837
Died: 1880

When Ellen Arthur died of pneumonia at home in New York at age 43, she didn’t know that a few months later, the Republicans would choose her husband for Vice-President, and the next year, he’d be President. The only child of a prominent Virginia naval officer, Ellen grew up in Washington, D.C., where she was taught by tutors and attended St. John’s Episcopal Church across from the White House. At 20, she moved with her family to New York where she met Chester Arthur, an ambitious 24-year-old-lawyer. They wed in 1859 and had two children who lived to adulthood. During the Civil War, Ellen’s loyalty to the south caused a temporary rift with “Chet,” who served as a Union quartermaster in New York. But politics was otherwise of little interest to Ellen. Music was her passion. She was an accomplished soprano who performed frequently with the Mendelssohn Glee Club of New York.

When Arthur became President upon Garfield’s assassination, he asked his sister, Mary McElroy, to act as hostess and help care for his daughter, Nell. An avid opponent of women’s suffrage, Mary often invited former First Ladies Julia Tyler and Harriet Lane to receive guests with her at the White House. To honor Ellen’s memory, Arthur donated a stained-glass window to St. John’s Church and asked that it be placed in the south transept, facing the White House, so he could see it illuminated at night.

Twenty-First President
Chester Arthur

Born: 1832
Died: 1918

Lucretia Rudolph, nicknamed “Crete,” grew up in a religious household. Her father was an Ohio farmer and part-time preacher for the Disciples of Christ Church. An excellent student, Crete attended college at the Disciples’ “Ecletic Institute” where she met classmate James Garfield. Sharing an interest in literature and philosophy, the couple had a long and unsteady courtship before marrying in 1858. At first the marriage was shaky. Jim was away most of the time — teaching, serving in the Union Army, then going to Congress. Crete was left to raise the children and later cope with the death of their three-year-old daughter. Resolved to strengthen their marriage, the Garfield’s relocated their family to Washington in 1867. Over the next 14 years while Jim served in Congress, the couple grew increasingly close. They joined a literary society, read, dined and traveled together and enjoyed being home with their five children.

Just months after the Garfields moved into the White House, 49-year-old Crete contracted malaria. She was convalescing at the New Jersey shore when word came that the president had been shot. For three months, he vainly fought for life while Crete kept constant vigil by his bedside. She also attended his funeral, which no prior Presidential widow had done. The public admired her courage and raised $385,000 for her family’s financial security.

Twentieth President
James A. Garfield

Born: 1831
Died: 1889

Lucy Webb grew up in a family of Ohio abolitionists and temperance advocates. After graduating from Cincinnati’s Wesleyan Female College, the 21-year-old Lucy married longtime beau Rutherford Hayes, a 30-year-old lawyer (their mothers had introduced them). Lucy eventually gave birth to eight children, three who died in infancy. Early in her marriage, she took an interest in politics, espousing abolition and supporting Lincoln and the Republican party. When her husband volunteered for the Union Army, Lucy visited his encampments and served as a nurse. During his two terms as Congressman, she was an able Washington hostess. And back home in Ohio during “Ruddy’s” tenure as Governor, Lucy helped found a home for soldiers’ and sailors’ orphans and visited various state welfare institutions.

By the time Lucy got to the White House, the First Presidential wife to hold a college degree was being hailed as a shining symbol of the “New Woman.” But as First Lady, Lucy studiously avoided controversy and refused to be drawn into public debate on women’s suffrage or other political issues. In keeping with her long held beliefs, she did ban alcohol from the White House — prompting the famous nickname, “Lemonade Lucy” — but otherwise, she assumed the traditional role of hostess, wife and mother. It was Lucy who began the popular children’s Easter Egg roll on the White House lawn.

Nineteenth President
Rutherford B. Hayes

Born: 1810
Died: 1876

It was in the mountains of east Tennessee in the town of Greeneville that Eliza McCardle and Andrew Johnson met, married and made their home. Eliza was a cobbler’s daughter who attended school until her father’s death forced her to go to work. Andrew had left his poor North Carolina home to become a tailor’s apprentice. They married while both were in their teens and eventually raised five children. Eliza taught Andrew to write and give speeches, and managed the family finances.

When Andrew was elected to Congress in 1842 Eliza stayed home to educate their children. During the Civil War, she was forced from her home by a Confederate general while Andrew was serving as Lincoln’s military governor in Nashville. The travails of the war years took their toll. By the time she became First Lady following Lincoln’s assassination, Eliza was ill with tuberculosis and fearful for her husband’s safety. She let her daughters serve as White House hostesses while she kept to her private quarters and monitored the President’s days. She kept a scrapbook of newspaper articles for him to read and offered advice on matters ranging from Reconstruction policy to cabinet appointments. Throughout Andrew’s impeachment trial Eliza remained steadfast in her belief that justice would prevail and he would not be thrown from office. She was right, but only by one vote.

Seventeenth President
Andrew Johnson