Articles about First Ladies & Family
First Ladies and Family
We've had quite a few mothers-in-law of Presidents in recent years: Laura Bush's mother Jenna Welch, Hillary Clinton's mother Dorothy Rodham, Nancy Reagan's mother Edith Davis, Rosalynn Carter's mother Allie Smith, Jackie Kennedy's mother Janet Auchincloss - all lived to see their daughters in the White House
Mrs. Auchincloss, who had remarried after divorcing Jack Bouvier, often substituted as a hostess at small afternoon events for older women while her daughter looked after her own small children - or sometimes just avoided events and people she didn't enjoy. Mrs. Auchincloss could be a bit "motherly" at times, once criticizing her daughter's bouffant hairstyle, complaining that "not everyone liked it. I received a lot of mail from people saying, 'Can't you get her to groom her hair.
Two mothers-in-law lived at the White House - Bess Truman's mother Madge Gates Wallace. She never accepted the fact that her daughter married someone from a lower social class and wealth than their own family. She frequently carped to her daughter about Truman's decisions - but when she asked why "Harry" fired "that nice man," Mrs. Truman gave it back - "My husband happens to be President and General MacArthur was insubordinate!" Also, Mamie Eisenhower's mother Elvira "Minnie" Carlson Doud, daughter of Swedish immigrants, spent the winters at the White House, living at her home in Denver the rest of the year.
One mother-in-law - Gertrude Carow, who's daughter Edith was married to Teddy Roosevelt, lived in England and never visited the White House. Edith Wilson, on the other hand, made her elderly mother Sally Bolling, who lived in a run-down residential hotel in Washington, a frequent dinner guest at the White House. Grace Coolidge's mother Lemira Barrett Goodhue, also disliked her son-in-law Calvin Coolidge, and made only one visit - to the March 1925 Inauguration. When rumors began that bachelor President Grover Cleveland was engaged to be married, it was assumed he was about to wed Emma Folsom, the widow of his former law partner Oscar Folsom, because she often visited. He shocked the nation by instead marrying her 21-year recent college graduate daughter Frances.
The first woman to see her daughter become First Lady and come stay in the White House was the Scottish heiress Juliana Gardiner, the mother-in-law of John Tyler. She so disliked the shabby condition of the White House that she not only paid for the redecoration of the private family rooms - but the state rooms as well.
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Regarding my research on the Saxton family, I unfortunately found nothing at all regarding George Saxton and Annie George. My accounts are all from the newspapers of the time, the small publication put out anonymously by someone in Canton at the time and secondary sources.
It seems that while George Saxton lived at the Saxton House with his father, sister Mary and her family, and the McKinleys when they were in Canton during the Congressional and gubernatorial years, there was little engagement between him and the future President and his wife. His murder of course did shock Mary and Ida - but beyond the shock, there was not even any wide discussion of him in later years. He seems to have somehow emotionally cut out of any genuine engagement with his family. Even in the early letters from Europe that Ida and Mary wrote to him there is a sense of his disconnected quality. In one letter from around the time of George's late teenage years, Mr. Saxton seems to make sarcastic reference to the fact that George did nothing worthwhile except pick apples and tap maple trees on their farm property in Minerva. I found it really extraordinary too that the wealthy Saxton family which so highly prized education and who insisted that Ida and Mary receive superior educations as young women, apparently never insisted or pushed or urged George to seek a higher education. As far as I discovered, he never went to high school or college.
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