The First Ladies (8 page)

FIRST LADY: 1901–09

The Elegant White House

There was never a time Edith Carow did not know Theodore Roosevelt. Her best friend Corinne was Theodore’s younger sister, and their nannies wheeled their prams around Gramercy Park in New York City. Hers was an old and decent family, but her father was inclined toward drink and thus a spotty provider. The kindly patrician Roosevelts included little Edie in their outings whenever possible. Most of their acquaintances believed that when the children grew up, Edith would marry Theodore. But it didn’t happen. At least not the way they thought.

Theodore went off to college and fell deeply in love with beautiful and wealthy Alice Lee. They married when Theodore graduated. True to her steely reserved nature, Edith Carow showed little outward regret and kicked up her heels at the wedding. What happened within Edith usually stayed within Edith. Since her family’s lack of finances precluded either a college education or a traditional social debut, and it would have been social suicide to get a job, she led a quiet life, seeing a few friends, reading voraciously, and keeping to herself. She seemed destined to become an old maid.

Three years later, Theodore’s young wife died in childbirth. The grieving husband deposited his infant daughter with his
older
sister and went west to become a cowboy. It would be another two years until Theodore and Edith became reacquainted. This time, the grown man and the attractive twenty-five-year-old young woman discovered the commonalities that would make for a happy, prosperous, and never-boring union.

First and foremost, according to those who knew her, Edith Roosevelt was a wife and mother. In addition to baby Alice, there would be five more vigorous Roosevelts, all possessed of their father’s abundant energy and vitality and both parents’ unending curiosity about everything. It is said that Theodore read a book a day, and Edith matched him one-for-one, albeit their tastes were different. His were more scientific, hers more arty. What developed was an incredibly broad range of subjects that could and would be discussed intelligently and in detail at their always-lively dinner table. Since Theodore Roosevelt was not only wide-ranging and political, but very,
very
social, their large family table was usually expanded to include numerous, diverse guests nearly every night.

While Edith was as bright and intelligent as one would expect of a Roosevelt mate, her temperament was cooler; many said cold. She seldom lost her temper, but her distance and verbal antipathy could be venomous. Her daughter once said, “Mother took no prisoners.” It would fall to Edith to manage the household, the servants, the children, the money, and Theodore. It was not an easy task. He indulged himself with yearly six-week hunting vacations out west, leaving his wife to entertain, amuse, supervise, and move the children
back and forth between their Washington residence and their New York home on Long Island. If she ever objected, it was private. Perhaps she considered it her great blessing to finally marry the man she had always loved.

TR, like Thomas Jefferson, was a man of many careers all practiced simultaneously, but never in a way to amass a fortune. First and foremost, he was a Republican politician. Then came amateur natural scientist, ranch owner, and prolific writer. By forty, he had secured a spot as assistant secretary of the navy under President William McKinley, single-handedly (according to his critics) fomented the Spanish-American War, resigned to command the volunteer Rough Rider regiment, charged up San Juan Hill to become a hero, then became governor of New York, vice president, and finally president—all within three years. It was par for the course. Edith, of course, took it in stride, as she took everything.

Only forty when she entered the White House after McKinley’s assassination, Edith Roosevelt’s contribution to the realm of First Ladyhood had much in common with that of Jacqueline Kennedy a half century later: class and elegance. The repairs and refurbishing undertaken under Caroline Harrison only a decade earlier proved to be inadequate, considering the new inventions and technologies pouring out of the Patent Office. The return of the second Cleveland administration had contributed little in redecoration, and frail Ida McKinley undertook no projects. The Roosevelts, however, would make huge alterations. The White House needed to expand with the new century.

Even with the Harrison expansion, the private family quarters were insufficient for Theodore, Edith, six children, a menagerie of pets, frequent guests, plus presidential office space. The downstairs area was strictly for formal and ceremonial entertaining. So Caroline Harrison’s beloved conservatory was demolished and replaced by the West Wing. That would be Theodore’s domain. Edith took charge of much of the mansion’s transition into the twentieth century, and it would now officially be called the White House on the letterhead. The large East Room was stripped of its hotel lobby décor and painted white and gold. The full-length portraits of George and Martha Washington were removed from other locations and hung on each side of the fireplace. The room today is very much the same as it was when Edith redecorated. The Roosevelts also wanted to make the White House look like home, so the dining room sported elk and moose trophies.

Parties were elegant but not lavish. Edith was a thrifty woman, and entertainment expenses were still out of the president’s pocket. The guest list, however, was always a who’s who of the finest talents and intellects in the world. Their contemporaries said that Theodore and Edith Roosevelt’s gatherings were more like a cultural salon than the center of political society.

In her own way, Edith seemed to have a sixth sense for protocol and appropriate etiquette, and she watched her over-exuberant husband like a hawk. Even though she kept to the background, one look, or her cautionary, “Now, Theodore,” and the contrite president would immediately cease whatever he was doing that gave her pause.

Her admirers said that Edith Roosevelt was the only First Lady who never made a mistake. Perhaps so, but her mark as First Lady, classy or not, leaves no real fingerprint. In part, she was overshadowed by a husband whose fingers were on everything. Then, too, there would be another Mrs. Roosevelt who would leave indelible fingerprints. Edith’s detractors claimed she seemed cocooned within her own hard, private shell that few were ever able to crack. Theodore could crack that shell of course. But he died prematurely at sixty, and she outlived him by nearly thirty years.

No one else seems to have cracked that shell.

FIRST LADY: 1909–13

The Wind Beneath

There was nothing shy, retiring, domestic, or deferential about Helen Herron, called Nellie from birth. Born to a prominent Cincinnati, Ohio, family at the outset of the Civil War, Nellie would rail internally against the Victorian constrictions of the feminine world. She clandestinely smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey, and gambled at cards by the time she was fifteen— habits she kept all her life.

At sixteen she spent a week at the White House, a guest of President and Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes, who were close family friends. From that moment on, Nellie’s overwhelming
goal was to occupy that same residence as Mrs. First Resident herself. The only path open for an ambitious woman at that time was via a promising spouse. William Howard Taft, who she married when she was twenty-five, had that promise. Besides boasting a Cincinnati pedigree surpassing the Herrons, Will had graduated at the top of his class at Yale, and at three hundred pounds, he was a huge mountain of lovable fellow who adored his sometimes witty and frequently sharp-tongued wife. Republican doors swung open for him.

The biggest threat to Nellie’s presidential ambitions was that Will didn’t share them. His ambitions pointed a mile down Pennsylvania Avenue in the other direction: the Supreme Court. Will was a jurist by temperament and inclination, as he would be for the rest of his life. Nellie believed that same temperament and inclination would serve just as effectively in the executive branch. More important, she believed the executive branch would suit
her
temperament and inclination much better than the stuffy old court.

So she joined, participated in, subscribed to, supported, and contributed to everything that would further her goal. As keeper of the family purse, she made sure political obligations were paid first. The tight-knit and well-moneyed Taft brothers were also inclined to agree with Nellie’s viewpoint, and they willingly gave her an important seat at the family council table. With their support and her inherent thrift, finances or lack thereof would never be a serious problem.

Nellie was a Gemini, however, and the mischievous twins of her stars would play havoc within her own nature. Always
a tightly wound perfectionist, she could make a half dozen fine decisions during the day only to toss and turn all night second-guessing herself and worrying everything to death.

In 1899, right after the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Islands fell generally unwanted into our lap. The islands were steeped in generations of chaotic religious and political factions, and President McKinley wisely appointed Taft, a man of good will and excellent jurisprudence, to serve as governor-general. Nellie, who loved exotic travel almost as much as political power, was delighted to move to the islands with three children in tow. They would be her happiest years, although she didn’t know it at the time. There, ensconced in Manila’s beautiful Malacañan Palace, she was the first
lady of the Philippines in a dress rehearsal for her plans for Washington. She entertained lavishly, mixing her nonprejudicial attitudes with elegance and etiquette. She undertook a program to provide milk to indigent Filipino children. She also managed to indulge her tastes for adventure and rode in war canoes, trekked muleback into the Luzon jungles “where no white woman had ever gone before,” and even took a solo side trip to Japan. Meanwhile, Taft was sincerely endearing himself to the Filipino people and actually establishing order.

After the anguish of declining two offers of a Supreme Court appointment because of his commitments in the Philippines, Will finally received the one he couldn’t refuse: secretary of war under his good friend President Theodore Roosevelt. Nellie was thrilled. It was the opportunity she had been waiting for. It was an important cabinet post and visibly placed on the path to the White House itself.

With the country at peace, the secretary of war had little to do except serve as TR’s troubleshooter, a job well suited to Taft’s talents. His star was rising. TR had also made a promise not to seek a second term (which he regretted the moment he uttered it) and needed to groom a successor. Theodore wanted Taft to run. So did Nellie. So did the Brothers Taft. The only one waffling was Will Taft himself, but he was outnumbered. So he ran and won.

Nellie’s dream had come true. Since Taft now had a hefty $75,000 annual salary, he insisted that she indulge herself with a luscious new wardrobe. The glamorous Edwardian styles of the day were particularly becoming to the forty-eight-year-old
woman with a good figure. At her insistence, she rode in the car beside the newly elected president—the first First Lady to ride with her husband. (Incoming and outgoing First Ladies previously rode together.) She began to redecorate and rearrange the furniture, which included removing the Roosevelt trophy heads. She contracted with the Cadillac Company to provide two automobiles gratis for presidential use in return for the privilege of saying so (didn’t everyone in Europe?); integrated the staff dining room over many objections; and turned a large section of the Tidal Basin area into a pedestrian park with free band concerts for everyone. The emperor of Japan, remembering Mrs. Taft from her earlier visit, sent hundreds of cherry seedlings to enhance the promenade. True to her nervous nature, Nellie fretted that no one would attend the first concert, but more than ten thousand people showed up.

The Greek definition of tragedy is based on great height preceding great fall. The gods had granted Nellie’s wish. The goal had been reached. But a few months later, the gods turned. Nellie collapsed from a severe stroke. While she was not physically paralyzed, she suffered from aphasia and some facial disfiguring. In short, Nellie Taft could not communicate or be seen in public. She knew and understood everything that was going on, but her speech was garbled and her face contorted. She could not read or write. She could no longer be a participant. She could not even share her thoughts with her husband. It would take nearly the rest of Will Taft’s term for her to regain these lost abilities. Still,
she worked behind the scenes as much as possible, planning guest lists and menus and table arrangements and whatever she could do without undue stress. Her health was her main focus from that point on.

One aide painted a heart-wrenching scene: a magnificent state banquet that Nellie had helped to plan but could not attend. Instead, bejeweled and dressed to the teeth in one of her elegant gowns, she sat alone at a table in an adjoining room, eating party food, and listening at a door left slightly ajar so she could hear what went on.

All the great plans she had envisioned as First Lady, all the programs and good works she hoped to espouse, all the grand entertainment she had seen in her mind’s eye, and perhaps even her lasting place in the pantheon of First Ladies, all were gone in a moment’s collapse.

Nellie recovered, although her speech would always be somewhat slurred. But what she had lost was her hard drive. Even though she lived past eighty, and even though she always maintained a lively interest in the political scene, and even though her husband became chief justice of the Supreme Court in his postpresidential career, Nellie’s greatest task was to quiet her restless soul. When she wrote her memoirs, she focused on the Philippines. The White House chapters were merely lists of guests and table decorations. If she grieved for her lost dreams, it was private.