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Best Little Stories from the White House, including First Ladies in Review
Best Little Stories from the White House including First Ladies in Review Author:C. Brian Kelly, Smyer Ingrid, Ingrid Smyer Historical snapshots recalling dramatic, poignant, sometimes startling moments in the lifetime of America's most famous home. Not only the Presidents, not only their First Ladies, but so many others, great and "small", who have worked there, visited there, married there, even died there. Who was the elderly ex-slaveowner who passed his l... more »ast days as a resident of the White House...AFTER the Civil War? And no, it wasn't Zachary Taylor, who did have slaves IN the White House and who DID die there. But that was BEFORE the Civil War, and he certainly wasn't elderly. The right answer would have been, ironically enough, U.S. Grant's father-in-law!. The "caretaker" President's stunning suggestion late in the 19th century? Why, he said, tear the place down and start all over again---replace that old White House with an office building and a brand new residence. They came to appreciate former Vice President Chester Arthur's "caretaking" tenure anyway.On the morning of his inauguration, this President danced before his wife in their hotel room and chanted in sing-song voice: We're going to the White House today; we're going to the White House today!" Would you believe this was the usually dour, stern-visaged Woodrow Wilson? And that naked man in a guest room---naked most of the day, in fact--and yet quite ready to plot war strategy with his host, Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Who else but that British bulldog, Winston Churchill. These and many more are our stories---101 vignettes from the life and times of the most famous home in America. Plus biographical sketches of all the First Ladies who have lived in the 'President's House'. .The first occupant, by the way? In 1800 it would be, but it wasn't John Adams, first President to reside in Washington, D.C. And it of course wasn't the late George Washington, the only man to precede John Adams as President...back at the former capital city of Philadelphia. No, none of the above---it instead was John Marshall, future Chief Justice, who merely needed a place to sleep in the new city rising on the Potomac while he served as Secretary of State. So, he ignored the workmen still preparing the President's House for a real president and simply moved in for a spell before John Adams arrived in town.« less