The First Ladies (4 page)

FIRST LADY: 1844–45

The Rose of Long Island

When John Tyler became president in 1841, the White House had been without a First Lady for twelve years. Widower Andrew Jackson had invited nieces to do his honors. The daughter-in-law of widower Martin Van Buren did his honors. Anna Harrison, pushing seventy, planned to wait for the spring thaw before she plodded east from Indiana, but her plans were scrapped when her equally aged husband died only a month into his presidency.

Vice president-turned-president Tyler came to the White House with seven children between eleven and twenty-five
and a bedridden wife, who would succumb some months later. Into the void whirled Julia Gardiner, the Rose of Long Island, a soubriquet given her by a New York merchant when he used her likeness on an advertising handbill.

Julia was pretty, cultured, spoiled, trained to charm— and very,
very
rich. She could and did have her pick of suitors among Washington’s bigwigs. It would be the sitting president himself who picked her, even though he was thirty years her senior. As was fashionable, Julia played hard to get, turning him down just as she had deterred other elderly suitors. But Tyler, at fifty-four, was still attractive, athletic, financially comfortable, and an ardent Southern courtier, romantic to the core. He kept pursuing. She kept fluttering her fan and demurring. But the seeds had been planted. Being president, even the unpopular one that he was, ranked high on the plus side.

The turning point came via a terrible accident. The gunboat
Princeton
was demonstrating its new weaponry on a presidential party cruise down the Potomac when the gun misfired and killed several people, including Julia’s father. The president’s solicitous attentions and condolences finally won over the daddy’s girl who had just lost her daddy, and the two eloped a few months later. Naturally, tongues wagged throughout Washington over the May-December marriage, calling Tyler either an old fool or “Lucky John.” It seems he was Lucky John. It would prove to be a happy and productive union. Seven more little Tylers would make appearances.

With the new, beautiful, and very wealthy Mrs. Tyler
gracing the White House, things began to change. Gardiner money poured in, renovating and refurbishing a place that had been neglected since the Monroe administration a quarter of a century earlier. “I have commenced my auspicious reign and am in quiet possession of the Presidential Mansion,” she wrote. Despite observing the decorum of her bereavement, genteel receptions, dinners, and parties of all sorts, which had been characteristic of Tyler’s Southern hospitality, now became cosmopolitan and elegant. She introduced waltzes and polkas, hitherto considered shocking—at least in Washington. Copying the trends of Europe, which Julia had experienced firsthand (when her family whisked her away after the scandalous Rose of Long Island business), she invited friends and relatives to serve as her maids of honor at receptions. They all dressed in color-coordinated gowns and posed dramatically as the living centerpiece for the event. Very la-di-dah.

Julia’s own trousseau was expensive, extensive, and glamorous. Her trademark jeweled tiara, which she wore across her forehead, became the rage. She was as much a style setter as the aging and legendary Dolley Madison, whom Julia was thrilled to host on numerous occasions.

The new Mrs. T. was drawn to the spotlight like a moth to flame. She appeared on the streets of Washington walking an Italian greyhound on a leash. If she drove, it was in an elegant coach pulled by six white horses, certain to attract attention. She sat in the visitors gallery to attend congressional debates, making an entrance with her usual flair. She was also known to solicit political appointments. President T. occasionally
obliged. He was as delighted with his trophy wife as she was with her trophy husband. He was happy to indulge her at every opportunity.

The country might have enjoyed this revival of flamboyance, but Julia’s time as First Lady only lasted nine months. Tyler’s independent politics left him a man without a party, despite some grand-scale partying. Their last big shindig was said to have cost Tyler more than 10 percent of his yearly salary. But it did not make him any more popular. Not only was he
not
reelected, he wasn’t even renominated.

Disappointed but far from crushed, ex-President and Mrs.
Tyler moved to his beautiful plantation in tidewater Virginia, where the Rose of Long Island transformed herself into an adopted daughter of Dixie. Despite the neighbors looking askance at the Yankee transplant at first, she fit in with her usual confident style, happy to host her turn at the barbecues, suppers, and picnics. Fifteen years of plenty followed. Plenty of money, plenty of travel, plenty of happiness, and plenty of children. Even plenty of hope that the ex-president might once again be called upon to lead the country. Then came the Civil War, and seventy-one-year-old Tyler was elected to the Confederate Congress, but he promptly died before taking his seat.

Fifteen years of ruin followed. Two of her sons, still in their teens, served in the Rebel army. With her younger children still babies, she was persuaded to “flee North” to her family when George B. McClellan’s army threatened the Virginia Peninsula not far from her beloved Sherwood Forest plantation. She was by then not only a proud rebel but a loud one, and she made herself totally obnoxious in New York by her openly Confederate sympathies and overt activities. The war also proved hazardous to her Virginia home, which was left a sorry mess. She lost most of her money. Relatives died or were estranged. Legal chaos was still to be untangled. Poor Julia. Literally. She spent years lobbying Congress for reparations and a pension as a presidential widow (not withstanding her avowed affection for the Confederacy). Congress took its own sweet time about it. As the infirmities of age (nearly seventy) and misfortune took its toll, she left her plantation in the
hands of her children and moved a short distance away to Richmond. In a stroke of irony, she died in the same hotel her husband had died in nearly thirty years earlier.

FIRST LADY: 1845–49

Sarah, Straight and Strong

Modern historians, especially female ones, love to claim Sarah Polk as an unheralded First Lady whose abilities, intelligence, and four years of wearing two hats go largely unnoticed. They are, of course, absolutely right to do so.

Sarah Childress was brought up akin to Abigail Adams in a prosperous household where education—including for women—was encouraged. She learned early on all the domestic skills needed for household management, but just as early on, she decided that housekeeping was not her thing. She attended one of the best female academies in the South,
learning the classics and developing a sincere interest in politics. In early nineteenth-century Tennessee, where she was born and raised, rough-and-tumble politics was as popular as a sporting event.

When twenty-something James Knox Polk was considering matrimony, his mentor, none other than Old Hickory himself, counseled him to “look no further than Miss Sarah Childress.” It was sound advice. Not only did the couple marry, but they were particularly well suited and enjoyed a happy union for a quarter of a century.

There would be no Polk offspring, and like many childless couples, they drew closer together. Lack of children (something Sarah never seemed to miss like Aunt Rachel) also kept her untroubled by the various birthing-related ailments that plagued many of her contemporaries. With good health and no family needs at home, Sarah was free to travel frequently with her husband who enjoyed her companionship, especially since he was another one of our presidents who was notably lackluster in the social department.

Social or not, Polk served in Congress (and was even Speaker of the House for a while) throughout Jackson’s presidency, and Sarah and he took up boardinghouse residence, as was customary. She was one of the few women who accompanied their congressional husbands, but she made friends readily, even with the grande dames, those Washington residents who remained permanently while officialdom came and went. Polk’s colleagues seemed to like Sarah well enough too—usually better than they liked him. He was a small, unimposing
man, a bit like Madison in appearance. He was a hard worker, no question, but he was primarily a loner.

Polk’s political career was unremarkable and had its ups and downs: after his time in Congress, a single term as Tennessee governor, and then two reelection losses. By 1844 he was all but forgotten. In a last ditch effort to keep from practicing law (which he disliked almost as much as John Quincy Adams did), he “encouraged” others to float his name as candidate for vice president, an honorable position, but requiring no heavy lifting. Politics being politics, he became president instead, the country’s first successful dark horse candidate. That this unknown managed to win against political icon Henry Clay puzzled many, and it is generally believed that Clay
lost,
rather than that Polk
won.
Nevertheless, James Knox Polk became the eleventh president and pledged to pursue a monumental agenda, all to be completed in a single term.

Sarah was a handsome woman of forty-two with no inclination for housekeeping. Now she was mistress of a great house and promptly hired someone to manage the day-to-day chores. A thrifty soul, she had no plans to redecorate the mansion. “What’s good enough for the Tylers is good enough for us,” she supposedly said, although she did splurge and had gaslights installed to replace the old-fashioned candles, which she kept anyway—just in case.

Herein lies part of the reason that Sarah, for all her political acumen and intelligence, fails to make the First Lady A-list: she was as humorless as her husband, and nondomestic or not, she bowed to the conventional mores of the 1840s.
Not a feisty bone in her body. She behaved exactly as society expected: quietly charming and gracious without calling undue attention to herself. Her opinions were reserved for her husband’s ears alone. Deeply rooted in her Presbyterian faith, she nixed dancing, billiards, wine, music, and card playing in the White House. She was also a devout Sabbatarian. No guests on Sundays, unless they wished to accompany the Polks to church.

Above all, the Polks were frugal to the point of being stingy. James Polk hoped to bank a large portion of his annual $25,000 salary, which was considered sumptuous in a day when $1,200 a year could raise a family comfortably. Since all expenses for entertaining, travel, and secretarial assistance came from the presidential purse, there was plenty of fat to be cut.

Neither of them approved of or took spirits, for instance, ergo they felt no need to provide it for others. As it would be thirty years later, the White House was bone dry. They also believed that their public receptions and meet-and-greet events were a part of the job, performed as an agenda item rather than a social courtesy. They did not believe that providing refreshments was on that agenda. Not only would there be no spirits, but there would be no coffee, tea, or fruit punch. No food, no cakes, no cookies. The traditionally generous hospitality of other Southern first families was lost on the Southern-ish Polks. In summer, however, they made an exception. If any visitor was foolish enough—like themselves—to stay in the disease-ridden sweltering climate
of Washington, the Polks were kind enough to offer them ice water. People said nice things about Sarah, but they also said her parties were deadly dull.

With plenty of time on her hands and another opportunity to economize, Sarah donned a second hat: private secretary to her husband. It would save them nearly $2,000 a year. (Prior to that, several presidents had engaged young male relatives to keep the records straight and keep the money in the family.)

Educated, literate, smart, and politically astute, Sarah could copy Polk’s papers in a clear hand, maintain the files and appointment book, and perhaps, most important, read the incoming mail and newspapers and summarize or underscore the salient parts. Disinclined to delegate, both Polks put in twelve- to fifteen-hour days with no time off, except for Sunday. They believed that since providence had placed them in such a high position, it was incumbent upon them to place duty and hard work above all else. In four years, they only left the White House once for relaxation—and that was for a weekend trip.

Polk accomplished every item on his ambitious agenda in his lone four-year term, but it cost him dearly. Always delicate in health, he died three months after leaving office. Overwork and exhaustion were speculated. Sarah went back to Tennessee. She never left her house except to go to church.