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The President's Children
1. President George Washington (1789-1797)
The first President had no biological children. When he married the widow Martha Custis he became the stepfather to her surviving son and daughter.
John "Jacky" Parke Custis
He was reared by Washington and was a son to Martha by a previous marriage. Born 1754, he died in 1781. Jacky Custis lived off his father's estate. He is famous for trying to cheat his stepfather. He served briefly as Washington's aide in the Revolutionary War, but died of dysentery soon after joining the army.
Martha "Patsy" Parke Custis
She was Martha Washington's daughter from her previous marriage. Born 1756, she died suddenly of epilepsy on June 19, 1773 Some years after Martha's marriage to George Washington, her daughter, Martha Parke "Patsy" Custis, died at 17 after a lifetime of epileptic seizures.
Washington's step grandchildren:
Jacky Custis left four small children to be reared. His wife remarried, taking her two oldest children with her. The two youngest, Nelly and Wash Custis, stayed at Mt. Vernon with George and Martha.
Eleanor "Nelly" Custis Lewis
Born in 1779, she was raised as a daughter by the Washingtons although never formally adopted. She married a Washington nephew, died 1852 and is buried at Mt. Vernon.
George "Wash" Washington Parke Custis
Born in 1780, he died in 1857. Raised as Washington's own son he was never formally adopted and was actually the son of Washington's step-son. After George Washington's death, he built a home on Arlington Heights on the Potomac River. His daughter married Robert E. Lee and the grand home became known as "Lee's Mansion." It is now Arlington National Cemetery.
2. President John Adams (1797-1801)
Abigail "Nabby" Adams Smith
She was the first biological child of a president. Born July 14, 1765, she died on August 15, 1813.
John Quincy Adams
He was born July 11, 1767 and died February 2, 1848. He is one of only two presidential children to follow his father's footsteps into the White House. He married Louisa Catherine Johnson, the daughter of the United States Minister to England. He was a Senator and diplomat who served as Secretary of State, helping to draft the Monroe Doctrine before becoming the sixth American President. Like Bush he lost the general election to a candidate from Tennessee.
Susanna Adams
Born December 28, 1768, she died in Boston on February 4, 1770.
Charles Adams
Born on May 29, 1770. He was an alcoholic who died of cirrhosis of the liver on November 30, 1800 at the age of thirty.
Thomas Boylston Adams
He was born on September 15, 1772 and died on March 12, 1832. He was a lawyer and diplomat with an unspectacular career.
3. President Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809)
Martha Washington Jefferson Randolph
She was born on September 27, 1772 and died of apoplexy on October 10, 1836. Martha assumed the feminine head of the household when her mother unexpectedly died. She was nicknamed "Patsy" by her father, enjoying a close bond with the third president.
She was present at the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia and was witness to the most historic moments during the birth of our nation.
She married Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr, at age eighteen and the couple were parents of twelve children. Her son, James Madison Randolph, was the first child born in the White House. Patsy served as hostess for her famous father in the White House.
Her husband Randolph served in Congress and was later elected governor of Virginia from1819-1822. Randolph suffered mental breakdowns, bankruptcies and a resentment of his legendary father-in-law. Upon Jefferson's death in 1826, all Martha inherited was his debt. Tragically her husband's death two years latter left her deeper in poverty. Inheriting a mountain of bills that were insurmountable, she lived in destitution with one or another of her children until her death.
Jane Randolph Jefferson
She was born on April 3, 1774 and died 17 months later, September 1775. The only Jefferson son was born May 28, 1777 and died within days, June 14, 1777. History has lost his name. During these momentous years Jefferson was often away at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. It was during these painful losses that Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence.
Mary "Polly" "Maria" Jefferson Eppes
She was born on August 1, 1778. She died from complications of childbirth at the age of 25 April 17, 1804. She was nicknamed "Polly" by her family. Separations from her famous father for much of her early life caused her to desperatley seek her father's approval.
After her mother's death, she traveled to Paris to join her father and older sister Martha, where she became known as Maria. Accompanying Maria was a Jefferson household slave, the fourteen-year-old Sally Hemings. Some believe Sally later bore several illegitimate children to Jefferson. Polly/Maria married her cousin, John Wayles Eppes, who became a member of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Lucy Elizabeth I
She was born on November 3, 1780, and died a few months later on April 15, 1781. At the time of Lucy's birth, Jefferson was Governor of Virginia.. The five-week-old baby Lucy fell ill and never recovered. Jefferson tenderly kept a private note from his wife and a lock of hair from the first Lucy.
Lucy Elizabeth II
She was born May 8, 1782, and died October 13, 1784. Thomas Jefferson's wife Martha died shortly after the difficult birth of the second Lucy. While in Paris, Jefferson received a letter from Dr. James Currie, stating that two-year-old Lucy had fallen "a martyr to the complicated evils of teething, worms and hooping cough…" The grief-stricken Jefferson chastised himself for not having brought the baby Lucy with him to Paris.
Children of Sally Hemings
Were children born to Sally Hemings fathered by Thomas Jefferson? Nobody can say for sure, but in the late 1990s headlines and a television mini-series trumpeted the fact that DNA evidence confirmed the illegitimate liaison between Hemings and the third President of the United States. Closer inspections of the "evidence" have cast doubts on the conclusiveness of the DNA results, with other theories and explanations being proposed, but the possibility still exists. Tom was born in 1790 in France during Jefferson's time as the U.S. Representatives. Harriet I on October 5, 1795, Beverly in 1798, Harriet II in May of 1801, Madison in January 1805 and Eston in May 1808.
4. President James Madison (1809-1817)
John Payne Todd
He was the son of Dolley Madison, Born 1792, died 1852.
The fourth President had no biological children of his own but married Dorothea "Dolley" Dandridge Payne Todd, a widow, who was the mother of two. The lifelong misconduct of her son, John Payne Todd, burdened both Dolley and the husband who loved her. The boy was a charlatan and a disgrace to his parents. He was an alcoholic, a gambler and a thief. He would disappear, drinking, for long periods of time. The only time he would write his mother is when he ran out of money. She didn't know if he was dead or alive. After Madison's death, John attempted to cheat his own mother. He threatened to sell the former president's priceless personal papers. At eighty years of age, Dolley wrote him a bitter, disappointed letter, begging him to take back his threats. She was never to receive an answer and died the following year.
5. President James Monroe (1817-1825)
Eliza Kortright Monroe Hay
She was born December 1786, died in 1835, at the age of 49. Educated in Paris, Eliza grew to love the cultured life of Europe. She married George Hay, a prominent American attorney. Eliza substitued as the White House hostess for her invalid mother who was unable to entertain. After her father's death, she returned to France where she converted to the Catholic faith shortly before her death.
J. S. Monroe
He was born in May 1799. He lived a little more than two years before dying on September 28, 1801. He was the only son of James and Elizabeth Monroe.
Maria Hester Monroe Gouverneur
She was born in 1803, she died in 1850, at the age of 47. She was the first presidential child to be married in the White House. Her future husband Samuel Lawrence Gouverneur worked as Junior Secretary in the Monroe Administration. They married in 1820.
They eventually moved to New York City, where Samuel was appointed postmaster. James Monroe, widowed and in dire financial straits turned to Maria and her husband for help. He lived his final years with the Gouverneurs.
6. President John Quincy Adams (1825-1829)
George Washington Adams
He was born April 12, 1801. Most historians consider his mysterious death on April 30, 1829, as a suicide. He was 28 years old. Despite early signs of brilliance and being both a son and grandson to presidents, George would never aspire to the lofty plans his father had laid out for him.
He graduated from Harvard, practiced law and was elected to the Massachusetts' state legislature, but was unable to sustain any level of success. Secret scandals and mounting debts drove him to alcohol. He either fell or jumped from a passenger liner in New York Harbor.
John Adams II
He was born on the 4th of July in 1803. He died an alcoholic on October 23, 1834. He was only 31. John was an enthusiastic youngster. He was educated at the best schools and he excelled in sports. But his perfectionist father greatly disapproved of his lackluster performance at Harvard and his embarrassing expulsion.
John won the hand of his cousin, Mary Catherine Hellon in spite of his brothers efforts. They were married in the second wedding ceremony to take place in the White House. He worked as a secretary in his father's White House. Unfortunately a public humiliation by an enemy of the family derailed any political aspirations. He tried his hand at managing the family's business, but soon it began to lose money. He likewise turned to alcohol for escape and died young.
Charles Frances Adams
He was born on August 18, 1807. He died of a stroke on November 21, 1886, at the age of 79. The third child of the nation's sixth chief executive might possibly have become the third generation of his family to become president. He was determined to champion causes ahead of their time. He was beloved and respected by his peers. Charles was fluent in several languages, graduated from Harvard at seventeen and apprenticed in law under Daniel Webster. At twenty-two, he married Abigail Brown Brooks, daughter of a wealthy Bostonian. He then turned to promoting the radical position of the abolition of slavery. By 1841 he entered the Massachusetts State legislature. In 1858, Charles was elected to the House of Representatives. During the Civil War, he negotiated behind the scenes, and eventually England stayed her hand. In 1872 and again in 1876, Charles' name was placed in nomination for the presidency. By that time, however, he was leading the charge for civil service reform, another controversial idea years ahead of its time. Some historians, then and now, believe that Charles would have been elected president had he been willing to do what was popular, rather than what was right.
Louisa Catherine Adams
She was born in 1811and died in 1812. The only daughter of John Quincy and Louisa Adams was born and died in St. Petersburg, Russia, far from the United States. The baby may have succumbed to the ferocious Russian winter.
7. President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837)
Andrew Jackson, Jr.
He was born December 4, 1808. He died of lockjaw after being shot in a hunting accident in 1865. He was one of a pair of twins, nephews of Andrew Jackson's wife, but he was adopted by the Jackson's at birth and named after his new father. He married Sarah Yorke in 1831. The remainder of his life was spent accumulating debts through risky business ventures. After Jackson, Sr., died in 1845, the adopted son sold the Hermitage, the family home.
8. President Martin Van Buren (1837-1841)
Abraham Van Buren
He was born on November 27, 1807. He died March 15, 1873. He was a West Point graduate who served two years on the frontier as well as in the Mexican War. He resigned his commission on the frontier to become his father's secretary in the White House. He married Angelica Singleton, heir to a wealthy South Carolina family. He spent much of his life in the shadow of his famous father. He spent many years of his life editing and publishing the Van Buren presidential papers and serving as an apologist for his father's legacy.
John Van Buren
He was born February 18, 1810. He died at sea of kidney failure on October 13, 1866. He was 56. John Van Buren is one of the most colorful of the presidential children. Graduating from Yale in his teens and admitted to the New York bar in his twenties, gave him a head start in life. But he quickly squandered any advantage he was given. His pursuits in life were drinking, gambling and promiscuity. After carousing his way through Europe on his father's expense account, he was able to return stateside and build a career in law and as a U. S. Congressman. Marriage to Elizabeth VanderPoel brought only temporary respite to his notorious partying. To his credit he had moments of courage, standing boldly against slavery, but his personal life descended into further scandal. Finally, his alcoholism left him an invalid and eventually took his life.
Martin Van Buren, Jr.
He was born December 20, 1812. He died at age 42 on March 19, 1855. The third son of the eighth president never married. He spent most of his adult life serving his father as a White House secretary and then as a personal assistant. He arranged the former president's papers for posterity. When he fell ill, his father sent him to Europe to find a cure. But sadly "Mat" died in Paris his grieving father at his side.
Smith Thompson Van Buren
He was born January 16, 1817. He died 1876 at 59 years of age. The last Van Buren son spent his adult life defending the reputation and historic profile of his father. Little is known about his personal life, except that he married twice and fathered at least seven children. He survived his father by fourteen years and eventually transcended his brothers as the chief apologist of the Van Buren presidency.
9. President William Henry Harrison (1841)
Elizabeth "Betsey" Bassett Harrison Short
She was born September 29, 1796. She died on September 26, 1846. Betsy was the first child of the seventh president and Anna Tuthill Symmes. Betsy's famous Indian-fighting father was often gone during her childhood. She married John Cleves Short. She died five years after the untimely loss of her father, who served as president for only 30 days.
John Cleves Symmes Harrison
He was born October 28, 1798. He died in controversy at 34 years of age on October 30, 1830. "Symmes" was a popular and helpful figure to farmers and settlers in the Indiana Territory. He married Clarissa Pike, a daughter of the famous General Zebulon Pike, who had discovered Pike's Peak in Colorado. They had six children. Symmes received an appointment to a position in the government land office in Vincennes, Indiana. After serving for years with a reputation for integrity, Symmes was caught in a political trap set by his father's enemies. He was accused of embezzlement, and fired. There was an explanation for the events but, driven by a desire to hurt General Harrison, opposing politicians covered up the facts. Disillusioned and upset by his experience, Symmes died in the middle of the crisis.
Lucy Singleton Harrison Este
She was born September 1800, and died April 7, 1826. She married David Este, a judge of Ohio's Superior Court. She bore 4 children before her death at 26.
William Henry Harrison, Jr.
He was born September 3, 1802 and died an alcoholic at age 35 on February 6, 1838. He had a mediocre law career in Cincinnati before marrying Jane Findlay, daughter of a close family friend.
John Scott Harrison
He was born October 4, 1804, and died May 25, 1878 at the age of 73. He was a two-term congressman who spent most of his life running the family's farm in Ohio. He fathered three children with his first wife, Lucretia and, after her death, six more children with his second wife, Elizabeth. His only surviving child was John Scott.
Ten years after his own passing, his son, Benjamin, was inaugurated as the twenty-third president of the United States, making John Scott the only presidential son to have his own son win the office.
Benjamin Harrison
He was born 1806 and he died June 9, 1840 at the age of 33. He was taken prisoner during the Texas War of Independence. His release drew bitter and inaccurate criticism of cowardice from the political enemies of the family. He had three children with his first wife, Louisa, and two with Mary, his second spouse. Benjamin picked up the dream of his father and became a physician. He died only months before his father became president.
Mary Symmes Harrison Thornton
She was born January 22, 1809 and died November 16, 1842 at the age of 33. She was twenty years old when she married a physician. They were parents to six children. She died a year after the death of her presidential father.
Carter Bassett Harrison
He was born October 26, 181 and died August 12, 1839 at 27. By age twenty-five Carter had begun practicing law. He married Mary Anne Sutherland, fathered one child and died slightly more than a year before his father was elected to the nation's top office.
Anna Tuthill Harrison Taylor
She was born on October 28, 1813 and died July 5, 1845. She married her cousin, named William Henry Harrison Taylor in honor of the general. There are some conflicting accounts of the date of her death. Most records indicate she died at thirty-one years of age, less than two years after her father's tragic death in the White House. But another historic account dates her death at 1865, reporting that she had six children born after the 1845 date that is often quoted as her official date of death.
James Findlay Harrison
He was born in 1814 and died in 1817. He was the last Harrison to be born, but the first to die.
10. President John Tyler (1841-1845)
Mary Tyler Jones
She was born April 15, 1815, and died June 17, 1848. Mary was the first of fifteen children born to John Tyler, eight with his first wife, Letitia Christian. On a visit to the White House, Mary gave birth to her second son, Robert, who later served with honor in the Civil War. They had three children.
Robert Tyler
He was born September 9, 1816 and died December 3, 1877. Introverted and shy as a child, Robert overcame his handicap to become a powerful lawyer and politician. In his twenties he married Priscilla Cooper and worked as a private secretary in his father's White House. The couple lived in the mansion, with Priscilla serving as White House hostess for an invalid First Lady. Later, Robert rose to prominence in Pennsylvania politics, becoming an early supporter of President James Buchanan. He served as registrar for the Confederate treasury during the Civil War. Tyler refused opportunities to trade on his fame as a presidential son, maintaining a dignity and integrity that won deep friendships and wide respect. In later years he became the Alabama Democratic state chairman and editor of the Montgomery Advisor. He had nine children.
John Tyler, Jr.
He was born April 27, 1819 and died January 26, 1896. He was famous for defending his father in a much-publicized duel with a Richmond newspaper. John Jr. was a writer, lawyer and politician who was not successful as any of the three. He became an alcoholic. John, Jr. married Martha "Mattie" Rochelle, but lived with her only a few months before trying to get a divorce. And yet, they had three children together.
Letitia (Letty) Tyler Semple
She was born May 11, 1821 and she died December 28, 1907. Letitia stepped in as a substitute mother to the growing Tyler clan when her mother suffered a paralyzing stroke. It all ended when the 54 year old president married twenty-four-year-old Julia Gardiner. The rivalry between the two women, first daughter and First Lady, became a lifelong obsession.
Elizabeth "Lizzie" Tyler Waller
She was born July 11, 1823 and she died on June 1, 1850. On January 31, 1842, she married William Waller in a White House wedding. They moved to Lynchburg, Va. where they had five children before her death at the age of twenty-six from childbirth complications.
Anne Contesse Tyler
She was born April, 1825. She died three months later in July, 1825. Cause of death unknown.
Alice Tyler Denison
She was born March 23, 1847. She died of colic on June 8, 1854, at the age of 27. She married Henry Mandeville Denison, the handsome Episcopalian rector of the Williamsburg parish. They bore two children.
Tazewell Tyler
He was born December 6, 1830 and died January 8, 1874. The youngest of the eight children born to the tenth chief executive and first wife, Taz was 14 when his father married the second time. He became a physician and served during the Civil War. His life ended in divorce and alcoholism. He had two children.
David Gardiner "Gardie" Tyler
He was born July 12, 1846 and died September 5, 1927 at the age of 81. "Gardie" was the first of seven children born to Tyler's second wife, Julia. He left Washington College as a sixteen-year-old to serve in the Confederate Army. After the Civil War, he worked as a lawyer and in a number of elected offices, including the U.S. Congress. He and wife, Mary Morris Jones, had five children.
John Alexander "Alex" Tyler
He was born April 7, 1848 and died at age 35 on September 1, 1883. He ran away from home at fourteen to enlist in the Confederate Army. He was rejected as too young, then later joined the Confederate Navy. Alex enlisted in the German Army at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. He worked as an engineer and a surveyor in the American West. He married a cousin but was often separated from her. His death has spawned several mysterious theories, but most historians accept an account that he died of dysentery after drinking contaminated water in New Mexico in 1883. He had one child.
Julia Tyler Spencer
She was born December 25, 1849. She died at 21 years of age on May 8, 1871 from childbirth complications She studied at a convent school in Nova Scotia, then married William Spencer. He ran up staggering debts eventually disappearing from the family's sight forever. They had one child.
Lachlan Tyler
He was born December 2, 1851. He died January 25, 1902 at age 50. Lachlan trained as a physician. For years he tried to use his credentials as a president's son to open doors but was unsuccessful. Eventually, on his own merits, he obtained a position as a surgeon in the U.S. Navy. He eventually achieved a measure of success in private practice. He and wife, Georgia Powell, had no children.
Lyon Gardiner Tyler
He was born August, 1853 and he died February 12, 1935. He practiced law for a time, but spent most of his life as an educator. He served as president of William and Mary for thirty-one years. He was an author and respected historian. Married twice, he had three children by his first wife and two by his second.
Robert Fitzwalter Tyler
He was born March 12, 1856 and he died December 30, 1927. Robert turned to the simple life of a Virginia farmer ,after being forced, by a lack of funds, to drop out of Georgetown College. He fathered three children with wife, Fannie Glenn.
Pearl Tyler Ellis
She was born June 20, 1860 and died June 30, 1947. She was the last of the Tyler children. Pearl was a graduate of Sacred Heart in Washington, D. C. She married Major William Mumford Ellis and lived most of her life near Roanoke, Virginia, a homemaker and a mother. She had eight children.
11. President James K. Polk (1845-1849)
Marshall Polk
He was the nephew and personal ward of President James K. Polk. No children were born to the president and his wife Sarah Childress. Marshall sadly ended his life an alcoholic and in prison.
12. President Zachary Taylor (1849-1850)
Anne Margaret Mackall Taylor Wood
She was born April 9, 1811 and she died in Germany on December 2, 1875. Anne married an army surgeon and gave birth to four children. A widow by the war's end, she journeyed to Germany where she lived with a daughter, who had married a baron.
Sarah "Knox" Taylor Davis
She was born March 6, 1814. She died of malaria at the age of 21 on September 15, 1835. She married a military man, Jefferson Davis, who would eventually become the president of the Confederate States of America. But Sarah would not live to see it happen. She died three months after the wedding of the malaria that had almost taken her as a girl.
Octavia Pannel Taylor
She was born August 16, 1816 and she died of malaria on July 8, 1820. She was three years old.
Margaret Smith Taylor
She was born July 27, 1819. She died October 22, 1820. Only three months after the death of her sister, one year old Margaret was taken by malaria as well.
Mary Elizabeth Taylor Bliss Dandridge
She was born April 20, 1824 and she died July 26, 1909. "Betty," as she was called, served as White House hostess for her mother who refused to entertain. She was immensely popular and was considered an elegant beauty. She married twice. She had no children.
Richard Taylor
He was born January 27, 1826 and died on April 12, 1879. After education in Europe, he served as an aide de camp to his father during the Mexican campaign. Later when the general became president , he served as his father's private secretary. During the Civil War he rose to fame as a Confederate general, fighting with Stonewall Jackson in the Valley Campaign. He refused to accept favors or promotion because of his name, earning even begrudging praise from Northern observers. He was a plantation manager, soldier, politician and author. Taylor was considered a success who earned his own reputation on its own merits. He died from severe internal congestion, resulting from a long battle with rheumatoid arthritis.
13. President Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)
Millard Powers Fillmore
He was born April 25, 1828 and he died November 15, 1889. "Powers" served his father, as a personal secretary during the latter's time as president. A student at Harvard, he later practiced law and was appointed as a federal court clerk. Much of the rest of his life is a mystery. He had no children and was never married. Before his death he arranged for the destruction of all his private papers.
Mary Abigail "Abby" Fillmore
She was born March 27, 1832. Historians differ on the date of her death. It was July 26 or 27, 1854. Abby lived a charmed life as a child and teenager . After the death of Zachary Taylor, her vice presidential father moved into the White House where she often served as hostess, assisting her mother, Abigail. She died tragically of cholera at the tender age of 22. Abby never married.
14. President Franklin Pierce (1853-1857)
Franklin Pierce
He was born February 2, 1836. He died three days later on February 5, 1836.
Frank Robert Pierce
He was born August 27, 1839. He died of typhus fever on November 14, 1843. By the time of the death of this much-loved four-year-old, Franklin Pierce himself had begun to wonder if God was taking his children.
Benjamin Pierce
He was born April 13, 1841and he died January 16, 1853. With his wife convinced that retirement from politics was God's will, Franklin Pierce retired from the U. S. Senate to practice law in New Hampshire. But in 1852, in a fractured Democrat National Convention, he won the presidential nomination on the 49th ballot. But Mrs. Pierce's greatest fears were realized. Pierce won, and eleven-year-old Benny was killed in a train accident before his parents' eyes.
15. President James Buchanan (1857-1861)
The only President never to marry, Buchanan was engaged at twenty-eight, but his fiancée died from a sedative overdose. Though successful in winning the highest elected office in the land, the fifteenth President remained a bachelor until his death.
16. President Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)
Robert Todd Lincoln
He was born August 1, 1843 and he died July 25, 1926. He served as Secretary of War and as Minister to Great Britain. He was an effective president of the Pullman Corporation. Considered by many historians as one of the most successful of presidential children, Robert married Mary Harlan, a Cabinet Secretary's daughter, had three children and lived into his eighties.
Edward Baker "Eddie" Lincoln
He was born March 10, 1846 and died at age three on February 1, 1850.
William Wallace "Willie" Lincoln
He was born December 21, 1850 and died of pneumonia on February 20, 1862. "Willy" and little brother "Tad" were the little terrors of the White House. It was Willie's death at eleven years of age, in the middle of the Civil War, that pushed First Lady Mary Lincoln over the emotional edge. But it also refined the president's ability to empathize with the nation's suffering.
Thomas "Tad" Lincoln
He was born April 4, 1853. He died of diphtheria as a teenager on July 15, 1871. Staff, observers, and even an older brother, Robert, were scandalized by the Lincoln's over indulgence of their youngest child. He was twelve when his father was assassinated. His emotionally disturbed mother hauled him off to Europe, where he was enrolled and withdrawn from a succession of private schools. He died shortly after their return to the States.
17. President Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)
Martha Johnson Patterson
She was born October 25, 1828 and she died on July 10, 1901. Martha was another presidential daughter to serve as a White House hostess in place of an invalid or reluctant mother. She transformed the executive mansion into the grand elegance it enjoys to this day. It was a remarkable accomplishment considering it happened simultaneously with the impeachment of her father and a bitter relationship with Congress.
Charles Johnson
He was born February 19, 1830 and he died on April 4, 1863. Charles studied medicine and co-owned a pharmacy. He soon plunged into severe alcoholism. He fought for the Union army and died at thirty-three in a horse accident.
Mary Johnson Stover Brown
She was born May 8, 1832 and she died on April 19, 1883. Mary served with her sister as White House hostess during her father's administration. Her first husband, Daniel Stover, was a Civil War hero for the Union. They had three children. She was soon estranged from her second husband but postponed divorce until her father died..
Robert Johnson
He was born February 22, 1834. He died on April 22, 1869, most likely a suicide. Robert became a colonel in the Union army, beloved by his men. Sadly after the war his drinking problem escalate. He served briefly as a secretary to his father in the White House where he caused a scandal when prostitutes were allegedly seen leaving his office. He never married.
Andrew Johnson, Jr.
He was born August 6, 1852 and he died March 12, 1879. After seeing his parents suffer over the alcoholism of his older brothers, Andy promised his parents that he would never touch liquor. He married Bessie May Kumbaugh and tried to launch his own newspaper. But it was seen by critics as a propaganda piece for his father and soon failed. He died a youthful 26, a few years after the death of his parents.
18. President Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)
Fredrick Dent Grant
He was born May 30, 1850. He died of cancer on April 11, 1912. As a child he was with his father on the major battlefields of the Civil War. He graduated from West Point. He married a French daughter of wealth. He served as the New York City police commissioner, Minister to Austria-Hungary. He eventually advanced to the second highest rank in the U. S. army, becoming the second General Grant.
Ulysses Simpson "Buck" Grant, Jr.
He was born July 22, 1852 and he died September 25, 1929. Buck studied at Harvard, the University of Gottingen in Germany and Columbia Law School. He was a lawyer and tried his hand as a politician and businessman. He was briefly a White House secretary to his father, and much later made a bid for the U.S. Senate. It was a controversial campaign in which charges of bribery were unfairly leveled against him. Before his death, Buck Grant established himself anew in San Diego society and built the beautiful U. S. Grant Hotel.
Ellen Wrenshall "Nellie" Grant Sartoris Jones
She was born July 4, 1855 and died August 30, 1922. Nellie was 13 years old when her father became president and only 18 when she was married to the British diplomat Algernon Sartoris (pronounced "sartriss") in a extravagant White House wedding. The young couple had four children and became social elite's. Her husband turned out to be an alcoholic and womanizer. She obtained a divorce, returning to the States, a wealthy woman. Eventually, she remarried, but fell ill and was paralyzed during her last years.
Jesse Root Grant
He was born February 6, 1858 and died June 8, 1834. Jesse was an author, engineer and world traveler. His most famous jaunt abroad may have been his around-the-world trip with his father following the White House years. He fathered two children. He eventually divorced his first wife and remarried. At one point he made a bid for the presidency, but the press and the country ignored his candidacy.
19. President Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881)
Birchard Austin Hayes
He was born November 4, 1853 and he died January 24, 1926. After graduating from Harvard, Birchard spent 36 years in the legal profession as a successful tax and real estate attorney in Toledo, Ohio. He married Mary Sherman and had five children.
James Webb Cook Hayes
He was born March 20, 1856 and he died July 26, 1934. Known all his life as "Webb, he served as a secretary in his father's White House. He latter launched a successful business career that spanned decades and made him rich. He reorganized one small enterprise, which would grow into the Union Carbide Corporation. He married Mary Otis Miller they had no children. Webb pursued his lifelong love of the military, risking his life as a soldier of fortune around the globe until he died at 78.
Rutherford Platt Hayes
He was born June 24, 1858 and he died July 21, 1927. Rutherford helped found the American Library Association and became one of the nation's most important figures in the development of the nation's library system. He married a cousin, Lucy Hayes Platt and had three children. Joseph "Jody" Thompson Hayes He was born December 21, 1861 and died of dysentery on June 24, 1863. His father longed to see more of this new son, Jody, born during the chaos of the Civil War, but the baby died of dysentery.
George Crook Hayes
He was born September 29, 1864 and died May 24, 1866. George died of scarlet fever before his second birthday.
Fanny Hayes Smith
She was born September 2, 1867, and died March 18, 1950. The only daughter in a family of seven brothers, she loved her father. When her mother died, Fanny assumed the role of hostess and accompanied her father to speaking engagements. She married navy ensign Harry Eaton Smith, who eventually became an instructor as the Naval Academy. She had one child and changed her name back to Hayes after the death of her husband. Scott Russell Hayes He was born February 8, 1871, and died of cancer on May 6, 1923. He worked as an executive for a number of railroad service companies, and lived in New York. He married Maude Anderson but had no children.
Manning Force Hayes
He was born August 1, 1873 and died shortly after his first birthday on August 28, 1874.
20. President James A. Garfield (1881)
Eliza Arabella "Trot" Garfield
She was born July 3, 1860. She died of diphtheria on December 3, 1863. She was three years old.
Harry Augustus "Hal" Garfield
He was born October 11, 1863 and died December 12, 1942. Hal spent most of his life in education, teaching at Princeton University and Williams College, where he served as president. While at Princeton, Hal befriended future president Woodrow Wilson, who, during World War I, asked him to serve as the nation's Fuel Administrator. He married Belle Hartford Mason and had four children.
James Rudolf Garfield
He was born October 17, 1865, and died March 24, 1950. President Garfield's assassination was seen first hand, by his own son "Jimmy," at the tender age of 15. A Columbia University graduate, he was a lawyer and politician. He worked in the government before coming to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt. The two became lifelong friends and, impressed with his work, Roosevelt appointed him Secretary of the Interior. James married Helen Newell and had four children.
Mary "Mollie" Garfield Stanley-Brown
She was born January 16, 1867 and died December 30, 1947. Mollie was just a child at the time of her father's assassination. She eventually married a man who had served her father as a junior White House secretary. They had 3 children and lived for years in New York before moving to California.
Irvin McDowell Garfield
He was born August 3, 1870 and died on July 18, 1951. He married Susan Emmons, had three children and carved out a successful law and business career in law in Boston.
Abram Garfield
He was born November 21, 1872 and died October 16, 1958. After an education at Williams College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he built a career as one of the world's leading architects. He married Sarah Granger and had two children. He was appointed to national commissions by two presidents. After Sarah died, at the ripe old age seventy-five, he married Helen Grannis.
Edward Garfield
He was born December 25, 1874 and died October 25, 1876. The last child of James and Lucretia Rudolph Garfield died of the whooping cough before his second birthday.
21. President Chester Alan Arthur (1881-1885)
William Lewis Arthur
He was born December 10, 1860 and died on July 7, 1863. William died of convulsions at the age of two. Chester Alan Arthur II He was born July 25, 1864 and died of a heart attack on July 17, 1937. He made a career out of using his father's name and hobnobbing with celebrities in Europe. "Alan" Arthur married twice and had one child.
Ellen Herndon "Nell" Arthur Pinkerton
She was born November 21, 1871 and died on September 6, 1915. Nell was nine years old when her family moved into the White House. The press respected her father's wish that his only daughter grow up in complete privacy. She married Charles Pinkerton, lived in upstate New York and died at age 43 from surgical complications.
22 & 24. President Grover Cleveland (1885-1889 and 1893-1897)
Oscar Folsom Cleveland
He was born in 1874. Date of death unknown. T here were unsubstantiated reports that Oscar died in his late twenties of alcoholism. Grover Cleveland accepted responsibility as father of an illegitimate son born to a widow, Maria Crofts Halpin. It was later learned that the woman in question had ongoing relations with a number of men. Cleveland, the only single man among them, had stepped forward to help with the child, even while uncertain if he was the father. Cleveland arranged for Oscar to be adopted by a wealthy couple in New York after Maria was institutionalized. Oscar reportedly succeeded in an educational career or, by some accounts, as a medical doctor. Other reports have him dying of alcoholism before he turned thirty.
Ruth Cleveland
She was born October 3, 1891 and died of diphtheria on January 7, 1904. She was only 12. The nation immediately took a liking to the frolicking infant in the White House affectionately naming her " Baby Ruth." Her tragic death came as a surprise, and the whole nation mourned. In 1921, the Curtis Candy Company supposedly renamed one of its candy bars "Baby Ruth" in her honor.
Esther Cleveland Bosanquet
She was born September 9, 1893 and died June 26, 1980. Esther was actually born in the White House. Her wedding to Captain William Sydney Bence Bosanquet, the son of Sir Albert Bosanquet, was held at Westminster Abbey, and became an important international social event. They bore two children and lived most of their lives in Yorkshire. In her latter years, Esther returned to the United States and lived quietly in New Hampshire until her death.
Marion Cleveland Dell Amen
She was born July 7, 1895 and died June 18, 1977. Marion was twice married, first to William Stanley Dell with whom she had a daughter and, after his death, to John Harlan Amen. Marion spent 17 year of her life dedicated to serving the Girl Scouts of America. She served as community relations adviser. Marion's later husband John became famous as a Special Assistant to the U. S. Attorney and served on the U.S. legal staff at the Nuremberg war crimes trials in Germany.
Richard Folsom "Dick" Cleveland
He was born October 28, 1897and died January 10, 1974. Dick was a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, a marine officer in World War I and a career lawyer at a large firm in Baltimore.
Francis Grover Cleveland
He was born July 18, 1903. Date of death unknown. He was five when his presidential father died. Reared by his stepfather and the former First Lady, he graduated from Harvard with a degree in drama. He married Alice Erdman. He never reached success on the stage and vanished from public life.
23. President Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)
Russell Benjamin Harrison
He was born August 12, 1854, and died on December 13, 1936. He joined his father's White House staff, while his wife, Angeline Saunders, became official White House hostess for an ailing first lady. He was enbroiled in a railroad stock scandal. He had an army career, ran a streetcar company in Indiana, and served in the state legislature.
Mary "Mamie" Scott Harrison McKee
She was born April 3, 1858 and she died of cancer on October 28, 1930. She married James Robert McKee and had two children, but was a widow by the time her father became president. Mamie and her two sons lived in the White House during her father's first term. She was considered a beauty and impressed Washington society as a glamorous hostess. Mamie strongly protested her widowed father's marriage to a woman her exact age.
Elizabeth Harrison Walker
She was born February 21, 1897 and died on December 26, 1955. She was the only child by Harrison's second marriage. A graduate of New York University Law School, she married James Blaine Walker, a grandnephew of a member of her father's Cabinet. Ahead of her time, Elizabeth was a member of the Bar in two states, a leader in society and active in public life.
25. President William McKinley (1897-1901)
Katherine "Katie" McKinley
She was born December 25, 1871, and died on June 25, 1875. All the love her parents showered her with could not save her. The McKinley firstborn died of typhoid fever at the age of three.
Ida McKinley
he was born April 1, 1873 and died that August 22, 1873. After giving birth to her namesake, First Lady Ida McKinley was stricken with a litany of lifelong illnesses that included epileptic seizures and phlebitis.
26. President Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)
Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth
She was born February 12, 1884 and died at age ninety-six on February 20, 1980. She was the only child born to Theodore Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Lee Hathaway. She was 17 when her father became president, the press dubbed her "Princess Alice." In 1906 she married Congressman Nicholas Longworth in a high profile White House wedding. Her husband Nick Longworth went on to become Speaker of the House.
Theodore "Ted" Roosevelt, Jr.
He was born
September 13, 1887 and died on July 12, 1944. Ted was a Harvard-educated
military hero in both World Wars I and II. He won every award
available to ground forces, including the Medal of Honor.
He was a governor of Puerto Rico and the Philippines. He served
as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the infamous Teapot
Dome scandal. Although innocent of any wrongdoing, it doomed
his political career. In later years, Ted returned to military
service in World War II serving as a Brigadier General. Ted,
Jr. died of a heart attack at age fifty-six.
Kermit Roosevelt
He was born October 10, 1889 and died June 4, 1943. He lived the life of an adventurer, exploring the Amazon with his father, winning the British Military Cross as a soldier of fortune and joining the U. S. Army just in time for World War I. He married Belle Wyatt Willard and had four children. He was back in action during the Second World War, reaching the rank of major. According to official histories, he died in the middle of the war from dysentery contracted in the Middle East. But in 1980 it became public that he suffered from chronic alcoholism and had in fact shot himself.
Ethel Carow Roosevelt Derby
She was born August 13, 1891 and died December 10, 1977. Ethel was a favorite of the public. She married Richard Derby, a medical doctor, and had four children. The nation saw her again in 1960 when she made a seconding speech for the nomination of Richard Nixon at the Republican National Convention.
Archibald "Archie" Bulloch Roosevelt
He was born April 9, 1894 and he died of a stroke on July 29, 1981. Businessman and war hero, Archie won the French Croix de Guerre as a Captain in World War I, and the Silver Star and Oak Leaf Cluster as a Lt. Colonel in World War II.
Quentin Roosevelt
He was born November 19, 1897 and died at the age of twenty on July 14, 1918. Quentin was a fighter pilot in the new American Air Corps. In his heroic service he had shot down an enemy plane. Sadly, only days after the good report, came the tragic news that Quentin's own plane had been caught in a dogfight between two German fighters and had crashed.
27. President William Howard Taft (1909-1913)
Robert Alphonso Taft
Born September 8, 1889, he died of cancer on July 31, 1953. Educated at Yale and Harvard, he married Martha Wheaton Bowers and had four children. Bob Taft served in Congress where he was elected Speaker, and in the Senate where he was elected Majority Leader. Dubbed "Mr. Republican," Taft ran for president three times, and is considered by many as one of the fathers of the modern American conservative political movement.
Helen Herron Taft Manning
Born August 1, 1891, she died of pneumonia in February 21, 1987. She was yet another presidential daughter who served as White House hostess for an ailing mother. Married to Yale professor, Frederick Johnson Manning, Helen had two children and a remarkable career in education and public life. She served forty years as professor of history, chairman of the history department, and acting president of the prestigious women's college, Bryn Mawr, in Pennsylvania. A suffragist, she also traveled the country, giving speeches in support of the vote for women and women's rights.
Charles Phelps Taft
Born September 20, 1897 he died June 24, 1983. Athlete, soldier, lawyer, author, politician and civic reformer, he married Eleanor K. Chase and had seven children. A deeply religious man, he was a founder of the World Council of Churches, and he worked tirelessly to better his beloved Cincinnati, serving on the City Council for sixteen terms and one term as mayor. In 1925, he was the youngest president of the international Y.M.C.A.
28. President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)
Margaret Woodrow Wilson
Born April 30, 1886, she died on February 12, 1944. Having studied music at Goucher College and in private lessons in New York, Margaret traveled across the U.S. and Europe during World War I giving concerts for soldiers and raising funds for the Red Cross. Devoted to social causes, she studied the religious classics of India extensively. She eventually traveled to Pondicherry, India, where she lived in the ashram of Sri Aurobindo, a contemporary of Gandhi. Never married, she died of uremia on April 24, 1944, and is buried in the Protestant cemetery at the ashram in Pondicherry.
Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre
Born August 28, 1887. He died January 15, 1933. A Princeton graduate, Jessie married Francis Sayre, a Harvard Law professor. They had three children. She worked vigorously for women's suffrage, social issues, and to promote her father's call for a League of Nations, and emerged as a force in the Massachusetts Democratic Party. She died of surgical complications following an appendectomy at age 45.
Eleanor "Nellie" Randolph Wilson McAdoo
She was born October 16, 1889. She died April 5, 1967. Eleanor was famous for her White House wedding to the 52-year-old William Gibbs McAdoo, her father's Secretary of the Treasury. A Princeton graduate, Eleanor was bright, and her highly publicized wedding made her and William the power couple of the capitol. They had two children but divorced in 1934.
29. President Warren G. Harding (1921-1923)
Eugene Marshall "Pete" DeWolfe
He was born September 22, 1880. He died January 1, 1915 of advanced tuberculosis. Marshall DeWolfe was the son of a young teenage, Florence Kling, and a neighborhood boy, Henry "Petey" DeWolfe. Some say the couple eloped but no record of marriage has been found. Florence lived with DeWolfe while she was pregnant and for a time after Marshall was born, but the father was usually drunk and often absent. She was forced to give up her son by her abusive father. She did it, and apparently never looked back. Marshall followed in his father's footsteps, drinking and gambling and running up debts, many of which were paid by the future president and first lady, Warren and Florence Harding. He contracted tuberculosis and went to Colorado to a "better" climate where he married Esther Neely. They had two children. The First Lady's son, Eugene Marshall DeWolfe, died of alcoholism and tuberculosis far from his mother and the glamour of the White House.
Elizabeth Ann (Ann) Christian Blaesing, also called Elizabeth Ann Harding, and Emma Eloise Britton (mistakenly entered on her birth certificate by the attending physician)
She was born October 22, 1919, at this writing she is still living. Elizabeth was the illegitimate offspring of Warren G. Harding's affair with Nan Britton, thirty years his junior. As president, Harding arranged for secret service agents to hand deliver child support payments, but he refused to meet his daughter. When Harding's estate refused to continuing support for the child, her mother, Nan Britton wrote a best-selling book called The President's Daughter. Royalties were used to establish the Elizabeth Ann League, which helped girls "in trouble." Though many tried to discredit Nan Britton, their investigations seemed only to confirm her story. She applied at Lake Forest College, giving her father's name as Warren G. Harding. Her educational career was interrupted by marriage to Henry Blaesing. They moved to California, where she bore three sons and lived quietly and privately. Refusing all interviews, she now lives in privacy near Mt. Hood, in Oregon.
30. President Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)
John Coolidge
He was born September 7, 1906 and died at ninety-three on May 31, 2000. (at that time the oldest living child of an American president.) A graduate of Amherst, John married Florence Trumbull, the daughter of the governor of Connecticut. They had two children. He worked for the New York, New Haven and Harford Railroad for twelve years and then became president of the Connecticut Manifold Forms Co. in West Hartford in 1941. After selling that company in 1958, he revived the Plymouth Cheese Corporation in 1960. Preservation was important to John Coolidge. After his retirement, he began to buy buildings in the village of Plymouth. Sixteen buildings now serve as the basis of President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site in Plymouth, Vermont.
Calvin Coolidge Jr.
He was born April 13, 1908 and died July 7, 1924. His life was tragically cut short while home at the White House for his summer vacation. He had played tennis all day, and suddenly he developed a blister on his foot and died of blood poisoning a few days later. He was just sixteen.
31. President Herbert Clark Hoover (1929-1933)
Herbert Hoover, Jr.
Born August 8, 1903, died of cancer on April 9, 1969.) He graduated from Stanford University and taught briefly at Harvard Business School. Junior married Margaret Watson and had three children. He is considered one of the more successful presidential children, respected not only for his career as a geologist, inventor and diplomat, but because of his refusal to trade on his father's name.
Allan Henry Hoover
Born July 17, 1907, died November 8, 1993.) He married Margaret Coberly, had three children and became wealthy as a California rancher. In latter years he moved to Connecticut, where he promoted his father's legacy through the numerous Hoover foundations and non-profit organizations.
32. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945)
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Dall Boettiger Halsted
Born May 3, 1906, died of cancer December 1, 1975.) Caught in a triad of three strong willed persons--her father FDR; her mother; and her grandmother, the domineering Sara Roosevelt--Anna had to grow up quickly. She would marry three times, have two children and squeeze in a sometimes gutsy but ultimately doomed career as a journalist. Anna, who accompanied her father on the trip to Yalta, was a witness to many historic moments, but she also carried the burden of dealing with some of the most intimate and painful decisions of her parents during their dysfunctional marriage.
James "Jimmy" Roosevelt
Born December 23, 1907, died August 13, 1991.) A Harvard graduate, Jimmy Roosevelt was a war hero, author, White House secretary for his father, and a six-term U. S. Congressman. Lifelong business scandals hampered his political ambitions. He ran for mayor of Los Angeles and lost, then ran for governor of California and lost. Married four times, James was the father of three children.
Franklin Roosevelt
Born March 18, 1909, died at eight months on November 8, 1909.)
Elliott Roosevelt
Born September 23, 1910, he died of congestive heart failure on October 27, 1990.) His heroics in World War II earned him many medals, nevertheless, as in the case of his older brother, charges of exploiting his father's name for personal gain made him an often controversial figure. He was the author of numerous books, including a famous, bestselling mystery series. Married five times, he was the father of four children.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr.
Born August 17, 1914, died on August 17, 1988.) Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., was educated at Harvard and earned a law degree at the University of Virginia Law School. He served with honor in World War II and was appointed by President Truman to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. In 1965, President Johnson appointed him as chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission. He served repeatedly as a New York Representative in Congress. Two attempts to win the governor's office in New York ended in defeat. Democrat FDR, Jr. was married four times, including a marriage to Republican heiress Ethel Dupont, in an event that captured headlines. He had four children.
John Aspinwall Roosevelt
Born March 13, 1916 at Hyde Park, NY; died of a heart attack on April 27, 1981.) John lived his life quietly, although a "small" wedding to Boston debutante, Anne Lindsay Clark, drew 30,000 uninvited spectators along the wedding route. John served with distinction in the Navy during World War II and later developed a successful career as a retailer and an investment banker. In later years, the previously non-political John Roosevelt surprisingly chose to support Republican causes, and campaigned openly for Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan. He was married twice and had three children.
33. President Harry S. Truman (1945-1953)
(Mary) Margaret Truman Daniel
Born February 17, 1924.) Margaret Truman was still studying voice at George Washington University when her father was thrust into the presidency in the middle of a world war. Her lifelong dream of becoming a concert singer was dampened by harsh critics who demanded a fully matured classical musician. Later in life, Margaret found a gift for writing, producing biographies of her parents, historical works and a bestselling series of murder mysteries that earned her fame and a considerable fortune. In 1956, Margaret married E. Clifton Daniel, Jr., a journalist who went on to become the managing editor of The New York Times. They had four sons. She continues to serve as Honorary Chair of the Harry S. Truman Library Institute Board of Directors, although her son, Clifton Truman Daniel, now serves on the Board of the Library and has begun to carry more of the load as spokesman for the family. Margaret lives in an apartment on Park Avenue in Manhattan.
34. Dwight David Eisenhower (1953-1961)
Doud Dwight (Ikky) Eisenhower
Born September 24, 1917; died January 2, 1921 at Camp Meade, Maryland, of scarlet fever.)
John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower
Born August 3, 1922- ) A decorated hero, John Eisenhower found his World War II military career thwarted at every turn by fears for his safety and concern from the top brass that his capture would be an unwanted distraction to Ike, the Allied Commander. He served as a White House aide to his father and as U. S. ambassador to Belgium in the Nixon administration. John's greatest achievements came as a military historian, his numerous books popular with readers and reviewers alike. His most famous history, The Bitter Woods, is considered to be the definitive study on the Battle of the Bulge. Yanks: The Epic Story of the American Army in World War I was published in 2001 when John Eisenhower was nearly 79 years of age. John Eisenhower, the oldest living presidential child lives in Kimberton, Pennsylvania. He married Barbara Jean Thompson on June 10, 1947, but they divorced in 1986. The Eisenhower's had four exceptional children including Dwight David, II who married Julie Nixon, herself a presidential daughter.
35. John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1961-1963)
Child, never named, stillborn in 1955.
Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg
She was born November 27, 1957-. As the only living child of John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Caroline carries the burden of her family's considerable expectations on her capable shoulders. She earned a fine arts degree at Radcliffe and graduated from Columbia Law School in 1988.
For a number of years she served as a member of the Office of Film and Television at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, coordinating special productions some of which have aired on Public Television. Reviewers have offered critical praise two books focusing on the Bill of Rights and the Right to Privacy, co-authored with law classmate, Ellen Alderman. Caroline Kennedy married brilliant artist and interactive museum designer Edwin Schlossberg in 1986. They have three children and live in New York.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr.
He was born November 25, 1960 in Washington, DC; died July 17, 1999 in a plane crash off Martha's Vineyard.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr., was the founder and publisher of George magazine. He married elegant, blond Carolyn Bessette on September 21, 1996. John was a lawyer, an assistant district attorney, a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala after a severe earthquake, a tutor of underprivileged children, an amateur actor, an athlete, and an American icon. He had no children.
Patrick Bouvier Kennedy
He was born August 7, 1963 at Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts. He died August 9 1963, in Boston.
36. Lyndon Baines Johnson (1963-1969)
Lynda Bird Robb
She was born March 19, 1944 -. Lynda Bird married Charles S. Robb in the East Room of the White House. Her husband would serve with distinction in Vietnam, and go on to become Lieutenant Governor, Governor and a two-term Senator for the State of Virginia. Until a recent tough political race damaged him, he was seen as an almost certain future Presidential candidate. Lynda Byrd Johnson Robb is chairman of the board of "Reading is Fundamental," the nation's largest children's literacy organization. She graduated from the University of Texas and holds Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Washington and Lee University and Norwich University, and has been honored with a plethora of civic awards for her public service. The couple has three daughters, Lucinda Desha Robb, Catherine Lewis Robb and Jennifer Wickliffe Robb.
Luci Baines Johnson Turpin
She was born July 2, 1947 - . Though just a teenager, Luci Baines Johnson married Pat Nugent in a high profile wedding. They had four children: Lyndon Nugent, now an attorney in San Antonio, Nicole, Rebekah and Claudia. The Nugent marriage was annulled in 1979. Today, Luci is Chairman of the Board and "hands on" manager of the LBJ Holding Company, a multimillion dollar media empire. She is married to Canadian financier Ian Turpin. She has served on multiple civic boards, raising funds for the American Heart Association, acting as trustee of Boston University, and as a member of the advisory board of the Center for Battered Women.
37. Richard Milhous Nixon (1969-1974)
Tricia Nixon Cox
She was born February 21, 1946 -. Tricia Nixon found tutoring inner city children more rewarding than glamorous White House functions. She married Ed Cox in a beautiful Rose Garden wedding on June 12, 1971. Characteristically, Tricia became a very private citizen and mother, staying home to care for their son, Christopher Nixon Cox, born March 1979. She lives a quite life as the wife of a corporate attorney, living just off Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. She serves on the boards of many medical-research institutions, as well as the Nixon Presidential Library and its adjunct, The Nixon Center in Washington, DC.
Julie Nixon Eisenhower
She was born July 5, 1948 -. Julie Nixon married the son of a political legend. He was Dwight David Eisenhower II, son of presidential son John Eisenhower, and grandson of President and First Lady Eisenhower. They had met at the White House as children. David and Julie Eisenhower were positive public figures during the turbulent Vietnam-Watergate era. In subsequent years David studied law, and Julie wrote her first book, Special People, featuring fascinating stories of famous people she had met. In recent years they have both gained stature as writers, editors, educators, political public speakers and historians. David spent ten years writing his grandfather's three-part biography which won critical acclaim. Julie wrote a well-received biography of her mother, Pat Nixon: The Untold Story. They live today in relaxed anonymity, living in suburban Philadelphia with their three children, Jennie, Alex and Melanie.
38. Gerald Rudolph Ford (1974-1977)
Michael Gerald Ford
He was born March 14, 1950 -. Michael studied at Wake Forest in North Carolina and then Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. In 1977, after ordination, he joined the ministerial staff of the Coalition for Christian Outreach at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1981 he was appointed student affairs director at Wake Forest University; Today, he is director of student development at Wake Forest University. He and his wife, Gayle, have three daughters, Sarah, Rebekah and Hannah.
John "Jack" Gardner Ford
He was born March 16, 1952- . As a young man in the White House, Jack Ford was pursued by the media wherever he went. In latter years he co-founded a successful business, California Infotech, which supplies electronic-information kiosks to malls. And in 1996 he was asked to serve as executive director of the host committee for the San Diego Republican Convention. Jack Ford married Juliann Felando in 1989. They have two sons and live in California.
Steven Meigs Ford
He was born May 19, 1956 -. Steve Ford was seventeen when his father became president and immediately went west, working on the professional rodeo circuit as a cowboy team roper and taking bit parts as an actor. Steve had a guest appearance on a television soap opera that turned into a lifetime career. He played "Andy Richards" on the Emmy-award winning daytime show. He appeared in dozens of films with Hollywood's most famous stars from Al Pacino to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Steve was Meg Ryan's boyfriend in the film When Harry Met Sally and most recently a soldier in Black Hawk Down. He owns his own ranch in San Luis Obispo, California, and has owned and bred thoroughbred racehorses. He is also in demand as a corporate motivational speaker and serves on the board of directors for the President Gerald R. Ford Museum. He has never married and has no children.
Susan Ford Vance Bales
She was born July 6, 1957 -. Susan Ford, the only presidential daughter to have her senior prom in the White House, wrote a monthly column for Seventeen magazine during her father's term in office. She studied photography with the great Ansel Adams. Her photo credits include work with Associated Press, Newsweek, Ladies' Home Journal and numerous film projects. She recently wrote and published a mystery novel entitled Double Exposure: A First Daughter Mystery, giving an inside look at life in the White House from a "first daughter detective" viewpoint. When her mother was suffering with alcoholism, Susan helped put the first lady on the road to recovery. It was a healing that would lead to the establishment of The Betty Ford. Susan serves with her mother as board member of the Center. She is a past National Spokesperson for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and now lives with her two daughters and husband Vaden Bales in the Southwest.
39. James Earl Carter, Jr. (1977-1981)
John William "Jack" Carter
He was born July 3, 1947 -. Jack earned a degree in nuclear physics from Georgia Tech and a law degree from the University of Georgia. He practiced law in Georgia before taking a job with the Chicago Board of Trade. Today, he is an attorney who lives in Bermuda with his wife Elizabeth Brasfield Carter. Jack has two children from his former wife, Jason James Carter, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa, and Sarah Rosemary Carter.
James Earl "Chip" Carter III
He was born April 12, 1950 -. Chip worked in his father's peanut business, the Democratic National Committee and eventually co-founded a corporate consulting firm. In 2000 he became president of the Atlanta-based Friendship Force, a nonprofit international cultural exchange organization. He married Caron Griffin and had one son, James Earl Carter, IV but was divorced. He married Ginger Hodges and had one daughter, Margaret Alicia Carter, before their divorce. He is currently married to Becky Payne.
Donnell Jeffrey "Jeff" Carter
He was born August 18, 1952 -. Jeff graduated with honors from George Washington University with a degree in geography. He co-founded Computer Mapping Consultants, which he continues to run. He married Annette Jene Davis, and they have three children, Joshua Jeffrey Carter, Jeremy Davis Carter, and James Carlton Carter.
Amy Carter Wentzel
She was born October 19, 1967 -. Amy, who as a child melted the hearts of America when she walked beside her father during his inaugural parade, is now in her mid-thirties. She has a master's degree in fine arts and art history from Tulane University. She has illustrated many of her father's books. A gutsy political activist, she was arrested for protesting apartheid outside the South African embassy, and CIA recruitment at the University of Massachusetts. Amy married James Gregory Wentzel in 1996, a website designer who works for the Southern Company in Atlanta. Their son, Hugo James Wentzel, was born July 29, 1999.
40. Ronald Wilson Reagan (1981-1989)
Maureen Reagan Revell
She was born January 4, 1941,
and died August 8, 2001 of malignant melanoma skin cancer.
As a young actress, Maureen Reagan appeared in numerous movies.
She was married to John Filippone in 1961, David Sills in
1964 and finally to Dennis Revell in 1981. Maureen Reagan
campaigned relentlessly for her father and other Republican
candidates, eventually finding herself elected co-chairperson
of the Republican National Committee. It was a first for the
child of a president. In 1985, Maureen headed the U.S. delegation
to the World Conference on the United Nations Decade for Women
in Nairobi, Kenya. Secretary of State George Shultz
appointed her as the United States Representative to the United
Nations Commission on the Status of Women. At her funeral,
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni praised Maureen for her
interest in human rights in his country. They adopted
a Ugandan girl her in 1994. Maureen Reagan fought to
raise money and awareness of Alzheimer's, the disease that
ravaged her father. She is credited for raising $60 million
for Alzheimer's research.
Michael Reagan
He was born March 18, 1946 -. Michael has a hugely successful national night time radio talk show . It is heard on more than one hundred twenty stations, and currently in his seventh year. He publishes The Monthly Monitor newsletter and maintains the Reagan Information Interchange. Michael married Pamela Putnam in 1970, they divorced soon after. In 1975 he married Colleen Sterns. They have two children, son Cameron, and daughter Ashley Marie.
Patricia "Patti Davis" Ann Reagan
She was born October 22, 1952 - . First daughter of Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis, Patti publicly fought against her father's politics and wrote books that exposed the Reagan family. Eventually, she resolved her ongoing conflicts with her parents. Today she travels the country, giving seminars and speeches about the process of forgiveness, and the power of family. Patti was married once and is now divorced. She has never had children.
Ronald Prescott Reagan
He was born May 20, 1958-. Ron Jr. dropped out of Yale to pursue a dancing career with the Joffrey Ballet. He helped produce a film about AIDS prevention, and spoke out for more funding. Ron has worked for years as a print and television journalist. He lives in Seattle with his psychologist wife, Doria. They have no children.
41. George Herbert Walker Bush (1989-1993)
George Walker Bush
He was born July 6, 1946 -. America's 43rd president served as a pilot in the Texas National Guard. He graduated from Yale University and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. He co-founded an oil firm in Midland, Texas . Before being elected govenor of Texas, he was the managing general partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team. In 2000 he became only the second presidential son to attain the nation's highest office. (the first was John Quincy Adams.) He married Laura Welch, a former librarian, they have two daughters, Barbara and Jenna. The Bushs' are the first presidential couple to have twins.
Pauline Robinson "Robin" Bush
She was born December 20, 1949. She died October 11, 1953 of leukemia. She was named after her maternal grandmother. She died in New York City and was buried at a family plot in Greenwich, Connecticut. But in May, 2000, Robin Bush was reinterred at a gravesite on the grounds of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum.
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush
He was born February 11, 1953 - . Jeb Bush graduated from the University of Texas, was an executive with the Texas Commerce Bank. He was also a successful real estate developer in Miami. He then served as Florida's Secretary of Commerce and then Governor. He converted to Catholicism when he married his Mexican-born wife, Columba. They have three children.
Neil Mallon Bush
He was born January 22, 1955 -. Neil started his career in the oil business in Denver after graduationg from Tulane University. He became a target of investigators looking into the demise of the Silverado Savings and Loan during the S & L crisis. He was cleared of any wrongdoing. Today he is a Texas-based investment consultant who has helped arrange multimillion dollar international contracts. His educational concept Ignite!, a reading program for youngsters, has been heralded as one of the most innovative and practical uses of the internet to date. He and wife Sharon have three children.
Marvin Pierce Bush
He was born December 22, 1956 - . A graduate of the University of Virginia, Marvin worked for Shearson, Lehman Brothers and John Steward Darrel & Co. He founded his own successful investment firm. He lives with wife Margaret and their two children in Alexandria, Virginia.
Dorothy "Doro" Bush Koch
She was born August 18, 1959-. A graduate of Boston College, Doro worked as travel agent, bookkeeper and tourism promoter, and finally with the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington. In 1981 she married William "Billy" LeBlond, but the marriage ended in divorce. During her father's White House years she married Robert Koch, former aide to House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt. They live outside Washington, D.C. She is the mother of four children.
42. William Jefferson Clinton (1993-2001)
Chelsea Victoria Clinton
She was born February 27, 1980. Chelsea was twelve years old when her father was elected President of the United States. She was the first child to live in the White House since Amy Carter. Bill and Hillary Clinton maintained a strict separation between Chelsea and the press. Described as "scary bright" she graduated from Stanford University and is pursuing her graduate work at Oxford University in England. In 2002 Chelsea began a summer internship with the World Health Organization in Geneva.
43. George W. Bush (2001-
Barbara Pierce Bush
She was born November 25, 1981 - . She was born the first of fraternal twins. Named after her paternal grandmother, Barbara . Her Austin public high school voted her "most likely to appear on the cover of Vogue." She is the fourth generation of the Bush family to attend Yale University.
Jenna Welch Bush
She was born November 25, 1981 -. Jenna, twin sister to Barbara, is named after her maternal grandmother. Her Austin public high school voted her class president. She is studying at the University of Texas.
Appendix B
I.) Realized Life Span of Presidential Children
The following figures reflect the life expectancy of presidential children compared to the general public. Column one shows all presidential children. Included in this number are children born after the president has left office and is no longer in the spotlight or children who are grown adults when their father is elected.
Theoretically, presidential children should have longer than average life spans because they experience a better than average lifestyle and earn a better than average education, both factors that affect life expectancy.
The second column shows the life span of presidential children based on their age at the time of their father's inauguration. This shows the impact of stress associated with living a public life. To determine life expectancy for the various ages I drew on data from the charts developed by Robert Gilbert in his work The Mortal Presidency.
These numbers exclude the childhood death factor. Such deaths are fairly random and introduce wide swings in the averages. For example, life expectancies in the 18th and 19th centuries were lowered drastically by childhood mortality rates. Once a person got beyond the very early years, the expectancy more reasonably approximated a "normal" life. Example: Life expectancy at birth in 1800 was 35.2 but those surviving the teen years had an average life of 55.3 years.
|
Presidential Children |
|
Years lived beyond or less than the general public |
| |
All Live Births |
Based on their age at Inauguration |
| Males |
+7.4 |
+0.9 |
| Females |
+1.5 |
- 3.0 |
| All Children |
+0.5 |
- 1.2 |
| |
|
|
II.) The difference between early American and more recent life spans of presidential children
The following chart shows stats for the pre- and post-Civil War Era, using the Grant administration as the dividing line. There are quite radical differences between the two eras that might bare further analysis. Modern presidential parenting is benefiting from new ideas and the children may be learning how to better cope. Modern presidential children are getting excellent educations and business opportunities. They are marrying well. First ladies are getting federal pensions. All these factors may have had some impact.
A. All Males:
exceeded expected life span by… mean/average: 0.9 years median 2.5 years
Pre-U.S. Grant:
fell below expected life span by… mean/average: 6.0 years median: 4.5 years
U.S. Grant administration and later:
exceeded expected life span by… mean/average: 7.3 years median: 13.4 years
B. All Females:
fell below expected life span by… mean/average: 3.0 years median: 5.4 years
Pre-U.S. Grant:
fell below expected life span by… mean/average: 11.9 years median: 15.2 years
U.S. Grant administration and later:
exceeded expected life span by…. mean/average: 5.3 years median: 10.0 years
C. All Children:
fell below expected life span by…. mean/average: 1.2 years median: 2.5 years
Pre-U.S. Grant:
fell below expected life span by… mean/average: 8.9 years median: 11.5 years
U.S. Grant administration and later:
exceeded expected life span by… mean/average: 6.8 years median: 13.0 years
Note: If a child was below the age of 20 at the father's inauguration, I used the life expectancy of that person at age 20 for two reasons:
- Tables for persons under age of 20, except "at-birth" tables do not exist before the 20th century and would be highly speculative.
- This figure gives a reasonable life expectancy for a person who has gotten past the pitfalls of childhood diseases that were so devastating in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Appendix C
Presidential children who were married while their fathers were in office.
Those in bold type were married in the White House.
1. Maria Hester Monroe March 9, 1820 Samuel L. Gouverneur
2. John Adams Feb. 25, 1828 Mary Catherine Hellen
3. Andrew Jackson Jr. Nov. 24, 1831 Sarah Yorke
4. Abraham Van Buren Nov. 27, 1838 Angelica Singleton
5. Elizabeth Tyler Jan. 31, 1842 William Nevison Waller
6. Nellie Grant May 21, 1874 Algernon Charles Satoris
7. Frederick Grant Oct. 20, 1874 Ida Marie Honore
8. Alice Roosevelt Feb. 17, 1906 Rep. Nicholas Longworth
9. Jessie Wilson Nov. 25, 1913 Frances Bowes Sayre
10. Eleanor Wilson May 7, 1914 William Gibbs McAdoo
11. Anna Roosevelt Jan. 1935 John Boettiger
12. Elliot Roosevelt July 22, 1933 Ruth Googins
13. James Roosevelt April 14, 1941 Romelle Schneider
14. FDR, Jr. June 30, 1937 Ethel duPont
15. John Roosevelt June 18, 1938 Anne Lindsay Clark
16. Luci Baines Johnson Aug. 6, 1966 Patrick John Nugent
17. Lynda Bird Johnson Dec. 9, 1967 Charles Spittal Robb
18. Tricia Nixon June 12, 1971 Edward Ridley Finch Cox
19. Dorothy Walker Bush June 26, 1992 Robert Koch
Note: Julie Nixon married David David Eisenhower, II on December 22, 1968 after Richard Nixon was elected president but before his inauguration.
The Dorothy Bush wedding took place at the presidential retreat at Camp David.
Appendix D:
Presidential children who worked in the White House with their fathers.
George Adams
John Adams, II
Abraham Van Buren
Martin Van Buren, Jr.
Smith Van Buren
Robert Tyler, Jr.
Richard Taylor
Millard Powers Fillmore
Robert Johnson
Ulysses Grant, Jr.
James "Webb" Hayes
Russell Benjamin Harrison
Anna Roosevelt
James Roosevelt
John Eisenhower
Jack Ford
Susan Ford J
ames Carter | 