A Visit to The James A. Garfield National Historic Site

Apparently, living near Ohio affords us the opportunity to visit a handful of presidential homes and historic sites as day or weekend trips. While I knew about the Hayes Home and Museum well in advance of our day trip there because a friend had recommended it to me, I was not aware that Ohio is second only to Virginia in terms of how many presidents were born in that state.

 

When I read that the Garfields made their home outside of Cleveland, I was reminded that we had actually visited the Garfield memorial and tomb in Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery when we visited the city to enjoy the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame back in 2013. 

 

 

Having finished the biography of Lucretia Rudolph Garfield, it was time for a day trip back to Cleveland to see Lawnfield, the home that James bought for his family in 1876, where James Garfield performed his "front porch campaign" for the presidency, and that Lucretia expanded and lived for more than three decades after James was assassinated. 

Being from generally the same period as the Hayes Home, it was fun to see that the Garfield Home was also covered in fantastic wallpaper, covering walls in every room and on the ceiling in most. The photograph below does not even begin to do justice to the beauty and detail of the wallpapers in this home. I apologize for my old cellphone camera and poor photography skills.

And while the house tour and corresponding museum exhibits were informative and enjoyable, I found the Garfield Home to be quite a contrast to the Hayes Home in terms of the story told. While the Hayes Home is very much the story of both Lucy and Rutherford together, the Garfield Home is very much the story of Garfield, with Lucretia only presented as a secondary character--quite surprising, and disappointing, considering how short a time Garfield was actually president and how much more time Lucretia spent in the home compared to James. In many ways, the home seems as much a memorial to James as it does the home Lucretia lived in and raised a family for four decades. The image above shows two portraits of Lucretia, but every room in the house had some sort of image of James, most had more than one. The most "alive" part of the home, when it came to Lucretia were the tiles around the fireplace in the dining room, which were painted by her and her children; Lucretia painted the to in the upper corners:

Stay tuned for future presidential historic site entries, now that I know there are at least two more presidential homes and the First Ladies National Historic Site in Ohio. 

Lucretia Rudolph Garfield

When I requested Lucretia Rudolph Garfield by Ann Heinrichs, I didn't realize it was written for children. When I picked it up from the library and saw the slim volume with large print, I let it slide--Garfield was in the White House for such a short time, it seemed fitting to read an equally short volume on the life of his wife. I have since discovered a biography more appropriate for adults and that more thoroughly incorporates the large volume of letters written between Lucretia and James: While I will not be reading Lucretia by John Shaw in full any time soon, I have read the preview available on Google Books and would recommend it over Heinrich's volume for what is likely a richer portrait of this First Lady. 

https://www.amazon.com/Lucretia-Rudolph-Garfield-1832-1918-Encyclopedia/dp/0516208462

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594541515/ref=x_gr_bb_amazon?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_bb_amazon-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1594541515&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2

In fact, the preview available describes Lucretia as having "an acute political sense" (Shaw, p. xv) which I would expect considering how highly educated she was--only the second First Lady to have a college education, according to Heinrichs--but entirely lacking in the volume for children. Shaw's preface goes on to say that Lucretia's "chief role ... was as a moral lodestar" (Shaw, p. xv) for James, but I imagine Shaw's book would give better insight into Lucretia as a more complete and complicated woman of her time. In Heinrichs's story, once Lucretia completed her education, she had little influence beyond that of wife, homemaker, and mother--her most significant contribution to the Garfield administration being the beginnings of a redecorating plan for the White House, and completely content after the death of James to live out her remaining decades on the family farm in Ohio "free of money worries" (Heinrich, p. 90) thanks to her presidential widow's pension won by the hard fight of Julia Tyler. I imagine there is a much more interesting history to be told and would hope that Shaw's book gives a more full portrait. 

Indeed, what struck me most from Heinrichs's book was how unusual a marriage Lucretia and James seemed to have compared to their presidential contemporaries. While the wives of Lincoln, Grant, etc. would travel frequently to be with their husbands throughout their pre-presidential careers--to state capitols, to Washington, or even to Civil War encampments--Lucretia and James spent several years of their early marriage living almost entirely apart. I read Heinrichs's description wanting to know much more about they dynamic of their relationship, and, as it turns out, my instinct may have been spot on. In the preview available for Shaw's text, there is talk of infidelity on the part of James and discussion of his contentious relationships/friendships with other women that seems to have put a strain on James's marriage to Lucretia, none of which appears in Heinrichs's account.

It seems, however (from the tellings of both Heinrich and Shaw), that as the years went on, Lucretia and James grew to have a mutually respectful and deeply devoted partnership. So devoted that when Lucretia fell ill with malaria in May 1881, just 2 months after James had been sworn in as president, "James dropped most of his official business to care for his wife," "doted and fussed over her" throughout the month, and traveled with her to the New Jersey shore once the fever broke, not returning to Washington until the end of June (Heinrich, p. 75). Reciprocally, James was shot on July 2, 1881, and died September 19, and Lucretia became famous for her bravery at her husband's bedside over the those months. 

While that makes for an commendable love story, all it really made me think about was how little time President Garfield actually spent "presidenting." He basically spent March and April working in an official capacity, spent 2 months at his wife's bedside, and then was on his own death bed for the remainder of his time in office. Obviously, a longer time working than William Henry Harrison, but still shockingly short. And who was really in charge and "doing the work" during those 2.5 months that James Garfield was dying? Did Lucretia have any sway in official decisions while at his bedside, as Woodrow Wilson's wife allegedly did after his stroke in office? And why did the country not use this crisis as a chance to more clearly define how that kind of temporary inability of a president would be officially handled?

Lucy Webb Hayes and a visit to Spiegel Grove

My apologies for the massive delay in writing and publishing this post. It's been nearly a year since I finished reading First Lady: The Life of Lucy Webb Hayes by Emily Apt Geer and visited Spiegel Grove. I typed out the notes below, which reflect what I found most interesting from Geer's biography, way back in September 2024, and I have no desire to extrapolate further (but I did convert most of the notations into complete thoughts and full sentences). I'll try to do better with Lucretia Garfield.  

• While Milton Stern makes the claim that Harriet Lane, niece of President James Buchanan, was the first woman to be referred to as First Lady, Geer informs us that "reference to Lucy Hayes as 'first lady' [in the press] marked the first known appearance in print of the term" (p. 138).
• Lucy Hayes was the first wife of a United States president to have earned a college degree (Cincinnati Wesleyan Female College), but she did not necessarily support education for women in general. AN while Fanny Platt introduced Lucy to the idea of women's suffrage, Lucy Hayes failed to support it in any meaningful way. It leads to interesting conjecture of what influence Lucy Hayes's sister-in-law could have had had on Lucy, had Fanny not died young (1856): "In the long run, Lucy's loss of Fanny was of more significance than Rutherford's. Fanny's intellectual standards had left an indelible impression upon her brother, but Lucy, only twenty-five, vitally needed the stimulation of a prolonged companionship with an intelligent and loving woman such as Fanny Hayes Platt" (pp. 33-34)
• "In time - and within the boundaries open to a nineteenth-century woman - Lucy would become almost as concerned about politics as her husband. Since election to public office would have been impossible for her, she learned to identify completely with Rutherford's political career and to regard it as their career" (p. 39). [I'm less convinced by this argument][edited July 7, 2025: I don't remember why I was not fully convinced by this argument other than what is in the notes that follow.]
• "The years as the wife of an Ohio governor prepared Lucy Hayes to become one of the most effective First Ladies of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Like many women of the period, she learned to identify herself completely with her husband's career and to balance her activities as hostess with the demands of a young family. Although not the custom for a governor's wife to be involved directly in politics, Lucy could and did work behind the scenes to influence legislation" (p. 93) [again, less convinced] 
• public activities mostly interested in welfare of young people and problems of handicapped and wounded soldiers 
• "Lucy could take a strong position on issues involving the welfare of veterans and children ... but she found it difficult to take the same kind of a stand on as controversial a political and social issue as woman suffrage" (p. 97) 
• She did not dispute her husband's stances when it came to women in work and woman's suffrage; "Instead, Lucy's charitable activities, family affairs, and housekeeping ... appeared to be her primary interests" (p. 98)
• "For Lucy, everyday life in the White House soon settled into a pleasant routine, which served, consciously or unconsciously, as a good example of middle-class propriety and Christian morality" (p. 145)
• Lucy Hayes bore criticism for the Temperance policy of the Hayes White House, and while she held religious conviction and practiced Temperance from young age, it was Rutherford Hayes who actually kept alcohol out of the White House (148-50). She abstained personally, but "she did not force her views on others (151). Rutherford Hayes "wished to set a good example for the nation" and to keep temperance advocates in the Republican Party (152). Geer argues that the most important reason was "Hayes's firm conviction that government officials should conduct themselves at all times with discretion and dignity" (153).
• "Except for her stance on temperance - which was as much Rutherford's as hers - Lucy shrank from involvement in controversial issues. Her feeling that radicalism and eccentricity marked the woman suffrage movement, plus Rutherford's sentiment against the enfranchisement of women, kept her from giving assistance" to the movement (237-8)
• "As Lucy Hayes approached the end of her initial year as First Lady, women reporters began to wonder if she really was the 'new woman' they had hoped for at the time of the inauguration. She lived up to their expectations as a hostess and as a supervisor of her family's activities, but did she consider herself a spokesperson for women? Was she interested in expanding opportunities for women in education and business? Did she believe in woman suffrage?" (p. 167) 
• consistently disappointed, followed husband 
• "she continued ... to be noncommittal on woman suffrage and professional education for women. 
• Lucy's apparent lack of interest in encouraging business enterprise by women also puzzled feminists of her era" (168). 
• "women interested in governmental activities continued to hope that Lucy would become more active in politics" (169)
• "Lucy Hayes, as did most presidential wives until the time of Eleanor Roosevelt, attached more importance to the supervision of White House social activities than involvement in reform movements" (200). "While Lucy showed an interest in politics, her main concern centered around the welfare of her family and friends" (207)
• "Although, as the first president's wife with a college degree, Lucy was in a position to serve as a role model for ambitious young women, it appears that she did not believe women should be educated for a profession such as medicine. Both Rutherford and Lucy, however, though that common school education should be free and universal" (237)
• "[A] willingness to help persons in desperate need of financial assistance reflected Lucy's innate kindness rather than any interest in abstract political ideas and policies. The zest for politics ascribed to Lucy by Washington correspondents was due more to her concern for people than to a study of the problems involved. Sometimes Rutherford discussed political issues with her, but it would have been contrary to her concept of herself as a supportive wife to have tried to dictate his actions" (239)
• "Lucy's passion for social harmony, which had marked her tenure as First Lady, continued to influence her actions even after the family retired to Spiegel Grove" = preference for limited public activity (252)
• "at no time did she enjoy life more than this last sojourn at Spiegel Grove" - close to all her children, friendships and church activities in Fremont (261)
• Note that they did not pursue the same college education for their daughter as Lucy's parents had sought for her (267), content with their daughter just finishing school
• White House Easter Egg Roll - "After Congress had passed a law closing the Capitol grounds to children rolling eggs on Easter Monday, Lucy, reluctant to have them disappointed, invited them to use the White House lawn. The grounds of the Mansion have been used for this happy event ever since" (215)

Published in 1984 by The Kent State University Press and the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, Geer's biography closely parallels what I learned on a tour of the Hayes museum and Spiegel Grove. Because it was such a close parallel, I don't remember learning anything new on the tour, but I do remember being enthralled by the amazing wallpapers inside the house at Spiegel Grove. And as a lover of wallpaper, myself, I was happy to see that it extended beyond the Victorian era, when the house was first decorated and wallpaper would have been expected for a family of the Hayes's stature, and continued into the redecorations of the mid-20th century that are on display on the upper floors of the home. I wish I had taken more photographs, but the two below give you a taste: