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?