The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-10-12

-HE annals of the White House
make scant mention of the
children who have enlivened II
by their presence, for While
used in its dual. capacity OF OIL
fetal residence and douiicile OF
the executive, it was more in evidence
as the former than the latter
With the advent of President Roose-
welt comes the first large family to
take up its residence there in many
years, the last one approaching II IN
size being that of President Garneiu
twenty years ago. and the last 10 ex-
coed it in number of children that Oh
President Tyler, sixty years ago.
1t is a pity, for sentiment SAKE, ina
we cannot associate the White House
with the Gusts children. so beloved of
Washington, but the truth is that II
was first occupied by bluff old John
Adams and his talented conSort, adj
gail. the Father of His Country never
having resided within its walls one
hundred years have passed since FIes
ident Adams and his wife went TO owen
in the White House, and at that time
they mad been thirty-t three years mar
ried. While Mrs. Adams dwells feel
ingly in her letters upon the barren
aspect of the palace and mentions
that she was wont to hang up the
weekly wash in the great unfinished
east room, she is silent as to any httie
ones, in whom the public OF To-Day
would be vastly more interested imam
in the domestic trials of the preslden-
tial pair.
President Jefferson's wife had been
dead nineteen years when he first as
sumed the cares of government, ana
there was, strictly speaking, no lady
of the White House during his term
OF Office. His daughter, Mrs Randolph,
who was the mother of five children at
the time her father was elected presi-
dent, passed two seasons in the execu-
tive mansion and has the honor OF haV-
ing given birth to the first child born
within its walls. He was called James
Madison, after Jefferson's successor;
but President Madison had no children,
though the mansion was enlivened by
the presence of his wife, the inimitable
Dolly, without whom, indeed, its annals
would now seem incomplete President
Monroe had two daughters when he
was elected, one of whom, Mrs. George
Hay, had attended Nine Campan's IA
NOUS school in Paris. and as she had
been an intimate friend of Hortense
Beauharnais named her only daughter
Hortensia- When President John
Quincy Adams succeeded, his youngest
child was eighteen years old, and if he
y
children had gathered about his board
there would not have been any great
show of hilarity in his austere pres
ence- His successor, General Jackson,
was a lover of children. but unfortu-
nately he had none of his own, and, his
wife having died just before he came
TO the presidency, Mrs. A. J. DoReIson,
wife of his favorite protege, took charge
Of domestic affairs in the White House.
The general always called her my
daughter" was very fond of her and
her four children, who We're all born at
the White House, and stood godfather
to two of them A visitor to the pres
idential mansion at that time wrote of
scene he witnessed there:
AT the farther end of the room sat
the president, wearing a long, loose coat
and smoking a long reed pipe with bowl
of red clay, combining the dignity of
the patriarch, monarch and Indian
chief Just behind him was Edward Liv-
ingstone, the secretary of state read
ing him a dispatch from the French
minister of foreign affairs The ladies
glance admiringly now and then at the