American First Ladies: 1789 - Present - Page 4 American First Ladies Sign Up for Our Free Newsletters Thanks, You're in! Health Tip of the Day Recipe of the Day There was an error. Please try again. Please select a newsletter. Please enter a valid email address. Did you mean ? ( August 15 , 1860 - November 21 , 1924) Florence Kling DeWolfe Harding had a child when she was 20 -- and likely not legally married -- and after struggling to support him by teaching music, gave him to his father to raise. She married the wealthy newspaper publisher, Warren G. Harding, when she was 31, working on the newspaper with him. She supported him in his political career, and in the early "roaring twenties" even served as White House bartender (during Prohibition ) during his poker parties. His presidency (1921 - 1923) was marked with corruption charges, and on a trip she had urged him to take to recover from stress, he suffered a stroke and died. She destroyed most of his papers in her attempt to preserve his reputation.

continue reading below our video 10 Best Universities in the United States Grace Coolidge. MPI/Getty Images ( January 3 , 1879 - July 8 , 1957) Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge was a teacher of the deaf when she married Calvin Coolidge (president 1923 - 1929). She focused her duties as First Lady on remodeling and charities, helping her husband establish a reputation for seriousness and frugality. After leaving the White House and after her husband died, Grace Coolidge traveled and wrote magazine articles. Lou Henry Hoover. MPI/Getty Images Lou Hoover ( March 29 , 1874 - January 7 , 1944) Lou Henry Hoover was raised in Iowa and California, loved the outdoors, and became a geologist. She married a fellow student, Herbert Hoover, who became a mining engineer, and they often lived abroad. She used her talents in mineralogy and languages to translate a 16th century manuscript by Agricola.

While her husband was president (1929 - 1933), she redecorated the White House and became involved in charity work, heading the Girl Scout organization for a time, continuing this charity work after her husband left office. She headed England's American Women's Hospital during World War II until her death in 1944. Eleanor Roosevelt. MPI/Getty Images ( October 11 , 1884 - November 6 , 1962) Eleanor Roosevelt, orphaned at ten, married her distant cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt (president 1933 - 1945). From 1910 on, Eleanor helped with Franklin's political career, despite her devastation in 1918 to discover his affair with her social secretary. Through the Depression, New Deal, and World War II, Eleanor traveled when her husband was less able to. Her daily column "My Day" in the newspaper broke with precedent, as did her press conferences and lectures. After FDR's death, Eleanor Roosevelt continued her political career, serving in the United Nations and helping create the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

She chaired the President's Commission on the Status of Women from 1961. More » Elizabeth Virginia Wallace Truman, about 1940. MPI/Getty Images Bess Truman ( February 13 , 1885 - October 18 , 1982) Bess Wallace Truman, also from Independence, Missouri, had known Harry Truman from their childhoods. After they married, she remained primarily a housewife through his political career. She didn't like Washington, DC, and was quite angry with her husband for accepting the nomination as vice president. When her husband became president (1945 - 1953) only a few months after taking office as vice president, she took her duties as First Lady seriously, while avoiding such practices as some of her predecessors as having press conferences. She also nursed her mother during the White House years. Mamie (Marie Geneva Doud) Eisenhower.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images Mamie Eisenhower ( November 14 , 1896 - November 1 , 1979) Born in Iowa, Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower met her husband Dwight (president 1953 - 1961) in Texas when he was an army officer. She lived an army officer's wife's life, either living with "Ike" where he was stationed, or raising their family without him. She was suspicious of his relationship during World War II with his military driver and aide Kay Summersby, but he assured her that there was nothing to the rumors of a relationship. She made some public appearances during her husband's presidential campaigns and presidency. In 1974 she described herself in an interview: "I was Ike's wife, John's mother, the children's grandmother. That was all I ever wanted to be." Jacqueline Kennedy during her official visit to Paris 1961. RDA/Getty Images ( July 28 , 1929 - May 19 , 1994) Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, First Lady 1961-1963, was the wife of John F. Kennedy.

During his Presidency, "Jackie Kennedy" became known mostly for her fashion sense and for her redecoration of the White House. After the assassination of her husband in Dallas on November 22, 1963, she was honored for her dignity in her time of grief. More » Lady Bird Johnson, 1962. Hulton Archive/Getty Images ( December 22 , 1912 - July 11 , 2007) Lady Bird (Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson) financed her husband Lyndon's first campaign for Congress, using her inheritance. While he served in the military, she maintained his congressional office back home. Lady Bird took a public speaking course in 1959, and in the 1960 campaign began more active campaigning. Throughout his career, she was known as a gracious hostess. Lady Bird Johnson became First Lady after Kennedy's assassination in 1963, and she actively campaigned in 1964 for her husband (president 1963 - 1969). She supported highway beautification and Head Start as First Lady and after his death in 1973, continued to be active with her family and causes.

More » Pat Nixon, 1968. Hulton Archive/Getty Images Pat Nixon ( March 16 , 1912 - June 22 , 1993) Born Thelma Catherine Patricia Ryan, Pat Nixon was a housewife when that was becoming less popular as a vocation for a woman. She was the first First Lady to declare herself pro-choice regarding abortion and she urged appointment of a woman to the Supreme Court. She met Richard Milhous Nixon (president 1969 - 1974) at theatre tryouts, and while she supported his political career, she remained largely a private person, loyal to her husband despite his public scandals. Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson at ERA Rally, October 1981. Penelope Breese/Liaison ( April 8 , 1918 - ) Wife of Gerald Ford, the only U.S. President (1974 - 1977) who wasn't elected as President or Vice President, she was an unexpected First Lady in many ways.

She made public her battles with breast cancer and chemical dependence (the Betty Ford clinic is named for her), and she endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment and women's right to abortion. More » Pat Nixon | American first lady | Britannica.com American first lady Alternative Titles: Patricia Nixon, Thelma Catherine Ryan Pat Nixon Ronald Reagan Pat Nixon, née Thelma Catherine Ryan, byname Pat or Patricia (born March 16, 1912, Ely , Nevada , U.S.—died June 22, 1993, Park Ridge , New Jersey ), American first lady (1969–74), the wife of Richard Nixon , 37th president of the United States , who espoused the cause of volunteerism during her husband’s term. Pat Nixon. Hulton Archive/Getty Images Nicknamed “Pat” because of her birth on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day, Thelma Catherine Ryan was the daughter of William Ryan, a miner and farmer, and Katarina Halberstadt Bender Ryan, a German-born widow and mother of two boys. Soon after Pat was born the family moved to Artesia, California, where William attempted to eke out a living at truck farming.

The family’s economic situation worsened following her mother’s death, from cancer, in 1926; her father died of lung disease in 1930. An orphan at 18, Pat worked at a bank to put herself through a year at Fullerton Junior College. In 1932 she was paid to drive an elderly couple from California to New York City , where she lived for two years, working as a secretary and as a hospital X-ray technician. Returning to California, she supplemented her savings with a variety of jobs and enrolled as a merchandising major at the University of Southern California , where she earned a degree with honours in 1937. She taught business courses at Whittier High School, where she joined an amateur theatre group and met a fellow thespian, lawyer Richard Nixon. The couple married on June 21, 1940, at the Mission Inn in Riverside , California. While her husband served in the U.S. Navy (1942–46), she worked at a bank and later at the Office of Price Administration in San Francisco .

In 1946 Pat participated in her husband’s successful run for Congress by doing research on his opponent and writing and distributing campaign literature. After the birth of their two daughters, Tricia in 1946 and Julie in 1948, she tried to separate the family’s political and personal lives and preserve some privacy for her children. Pat’s attitude toward politics changed in the 1952 election, when her husband, the vice presidential nominee on the Republican ticket, was forced to defend himself from charges that he had kept a secret slush fund for campaign expenses. In his nationally televised “Checkers” speech, Richard bared the family finances and spoke admiringly of Pat, noting that she did not own a fur coat but only a “respectable Republican cloth coat.” Although the speech caused an outpouring of support for Richard and turned Pat’s name into a household word, it soured her on politics. Britannica Stories EU Considers Rules For Robots Extremely active as the vice president’s wife (1953–61), Pat made many official appearances at luncheons and charity events, but it was her international travel with her husband that gained her the most attention.

She accompanied him to 53 countries around the world. Media coverage of their visit to Caracas, Venezuela , where the vice president’s motorcade was attacked by hostile crowds, increased respect for the Nixons’ courage. Vice Pres. Richard M. Nixon and his wife, Pat, receiving flowers from a young girl during a visit … U.S. Department of Defense Richard’s unsuccessful run for the presidency in 1960 led to their temporary retirement in California, and Pat seemed glad to leave politics behind. His failure to win the governorship of California in 1962 increased her distaste for politics. In 1963 the Nixons moved to New York City, and she settled into private life as the wife of a lawyer. When her husband was elected president in 1968, Pat Nixon took up the cause of volunteerism, urging people to donate their time and services to hospitals, schools, day care centres, and nursing homes. She also opened the White House to groups not formerly welcomed or easily accommodated, including the deaf and the visually impaired, people who did not speak English, the physically handicapped, and those who had work schedules that permitted only evening visits. U.S.

Presidents Facts As first lady she traveled thousands of miles, speaking to school groups and representing her husband on visits to Ghana , Côte d’Ivoire , and Liberia in 1972 and Venezuela and Brazil in 1974. Stoic and tireless, she once remarked, “I do or I die but I never cancel out.” Although she received far less publicity for her efforts, Pat received more donations of valuable furniture and artwork for the White House than had Jacqueline Kennedy . With the assistance of Clement Conger, who had overseen a similar project at the State Department , she directed the refurbishing of several state rooms in the White House. She also encouraged loans of prized paintings so that the hundreds of thousands of Americans who visited the White House could appreciate them. Richard Nixon was forced to resign as president for his involvement in the Watergate affair, and on August 9, 1974, the Nixons retired, first to California and then to New Jersey. She died of lung cancer in 1993 at her New Jersey home and was buried at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda , California.

Pat Nixon - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) (1912-93). Although she was never particularly fond of political life and often tried to convince her husband, Richard M. Nixon, to give it up, Pat Nixon felt it was her duty as a wife to stand by him. Never was her loyalty put to a greater test than in August 1974 when her husband resigned as the 37th president of the United States amid the Watergate scandal. Many people felt she handled the situation with dignity, and she received both sympathy from much of the nation and credit for her strength. Article Contributors Patricia Ryan Nixon | whitehouse.gov Air Force One Patricia Ryan Nixon As the wife of the President Richard Nixon, Thelma Catherine "Pat" Ryan Nixon was First Lady of the United States from 1969 to 1974. She was an avid supporter of charitable causes and volunteerism. Born Thelma Catherine Ryan on March 16 in Ely, Nevada, "Pat" Nixon acquired her nickname within hours. Her father, William Ryan, called her his "St. Patrick's babe in the morn" when he came home from the mines before dawn.

Soon the family moved to California and settled on a small truck farm near Los Angeles--a life of hard work with few luxuries. Her mother, Kate Halberstadt Bender Ryan, died in 1925; at 13 Pat assumed all the household duties for her father and two older brothers. At 18, she lost her father after nursing him through months of illness. Left on her own and determined to continue her education, she worked her way through the University of Southern California. She held part-time jobs on campus, as a sales clerk in a fashionable department store, and as an extra in the movies--and she graduated cum laude in 1937. She accepted a position as a high-school teacher in Whittier; and there she met Richard Nixon, who had come home from Duke University Law School to establish a practice. They became acquainted at a Little Theater group when they were cast in the same play, and were married on June 21, 1940. During World War II, she worked as a government economist while he served in the Navy. She campaigned at his side in 1946 when he entered politics, running successfully for Congress, and afterward.

Within six years she saw him elected to the House, the Senate, and the Vice Presidency on the ticket with Dwight D. Eisenhower. Despite the demands of official life, the Nixons were devoted parents to their two daughters, Tricia (now Mrs. Edward Cox), and Julie (now Mrs. David Eisenhower). A tireless campaigner when he ran unsuccessfully for President in 1960, she was at his side when he ran again in 1968--and won. She had once remarked succinctly, "It takes heart to be in political life." Pat Nixon used her position as First Lady to encourage volunteer service--"the spirit of people helping people." She invited hundreds of families to nondenominational Sunday services in the East Room. She instituted a series of performances by artists in varied American traditions--from opera to bluegrass. Mrs. Nixon took quiet pride in adding 600 paintings and antiques to the White House Collection. She had shared her husband's journeys abroad in his Vice Presidential years, and she continued the practice during his Presidency. Her travels included the historic visit to the People's Republic of China and the summit meetings in the Soviet Union.

Her first solo trip was a journey of compassion to take relief supplies to earthquake victims in Peru. Later she visited Africa and South America with the unique diplomatic standing of Personal Representative of the President. Always she was a charming envoy. Mrs. Nixon met the troubled days of Watergate with dignity. "I love my husband," she said, "I believe in him, and I am proud of his accomplishments." She died at home in Park Ridge, New Jersey, on June 22, 1993. Her husband followed her in death ten months later. She and the former President are buried at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California. The biographies of the First Ladies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The First Ladies of the United States of America,” by Allida Black. Copyright 2009 by the White House Historical Association. Learn more about Mrs. Nixon at The Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation. Learn more about Patricia Ryan Nixon's spouse, Richard M. Nixon . Pat Nixon - Children's Activist, U.S.

First Lady - Biography.com quotes “Being first lady is the hardest unpaid job in the world.” “I have sacrificed everything in my life that I consider precious to advance the political career of my husband.” “I'll have to have a room of my own. Nobody could sleep with Dick. He wakes up during the night, switches on the lights, speaks into his tape recorder.” Pat Nixon Pat Nixon - Mini Biography (TV-14; 3:30) Watch a short biography of Pat Nixon whose work as first lady made her an integral part of her husband's political life. She encouraged volunteerism, traveled to all corners of the world, and made the White House accessible to everyone. Synopsis Pat Nixon, the wife of Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, was extremely active in her husband's political life, both as vice president and as president, traveling with him and taking up the cause of volunteerism. Although she received far less publicity for her efforts, Pat received many donations of valuable furniture and artwork for the White House—more than Jacqueline Kennedy would receive several years later.

Early Years United States first lady and wife of (the 37th U.S.) President Richard Nixon, Pat Nixon was born Thelma Catherine Ryan on March 16, 1912, in the small mining town of Ely, Nevada. Her nickname, Pat, was given to her by her father, William, who claimed Irish roots and wanted to celebrate his daughter's birth on the eve of St. Patrick's Day. Her origins were humble. After her mother, Kate, convinced William to leave his life as a miner, the family settled in Artesia, California, where the Ryans started a truck farm. When Pat was 12, her mother died of cancer. As her mother neared the end, it was Pat who not managed the house, but served as her mom's caregiver. "For the last two or three months I used to sit with her through the night," she later recalled. "We couldn't afford a night nurse and she needed attention." Five years later, her father, whom she was extremely close to, died of the miner's condition, silicosis. As his illness worsened, Pat had taken on the household and farm chores.

She also worked as a morning janitor at a local bank to help the family pay its bills for her and four siblings. In 1932, an 18-year-old Pat Nixon received an opportunity to drive an elderly couple across country in their Packard. In the east, Pat found work at Seton Hospital for the Tubercular, which was run by the Catholic Sisters of Charity. Pat lived with the sisters and saved money for college. Pat returned to California in 1934 and enrolled at the University of Southern California, where she majored in merchandising. She graduated, cum laude, in 1937. After failing to find work with a department store, Pat took a job teaching shorthand and typing at a secondary school in Whittier, California. In her off-time Pat showed an interest in acting and during an audition for a play in 1937 she met Richard Nixon, a recent Duke Law School graduate who had his own practice in Whittier. The young lawyer was immediately smitten with Pat, even going so far as to drive her to dates with other men. For two years he dated her before she finally agreed to marry him.

Family Life and Early Politics The Nixons married on June 21, 1940 in Riverside, California. With the onset of World War II, the young couple moved to Washington D.C., where Richard Nixon worked as an attorney in the Office of Emergency Management, and Pat took a job at the Red Cross. After her husband volunteered for the U.S. Navy and was stationed in the South Pacific, Pat moved to San Francisco, where she worked as an economist for the Office of Price Administration. Nixon had long had an interesting politics and in 1946 won a seat in the U.S. Congress as a representative for California. Just four years, later he became a U.S. senator, and in 1952 was elected vice president of the United States, serving under Dwight D. Eisenhower. Pat proved to be a crucial part of her husband's political success. She had an eye for politics and for making people feel welcome. She was also a hard worker. On February 21, 1946 she gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter, Patricia. Within hours after the birth, she was on the campaign trail, working for her husband.

On July 5, 1948, the Nixons had a second daughter, Julie. The Nixon Administration In January 1969 Richard Nixon was inaugurated President of the United States. In many ways, Pat transformed the role of the first lady. She became entrenched in several social issues from education to volunteerism. She also traveled extensively, covering more than 100,000 miles as first lady. In 1972 she headed a United Nations delegation abroad to see the inauguration of President William R. Tolbert of Liberia. Her travels also took her to Peru, where she visited parts of the country that had been devastated by an earthquake, and she became the first first lady to visit a combat zone when she visited South Vietnam. Back home, she worked to make the White House more accessible. She opened the property up to evening tours, and garden and grounds tours. Pat also pushed to create brochures about the White House made in languages other than English. Her passion for art led to the purchase of more than 600 paintings and pieces of furniture for the White House, the largest acquisition ever for a presidential administration.

She also served as a member of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, and took on the role of honorary chair of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's "Right to Lead" program. But the Nixon White House was undone by the Watergate scandal. At every moment, Pat, who had not been briefed early on about the details surrounding Watergate showed support of her husband. "I only know what I read in the papers," she'd say to inquiring reporters. As the scandal closed in around her husband, Pat urged the president to stay on and fight the articles of impeachment. On August 8, 1974, Nixon announced his intention to resign the office of the presidency. Later that night, her last in the White House, a stoic Pat told her husband: "We're all proud of you, Daddy." Post-White House Following the president's resignation, the Nixons moved to San Clemente, California. The next few years proved to be difficult for Pat: Her husband wrestled with legal issues related to his resignation as well as poor physical health, including bouts of depression.

Pat, too, suffered from her own physical issues: In 1976, she experienced a stroke that temporarily took away her speech and the use of her left side. A second stroke followed in the early 1980s. As a result of these health issues, and her own reluctance to put herself back in the spotlight, Pat Nixon rarely came out for public appearances over the last two decades of her life.

Videos Names of Presidents and First Ladies President's and First Ladies' Names Alphabetically Presidents' First Names Presidents' Middle Names Presidents' Last Names First Ladies' First Names First Ladies' Maiden names Abraham Abram Adams x 2 Abigail Appleton Andrew Alan Arthur Anna x 3 Bouvier Andrew Baines Buchanan Barbara Carow Benjamin Birchard Bush x 2 Caroline Childress Calvin Clark Carter Claudia "Lady Bird" Custis Chester David Cleveland Dolly Davis Dwight Delano Clinton Edith x 2 Dent Franklin x 2 Earl Coolidge Eleanor x 2 deWolf George x 3 Fitzgerald Eisenhower Eliza Doud Gerald Gamaliel Fillmore Elizabeth "Bess" Fulsom Grover Henry Ford Elizabeth "Betty" Galt Harry Herbert Walker Garfield Elizabeth "Eliza" Gardiner Herbert Howard Grant Ellen Goodhew James x 5 Jefferson Harding Florence Henry John x 4 Knox Harrison x 2 Frances Herndon Lyndon Milhous Hayes Hannah Herron Martin Quincy Hoover Helen Hoes Millard Rudolph Jackson Hillary Johnson Richard S Jefferson Ida Kortright Ronald Simpson Johnson x 2 Jacqueline McCardle Rutherford Walker Kennedy Jane Pierce Theodore Wilson Lincoln Julia x 2 Powers Thomas Madison Laura Robards Ulysses McKinley Lou Rodham Warren

 Monroe Louisa Roosevelt William x 4 Nixon Lucretia Rudolph Woodrow Pierce Lucy Ryan Zachary Polk Margaret Saxton Reagan Martha x 2 Scott Roosevelt x 2 Mary Skelton Taft Mary "Mamie" Smith x 3 Taylor Nancy Symmes Truman Rachel Taylor Tyler Rosalynn Todd x 2 VanBuren Sarah Wallace Washington Thelma "Patricia" Warren Wilson Webb Welch First Ladies & Ancestral Identity Pat Nixon Pat Nixon: First-Generation German-American & Her Lincoln Assassination Link There was irony to a small storyline running beneath the more important issues of the 1960 presidential race between Democratic candidate, U.S.

Senator John F. Kennedy and Republican candidate, Vice President Richard Nixon, involving some half-truths and hidden facts about the way in which their wives were presented to the public. As a previous article on this website detailed the maiden name of the Democrat’s wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, identified her as being “French,” when in truth, that national origin represented only one-eighth of her ancestry. Never disclosed was the fact that half of her ancestry was Irish Catholic, as her husband’s was fully. In their effort to gain the widest range of support, JFK campaign managers operated with the belief that there was still a sizable percentage of voters who mistrusted a potential Catholic president and held onto bigoted views against those of Irish background. It found no value and potentially some harm in revealing the truth about jackie Kennedy’s parentage and let the perception of her as having some sort of inherent sense of style based on her French blood remain in place. In contrast was Pat Nixon. The candidate himself was a Quaker, a Protestant sect.

In 1952, when he delivered his famous “Checkers speech” with Pat Nixon seated near him, visible to the live television audience of 60 million, he explicitly identified her as being “Irish,” although at no point in their public life was it revealed whether she was a Protestant or a Catholic. The revelation that she was Irish was more a matter of pointing out the obvious, since her maiden name was “Ryan,” rather than an attempt to appeal to Catholic voters by suggesting she might be of that faith. Yet like Jackie Kennedy, what neither the campaigns nor the media covering them ever disclosed her maternal ancestry. In fact, when her husband was elected President in 1968, Pat Nixon became the first child of an immigrant to become First Lady. The bigotry unleashed in earlier generations against various ethnic groups of all races may have begun to rapidly faded by the time Pat Nixon’s husband first ran for President in 1960, but it had also left lingering emotional scars about which most of those wounded by them remained silent.Lady.

Despite this unprecedented detail might have served as a political appeal to immigrant or first-generation voters when Nixon ran for his second term, in 1973, a time when a previously unknown movement of pride in “roots,” was emerging in the national culture, the Nixon White House never exploited the story of the First Lady’s immigrant mother, nor even made the facts of it forthcoming. There was no dark secret which led to it being withheld; it was simply that Pat Nixon had very little about her personal life that she could keep private – and that she knew almost nothing about her own mother’s background. In the case of Pat Nixon, her mother Kate Halberstadt had immigrated to the U.S. at the age of ten years old in 1888, coming from Ober Rosbach in Germany, not far from Frankfort. There, her family had been farmers for some two centuries, harvesting fruit trees. She married a fellow German-American by the name of Bender who found work in South Dakota and by him had two children, Matthew and Neva. After a flash flood killed her husband, she remarried in 1908 to William Martin Ryan, the fifth of ten children, whose parents had been immigrants from County Mayo in Ireland.

Financial strain led to her son Matthew being raised by the parents of her first husband. Born March 16, 1912 just hours before it was St. Patrick’s Day, her Irish father nicknamed her his “St. Patrick’s babe in the morning.” She would always celebrate her birthday on the holiday and, after his 1930 dath, change her name to Pat.By Will Ryan, she then gave birth to three children, two sons named Tom and Bill and a daughter she called Thelma Catherine. Pat Ryan had only just celebrated her fifth birthday, however, when the U.S. went to war against Germany and a new tension arose in the working-class household of her parents. As detailed in a previous article here about Florence Harding’s ancestry, a virulent anti-German movement swept the United States, including acts of violence . Even Will Ryan felt a resentment towards Germans, though it was never expressed in any way towards his beloved wife. Although she wasn’t known to speak with a thick or identifiable German accent, Kate Ryan was terrified of being victimized or having her young children harmed simply because she was a German immigrant.

As her granddaughter Julie later wrote, Kate made little Pat “promise that she would not tell anyone she was German-born…No longer did Kate converse in her native tongue…” Furthermore, as Pat Ryan matured, her mother never told her anything about her German heritage or even the fact that she had siblings, uncles, aunts and first cousins still living in Germany. She barely told her children about the experience of crossing the sea to come to America. With her family in Germany, like all citizens there, barely surviving the high inflation of the post-war period, what very little money Kate could afford to put aside to help support them was sent in great secrecy. Most astounding of all, Kate never even told Pat and her brothers her own German maiden name. She died when Pat was only thirteen years old. Not for another half a century would the woman who would become First Lady learn any details about her German ancestry. In the early 21st century, with the Internet and other methods making genealogical and other family records so instantly accessible it may seem odd that children had no idea what their mother’s original surname might have been.

Yet a century ago, so many children of the working-class were struggling to simply find a way to subsist on meager amounts of food and keep living under the same roof as a family due to financial burden or a parent’s death, that spending time to research one’s family origin was a luxury of the privileged. The result of this left Pat Nixon with little sentimental affinity for either Germany or Ireland, having no knowledge of her parents’ relatives still living in those countries. In fact, during a trip to Germany with her husband and daughters in the mid-1960s, Pat Nixon made no effort to either tell them how closely located they were to the place where her mother had come from or attempt to locate Kate’s exact hometown. As First Lady in 1970, when she was scheduled to make a tour of Europe with the President, Mrs. Nixon felt “discomfort” when she learned that her husband’s aides had arranged a “family reunion” with her second and third cousins in Ballinrobe, Ireland, in county Mayo. She’s always felt proud of her better-known Irish heritage, but she feared the “artificiality” of being thrust into a sudden familial intimacy with strangers.

As it turned out, the Ryan family luncheon held in Ashford Castle on October 4, 1970 was a happy occasion during which she connected naturally with those whose roots she shared, following a trip to the old cemetery where her great-grandparents were buried. Although it received far less media attention in the United States, Pat Nixon’s visit to Ireland gave its people a great sense of pride, many referring to her at the time as the “Queen of America.” As she stepped off a helicopter which landed in a lush stretch of green valley on a blustery day, she was greeted by a girl with flowers and a boys’ brass band which played Irish music, followed by a demonstration of traditional dance. She proceeded to the cottages of several distant relatives, and visited the starkly modest sod house and farm of her great-grandparents, where her grandfather had been born and raised. Named Patrick Sarsfield Ryan, he was born in 1834 in Hollymount, between Ballinrobe and Claremorris, in Kilvindoney, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1855, coming through Savannah, Georgia. He became a naturalized citizen a year later.

While it is purely speculation, it may be that Mrs. Nixon’s father Will Ryan had not declared her by the feminine name “Patricia,” but rather the nickname “Pat” as a way to quietly remember his own father. On November 27, 1857, Patrick Ryan married Catherine McHugh, in Danbury, Connecticut, where other Irish immigrants from his town like his new wife had settled. He found regular work in a local haberdashery factory. While John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and her own husband all visited the towns in Ireland from which their ancestors had come during their presidencies, no First Lady except Pat Nixon has made such a trip. While in Ireland, she was given information about the origins of some of her ancestors. There were even reports that she was distantly related to the then-famous television variety-show host Ed Sullivan. Nevertheless, fear of bigotry led many immigrant and first-generation Americans in earlier times to withhold information from their children and grandchildren even about their early experiences in their new country. This meant that Pat Nixon, who died in 1993, never learned her own fascinating connection to the most beloved of American Presidents, Abraham Lincoln.

Not until about ten years ago did details about Pat Ryan’s immigrant grandparents emerge from new genealogical research. Patrick Ryan was one of eight children, several others of whom also immigrated to the U.S., including his sister Julia Ryan who married his wife’s brother, John McHugh. During the Civil War, both men served in Connecticut’s 17th Volunteer Regiment, the ranks of which were thinned on the very first day of battle at Gettysburg. They had also fought at Chancellorville. After the Civil War, the First Lady’s grandfather Patrick served in the Veterans Reserve Corps and was based in Washington, D.C. With his tour of duty there occurring at the time of the trials of the conspirators in the Lincoln assassination, he found himself routinely assigned to guarding the imprisoned Mary Surratt, who ran the Maryland boardinghouse which served as their meeting place. Other sources also include Patrick Ryan serving as guard of another alleged conspirator, Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set the broken leg of assassin John Wilkes Booth. Patrick Ryan’s assignment ended, of course, when Mrs. Surratt was found guilty and hung.

Mudd was pardoned on the fact that he’d only been carrying out his medical duty, unaware that his patient was Lincoln’s assassin. Patrick Ryan returned to Connecticut, settling in Danbury, where he died in 1915. Three years after the death of this immigrant with a connection to one President, the granddaughter he never knew, with a connection to another President, was born. This article is part of an ongoing series about the racial, religious and ethnic identity of First Ladies, beginning with the recent discoveries about First Lady Michelle Obama and her ancestry from both an Irish immigrant family of Georgia slave-owners and African slaves emerging from Rachel Swarns new book on the subject, American Tapestry. That story can be read here . Past articles considered Jacqueline Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, Florence Harding, and a look at candidate’s spouse Ann Davis Romney’s Atheist and Welsh immigrant father. Forthcoming are articles on Edith Wilson, Eliza Johnson and Mamie Eisenhower.

The series is not a definitive guide to genealogy, nor from the perspective of the professional genealogists but rather to illustrate the uniquely American issues of “identity,” the choices made by individuals with various ethnic origins who, by personal choice for various reasons, associate themselves with one part of their background over others. More importantly, the series focuses on how such choices of identity by spouses have served the political and campaign purposes of Presidential candidates and Presidents. Exclusive First North American Serial Rights licensed by Carl Anthony Online to the National First Ladies' Library. The Top 45 Sexiest First Ladies in U.S. History - Nerve Nerve • Tweet In honor of President’s Day, we rank the free world’s better half. This week last year, we ranked the Top 43 Sexiest U.S. Presidents . This year, it seemed only natural to follow up with a ranking of their beautiful wives. 45. Martha Jefferson (died before presidency) Martha was Thomas’ cousin. Apparently, a Jefferson family-reunion is a piss-poor place to meet women. 44.

Anna Harrison (1841 – 1841) Anna never even made it to the White House — she was too ill to make the trip from their Ohio home. With that up-do, though, it’s probably for the best. 43. Eliza McCardle Johnson (1865 – 1869) Once, during a state dinner, Mrs. Johnson ate a can of spinach and then beat the shit out of everyone in the room. On her way out, she played a tune on her tobacco pipe. Okay, not really. 42. Ida Saxton McKinley (1897 – 1901) Ida looks like a part-time serial killer. Those eyes really burn deep into your soul, no? 41. Mary Anne Todd Lincoln (1861 – 1865) Poor Mary had to deal with the death of her husband and children. And now shes just a punchline in a Geico commercial. A punchline with a big butt. 40.

Bess Truman (1945 – 1953) This first lady never held a single press conference because she “wanted to keep a low profile.” Yeah, okay, that was it. 39. Margaret “Peggy” Taylor (1849 -1850) If this is a successful and important woman, what did crazy cat ladies look like back then? 38. Eleanor Roosevelt (1933 – 1945) Politician, social activist, educator; one of the most accomplished First Ladies of all time. And god-awful looking. Still, we’ll bump her up a few spots for personality. 37. Jane Means Appleton Pierce (1853 – 1857) Nathaniel Hawthorne’s pet name for this First Lady was “Death’s head.” That would be like Sarah Palin calling you uninformed. 36. Edith Bolling Galt Wilson (1915 – 1921) When her husband suffered a stroke, she generously gave up all her beauty-parlor appointments, donned an ugly hat, and ran the country. 35.

Angelica Van Buren (1837 – 1841) Her hair is in business for itself. And business is terrible. 34. Martha Washington (1789 – 1797) The OG First Lady was considerate in setting the bar low for the rest of the presidential wives. Not only was she unattractive, reportedly she was under five feet tall. 33. Abigail Powers Fillmore (1850 – 1853) You wouldn’t guess it, but this First Lady had an affinity for “sea bathing.” Fortunately, in the nineteenth century, bathing suits were not very revealing. 32. Louisa Adams (1825- 1829) Documented chocoholic. Obviously the Cosmo of the day told women big hair would distract men from a few chocolate pounds. 31. Caroline Lavinia Scott Harrison (1857 – 1861) Her official portrait looks like a stock photo of a nineteenth-century woman. So I guess you could say she was “average looking?” 30.

Mamie Eisenhower (1953 – 1961) Mamie Eisenhower was the first woman to be seen publicly kissing the president. Her head-shape was also the inspiration for Hey Arnold! 29. Julia Boggs Dent Grant (1869 – 1877) Is that a bump-it? Snooki’s got nothing on this upscale-china enthusiast and poof pioneer. 28. Abigail Smith Adams (1797 – 1801) Abigail Adams was not the ugliest first lady, by any means. Just frighteningly severe and voted most likely to “cut a bitch.” 27. Lucretia Rudolph Garfield (1881) Lucretia Garfield is a very pale lady. And it’s not just the whole “black-and-white” portrait thing. She’s perhaps best known for planning to renovate the White House, and then feeling too sick to do it. 26.

Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge (1845 – 1849) She may not have lived up to her wifely duties (Calvin thought her cooking sucked), but girlfriend did know how to accessorize enough to distract from her eyebrows. 25. Florence Harding (1921 – 1923) When she wasn’t at the hairdresser demanding more volume, she was keeping the party going at the White House by serving wine — even though it was during prohibition. We like a rebel. 24. Dolley Payne Todd Madison (1809 – 1817) Mrs. Madison: the original butterface. 23. Ellen Louise Axson Wilson (1913 – 1914) From her sweet, unassuming smile, you would never guess she was known as “Elly-Lou the Man-Hater.” It’s always the quiet ones. 22. Barbara Bush (1989 – 1993) In her younger days, Bush dabbled in surfing and led her college soccer team. By the time she became first lady, she looked like everyone’s grandmother. 21.

Rachel Jackson (died before presidency) There was a huge campaign scandal when it was revealed, that due to a misunderstanding, Rachel Jackson married Andrew Jackson while still married to her first husband. What a harlot! 20. Sarah Childress Polk (1845 – 1849) Sarah Polk was not considered the life of the party; card playing, dancing, and hard liquor were outlawed in the White House during her time there. On a more positive note, she kind of looked like Tina Fey. 19. Louise Henry Hoover (1929 – 1933) “Lou” Hoover could hold her own in the woods; she grew up riding horses, hunting, and camping. And from the looks of her, she cleaned up good. 18. Frances Cleveland Preston (1886 – 1889) Frances was such a looker, President Cleveland, a close friend of her father, called dibs right when she was born. Twenty one years later, she married him in the White House and fulfilled every little girl’s dream of marrying a man twenty-seven years her senior. 17.

Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt (1901 – 1909) She was notorious for keeping Teddy in line, so she gets some extra points for being in charge. Plus, if you close one eye, she’s pretty cute. 16. Laura Bush (2001 – 2009) Our major beef with Laura Bush’s face is that it looks almost exactly like George W. Bush’s face. Creepy. 15. Elizabeth Kortright Monroe (1817 – 1825) Elizabeth is sporting a haircut that seems well on its way to mullet-hood. Which is unfortunate, because a monster-truck look does her no justice. 14. Harriet Rebecca Lane Johnston (1857 – 1861) She posed for this portrait from as far away as possible, so I can’t say much for her face. (Well-played, Harriet.) That front shoulder is doing it for me, though. 13. Lady Bird Johnson (1963 – 1969) Jackie-O is a hard act to follow, but Lady Bird didn’t do a terrible job. I would eat a pie that she baked. 13.

Mary Arthur McElroy (1881 – 1885) Along with having a nice silhouette, Mary was selfless enough to assume First Lady duties after her sister-in-law, Ellen Lewis Herndon Arthur, died of a cold only a year and half before her husband was elected President. Which is a shame, since Ellen was a fox too. 11. Lucy Ware Webb Hayes (1877 – 1881) Despite her higher education, Lucy didn’t like writing and politics bored her. But she was some hot arm candy. 10. Betty Ford (1974 – 1977) Before starting a clinic for down-and-out celebrities, Betty had the two of the sexiest jobs a woman can have: dancer and model. She also drank heavily through both careers, and seems like a lot of fun. 9. Julia Gardiner Tyler (1844 – 1845) Julia parlayed her sexiness into celebrity status, when she posed for an ad that crowned her “The Rose of Long Island.” And that was before she was First Lady. 8.

Pat Nixon (1963 – 1969) The first of these ladies to be seen wearing pants in public. She was a pioneer, aged really well, and has the 40-Year-Old Virgin pose down to a science. 7. Hillary Clinton (1993 – 2001) Hillary certainly gets points for being a bad-ass (she can deal with both public humiliation and Kim Jong-Il). But man, that hair and her multi-colored collection of pantsuits really have to go. 6. Letitia Christian Tyler (1841 – 1842) I don’t know how President Tyler was able to resist kissing this hottie for five whole years of courtship. Sadly, her First Lady sexiness was short-lived; she died a year after Tyler was elected to office. 5. Helen “Nellie” Herron Taft (1909 – 1913) Nellie’s favorite activities included smoking, drinking, gambling, and watching “sex plays.” If that doesn’t get you hot and bothered, check out her waist. 4.

Nancy Reagan (1981 – 1989) Nancy was a Hollywood star in her younger days, like her husband, and had the looks to cut it. In fact, she was once linked to Clark Gable. 3. Rosalynn Carter (1977 – 1981) For reasons that remain unknown, Rosalynn was a big mental-health advocate. Maybe it was because her sex appeal drove so many suitors crazy? 2. Michelle Obama (2009 – present) No question about it, Barry is one lucky man. I didn’t even know arms could be a way to get laid before Michelle moved into the White House. When she puts a cardigan on, the sun refuses to shine. 1. Jackie Kennedy (1961 – 1963) Jackie Kennedy would top almost any list, so to put her at number one on ours was a no-brainer. Her style, grace, and beauty are all iconic. No one compares.

Question: The First Lady of which US president was known as Pat, though her first name was Thelma?
Answer: Richard Nixon