When There's No First Lady

by Susan Page Davis

     The President of the United States must host many functions, and social events go smoother if he has a gracious hostess at his side.

     In addition to being the wife and mother of the family, the First Lady is expected to decorate with good taste and to entertain flawlessly. In modern times, she is also expected to give support to her husband through public appearances and to support charitable or social causes. 

     But what’s a chief executive to do if he’s a widower—or even worse, a bachelor?

     What happens when there’s no First Lady?

     He asks someone else to fill that role, of course, usually a relative, but sometimes a close friend.

     Thomas Jefferson was the first president to have that problem. He was widowed nineteen years before he took the oath of office as president. His marriage had produced six children, only two of whom—Martha and Mary—lived to adulthood. 

     Martha, known as Patsy, red-haired like her father, married Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr.

Martha Jefferson Randolph

Mary, whose nickname was Molly, married John Wayles Eppes. Both acted as hostesses for Thomas Jefferson during the winter season of 1802-03. 

     Molly died in 1804, but Patsy returned to the White House the following year to act as hostess. Her eighth child, James Madison Randolph was the first child to be born there.

     When his daughters were not available to help him out, President Jefferson relied on Dolley Madison, whose husband was at that time Secretary of State, to act as hostess at White House functions. This was good practice for Dolley’s later duties as First Lady.

Emily Donelson

     Andrew Jackson’s wife, Rachel, died a few months before her husband took office in 1829. While he was in the White House, Emily Donelson, the wife of Rachel’s nephew Andrew Donelson, served as hostess in the executive mansion. Emily had one child at the time of the inauguration and gave birth to three more in the White House.

Angelica Singleton Van Buren

    




      Martin Van Buren was a widower with four sons when he became president. After his son Abraham married Angelica Singleton, she began receiving guests at White House functions with her father-in-law.

      

Harriet Lane

  

   James Buchanan became president at age 65, and he was a bachelor. His niece and legal ward, Harriet Lane, took over the duties of First Lady at the age of 26. Lovely, clever, and poised, she made a wonderful hostess in the pre-Civil War years.

  





   Chester A. Arthur, who took office in 1881, had been widowed a year before. He did not have an official hostess, but his younger sister, Mary Arthur McElroy, went with him to Washington to take care of his young daughter, Nellie, and her own two daughters. Mary sometimes stood in receiving lines with her brother, but she was never in the spotlight. The Arthur administration was the only one that never had a First Lady or a designated surrogate.

     Of course, if you are a bachelor president, as was Grover Cleveland, you can take a more creative way to fill the vacancy and marry a woman who will become the First Lady. 

     When he was first elected, Cleveland’s younger sister Rose acted as his hostess. But when Cleveland became the first—and only—president to be married in the White House, his bride took over her duties with alacrity. Frances Folsom Cleveland was 21, and Grover was 48 when they married. 
     
 

Frances Folsom Cleveland

    Frances was known as a charming young woman who enjoyed her social responsibilities. During Cleveland’s second term, she gave birth to their second and third daughters in the White House. After Grover Cleveland’s death in 1908, she became the first First Lady to remarry, when she wed Thomas Preston.
     This is only a glimpse of some women who performed social duties at the White House when there was no official First Lady. There is much more to their lives, of course, but today we honor them for standing in the gap. 

    Leave a comment and your contact information for a chance to win one of Susan’s historical novels: Lady Anne’s Quest, A Lady in the Making, Love Finds You in Prince Edward Island, or The Outlaw Takes a Bride. The winner may choose either an e-book, a paperback, or a large print, hardcover copy of one of these books, or an audio book of The Outlaw Takes a Bride. If more than twenty enter, two winners will be chosen. The drawing will be held Aug. 29.

  

  Susan Page Davis is the author of more than sixty published novels. She’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .