Ida McKinley

• Born: June 8, 1847
• Birthplace: Canton, Ohio
• Died: May 26, 1907
• Place of death: Canton, Ohio

President:William McKinley, 1897-1901

Overview

Ida McKinley died only nine blocks north of her birthplace, yet the news of her death saddened the entire world. William and Ida McKinley were the most popular couple since Abraham and Mary Lincoln. The McKinleys’ hallmarks were their love for each other, their Christian beliefs, and their seemingly faultless characters. Ida’s passions were “my dear William,” kind acts extended to children, and roses of any color (except yellow). William McKinley’s were Ida’s whereabouts and well-being, roses he would clip and bring “Idy” after early morning walks, cigars, and brass bands. They were the Gilded Age and the New Millennium, the twenty-fifth “first couple.”

Early Life

Ida was the oldest of three children of James Saxton and Katherine Dewalt Saxton. Her maternal grandfather, George Dewalt, was among the first settlers of Canton, Ohio. In about 1820, he built and operated one of the finest hotels and stagecoach stops in northern Ohio. The three-story hotel, complete with kitchen and full dining facilities, was set on the public square at Market and Tuscarawas Streets. George’s father, Philip Dewalt, predated his son’s efforts, constructing a two-story brick building at Cleveland and Tuscarawas Streets, which housed his tavern. Buying one of Canton’s first platted lots, Philip paid seventy-one dollars for this prime land in the newly opened Ohio territory. Ida’s maternal grandmother, Christina Harter Dewalt, was the sister of Isaac Harter, who began the Harter Bank in 1854. Both Ida’s mother, Katherine, and her grandmother Christina were known as devout Presbyterians and good keepers of house and hospitality.

Previous to its founding in 1805, Canton was the Indian territory surrounding the Tuscarawas and Nimishillen Rivers. Ida’s paternal grandparents were numbered among early Canton pioneers. Her grandfather John Saxton came West with a wagon and a printing press, publishing his first issue of the Ohio Repository within two weeks of his arrival in Canton in March, 1815. The Ohio Repository was one of the state’s first newspapers, founded in a town of five hundred, described by John Saxton as “a beautiful eminence which rises in the midst of an extensive plain.” John Saxton, a Whig, was close friends with Horace Greeley, a Whig nominee for president and the famed publisher of the weekly New Yorker; the Log Cabin, a campaign paper used to get William Henry Harrison elected president; and Greeley’s most successful newspaper, the Tribune. Greeley, famous for his passionate orations against slavery, was a frequent guest of John Saxton.

John Saxton was one of twelve who founded Canton’s first public school, the Academy, and he was a Canton Township trustee. John Saxton became moderately wealthy; however, his son James chose to make his living by buying and selling land and founding the county’s largest bank. This proved to be a good choice, and James Saxton became the second-wealthiest man in Canton by 1870. Only one man was wealthier: Cornelius Aultman, a multimillionaire and one of the world’s top producers of mowers and reapers. Ida’s uncle Joseph Saxton was numbered among the United States’ top twenty inventors in 1867. Ida’s ancestors not only were among Canton’s pioneers but also were national figures on many levels of interest.

The McKinleys were cousins of Aultman’s half brother Lewis Miller, and Miller’s daughter was the second wife of inventor Thomas Alva Edison. Cornelius Aultman, Lewis Miller, and Jacob Miller were the founders of Mount Union College. In 1896, Aultman was chairman of William McKinley’s election campaign. Lewis Miller invented the “Sunday school” method of graded instruction and was a chief founder of the famous Chautauqua Assembly in New York, a revered national movement of instruction that combined the teaching of Christian principles and the arts.

Ida Saxton McKinley’s father acquired the now-famous Canton landmark the Saxton House, which was built by her grandfather George Dewalt in 1841 in Federal style. Her father acquired the Dewalt house in 1869, and in 1870, substantially remodeled the house, adding to both floors and giving the house an imposing, Victorian appearance, with a value of more than $100,000. The house was grand, inside and out, and the contents at its opening were valued at more than seventy-five thousand dollars. William and Ida McKinley lived in the Saxton House, at 331 North Market Avenue, from 1876 through 1890, when William was a congressman. Ida was born in a two-story, commercial-looking building at 226 South Market Avenue, which would also be the site of the McKinleys’ wedding reception on January 25, 1871. The Saxtons were rich, and while that brought luxuries and privileges into their lives, the family’s values were strong: love for family, devotion to God, and service to humankind. Hence, Ida could never resist befriending any young person, regardless of rank or race, even though her ideals could have been compromised by the loss of both her daughters.

Not much is known about Ida until 1868. She attended two “girls’ seminaries”—the word “college” was almost exclusively associated with men. Nonetheless, Ida was more educated than most women of her day as well as many of the men. Her father was quite unconventional in that he determined all three of his children were to be educated equally. The young Ida Saxton was educated at Miss Sandford’s School in Cleveland and the well-known Miss Eastman’s seminary in Media, Pennsylvania: Brooke Hall. Ida was no keeper of the house—a life with servants precluded that—but her teachers reported never hearing an unkind word from the young woman who would become First Lady.

Her father’s unconventional aspirations did not end with his children’s education. Most of the wealthy men who were graduating from the nation’s foremost colleges capped their scholastic years with a “Grand Tour” of Europe, a trip lasting six to twelve months. This was seen not as a graduation gift but as another year or so of studying abroad, seeing firsthand what they had read about in books. Ida and her sister, Mary, nicknamed Pina (pronounced Piney), were sent on a Grand Tour of Europe for eight months, thus “finishing” their education. Both Mary and Ida worried about the “grand cost”: two thousand dollars per woman in 1869. Ida took charge of the finances, and the women journeyed frugally throughout Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and Belgium.

Touring, which was predominantly walking, was focused on seeing museums, landmarks, cathedrals, and the homes of famous authors and artists. The women met Vinnie Ream, an American woman living in Italy who was commissioned to do a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln for the Capitol. Studies were foremost, but Ida did slip away, unchaperoned, to the theater. She was a lifelong lover of staged dramas. The young women twice visited Paris, making sure it was the last stop so they could shop. Souvenir gathering along the way was prohibited by the necessity of carrying only one small bag. Only being able to carry a few belongings, they washed their clothing nightly in hotels and inns and referred to their dresses as “water-proof.”

They came home as self-confessed “conquerors” with their “loot”—various textiles for the making of dresses, furs, gemstones, lace, silver jewelry, a Swiss music box for their adored “Ma,” presents for the members of Ida’s all-boys Sunday school class, and more. Upon their return, Mary had a beau waiting to court her; however, while in Italy, Ida had learned that the twenty-eight-year-old man who had been sending her letters every other week had died suddenly of a brain inflammation (a common reference to, usually, meningitis). She was devastated and could only gaze and weep at the card case with the inscribed “W,” which she had purchased as a gift to him. Research reveals that Mr. W was John W. Wright of Canton, formerly of Kentucky. Upon her return to Canton, no mention was again made to Mr. Wright. Ironically, he was a major in the Confederate Army and subsequently a lawyer. Surely Ida could not have guessed that in 1871 she would marry a major (but from the Union Army), one who would also be a lawyer.

Also upon Ida’s return, she was the first woman in Canton to cut her hair short, shunning hairpins or ornaments, occasionally donning a modest hat.

Again her father would make an unusual request of his oldest daughter—that she become an actress. She was recruited to help raise funds for the building of the new Presbyterian Church. The Saxtons were the most generous donors to this project, as the foremost Presbyterian family. Ida would, of course, be expected to contribute her talents. The church fund-raiser was held at Schaefer’s Opera House. More than twelve hundred people crammed into the opera house in their finery to see the latest Victorian rage—a tableaux of a staged series of scenes from history, some depicting early U.S. themes and some scenes from European history (since Victorians were enamored with all things European). Ida was named the actress of the year. It was not much of a title, because the trick was to not speak or move. She did not know that she would be the first bride married in the church she helped build.

In 1870, her father again asked the unconventional: that she go to work. At that time, teaching school or working as a shop matron or dressmaker were the only acceptable women’s jobs outside the home. Ida’s father insisted she work in his bank as a teller and bookkeeping clerk. Often she would be required to run the bank in her father’s absence. This venture gave rise to rumors all over town that the Saxtons had seen “reverses” in their finances. “No,” her irritated father would say, “I have seen girls left stranded by sudden losses . . . she can be taken care of at home now, but I may be poor some day. . . . I want her to be able to support herself. . . . above all, I don’t want her to marry solely to be supported.” This was quite unconventional for a Gilded Age man. Ida’s response was, “Media [Brooke Hall Seminary] has taught me something besides a little Latin.”

Local newspapers described Ida as possessing “piquant” features, auburn hair “and lots of it,” and “languorous blue eyes under a marble brow.” She loved reading, social gatherings, traveling, and, as a young girl, athletic pursuits such as horseback riding.

Marriage and Family

Ida’s banking transactions for Major William McKinley, a lawyer, ultimately led to their courtship, composed of conversations over banking transactions, socials held in local homes, and weekly encounters while “the major” was on his way to teach Sunday school at the Methodist Church and Ida was on her way to teach at the Presbyterian Church. In 1870, her father would announce her engagement to the only man in town he trusted.

Actually, Ida and William had met shortly after the Civil War hero came to town from Poland, Ohio. It was at a chance meeting at Meyer’s Lake Park in 1867; the introductions were performed by William’s sister Anna, who was a teacher and school principal.

On January 25, 1871, with one thousand guests in attendance, the wedding was the social event of the era. Ida was one of Canton’s wealthiest and most beautiful women, and William was the popular attorney and community leader who had just been elected county prosecutor. The “major” and the “belle” would marry in front of a standing-room-only crowd, none of whom were disappointed by the grandeur. After the 7:00 p.m. wedding and 8:00 reception, the newlyweds departed on a 10:00 train for a honeymoon trip to the East. During William McKinley’s first presidential campaign, he gave Ida a twenty-fifth anniversary party in Canton. She wore her white lace wedding gown. During the extravagant dining, the former governor and soon-to-be president pronounced her beautiful, although the years had not really been kind to the former belle of Canton. Hundreds of well-wishers heard McKinley say, “She is ever happy when surrounded by friends, children, and roses.”

The couple traveled throughout the United States, with William constantly giving speeches on behalf of the Republican Party. They never vacationed, unable to think of a place to go they would like better than Canton, Ohio. Often, McKinley’s cabinet officers would have to spend part of their summers in Canton, excepting the summer of 1898, during the Spanish-American War. Ida and William were seldom parted, except for her shopping trips to Chicago. Ida’s cousin, by this time, owned the largest department store in the city. However, William would write his wife during those short absences, ending his letters, “Always your lover.” In Washington, D.C., or Columbus, Ohio, he would stop as many as a dozen times to check to see what Ida was doing. Most often, what she was doing was crocheting. In the White House she made three thousand pairs of slippers, giving them to children and Civil War veterans, Union or Confederate. During her lifetime she crocheted more than ten thousand pairs of slippers. Occasionally, she would make silk ties for her “precious William.” Often, in meetings and gatherings, she would be seated, and William would stand beside her, his hand gently resting on her shoulder.

As if from a storybook, the January union would produce their first child on Christmas Day, 1871. Katie, who was named for Ida’s beloved mother, Katherine, had blue eyes and golden curls. Six months after Katie was born, Ida was pregnant again. Little Ida would be born within weeks of her grandmother Katherine’s death on April 1, 1873. The strain of the birth and the sudden loss of Ida’s mother contributed to an extremely difficult labor. Within four months, baby Ida had died of cholera. After Ida arose from her sickbed, epilepsy, phlebitis, migraines, and stomach ailments would plague her for the remainder of her life, at times returning her to bed, and fostering descriptions of her as an invalid. In 1876, four-year-old Katie died of heart disease. Canton’s most idyllic couple had become Canton’s most tragic couple, with more trials to come. Many of the late-nineteenth-century medical treatments given Ida would be considered heresy by today’s standards. Many of these practices actually contributed to the creation of the so-called invalid, such as alternately giving her stimulants and laxatives in an hourly rotation.

Still, Ida and William always maintained a heavy schedule. At the holidays, the McKinleys would often hold their celebrations away from the family, exchanging small gifts and taking time to remember their girls. Suffering from phlebitis and often severe swelling of her legs, Ida walked with a gold-topped wooden cane or the arm of a man, usually her husband. On at least two occasions, her “falling sickness,” today known as epilepsy, and phlebitis forced her into a “rolling chair,” but never for long.

Presidency and First Ladyship

William McKinley’s contributions to the United States were well established by the end of his second term as Ohio’s governor. It would have been relatively easy for the couple to retire to Canton and live off that legacy, but the nation would not hear of it.

Gerrymandering and his role as the champion of the protective tariff had cost him the 1890 election in his last congressional race. Still, the McKinley Tariff Bill of 1890 was considered a major victory for him and for the U.S. economy. It was his June, 1890, speech on the McKinley Tariff which rooted him in the people’s hearts. He had, with its passage, created about one-half million jobs and saved another one-half million jobs—a feat by even today’s standards. From his first speech in Congress until the end of his life, he was a strong protectionist. “It is our duty and we ought to protect sacredly and assuredly the labor and the industry of the United States as we would protect her honor from taint or her territory from invasion,” stated McKinley. When he returned to Canton, seventy-five thousand people would spontaneously gather outside the Saxton House to pay tribute to this deed that so protected U.S. dinner buckets.

McKinley, who won two terms as governor of Ohio (1892-1896), was an American hero and the favored candidate for president. Cleveland industrialist Marc Hanna spent 1895-1896 in grass-roots campaigning among state Republican leaders to assure the McKinley nomination met with no last-minute snags. The only undercurrent was that the question of a sound currency must be settled along with the selection of a new president. The East favored the gold standard; the West preferred silver.

The June, 1896, ballot at the St. Louis Republican Convention was not even close. McKinley received 661 votes and his closest competitor received 84. At home, William was in one parlor with the men, pencil in hand, noting the state’s votes as they were wired to him. The upstairs wire operator called down to the guests, “Ohio, forty-six for McKinley.” McKinley arose, walked across the hall to the ladies’ parlor, and kissed his wife and mother. “Ida,” he said, “Ohio’s vote has just nominated me.”

The popularity of McKinley’s selection immediately gave birth to the Front Porch of 1896. The news spread rapidly and special trains were immediately dispatched to Canton to congratulate McKinley. Between 5:00 p.m. and midnight, more than fifty thousand gathered on and around the McKinleys’ front porch. The presidential election of 1896 was decisive. There were about fourteen million potential votes, and McKinley’s tally topped seven million, easily beating William Jennings Bryan. McKinley would go on to beat Bryan a second time in 1900 by even a larger margin in both the electoral and popular vote. By the time William was elected president, in 1896, there was scarcely a blade of grass left on the McKinley lawn.

Soon Ida would be sitting next to her William at some official White House event or traveling by train to some political stump. Her illness and the couple’s closeness gave rise to a new tradition at the White House: the First Lady being seated or standing by the president at formal occasions. Previously, First Ladies had been relegated to the end of a long dining table or another part of the White House, serving tea to womenfolk. Ida’s legacy in protocol says the first couple preside at major events side by side, as equals.

For Victorians, any illness in any woman made her “delicate.” Victorians, too, were very much lashed to rules and protocol, especially for mourning. Commonplace was the keeping of shrines in the most prominent living areas. Ida kept two small rockers, adorned with mementos from her daughters, in every favorite parlor over which she presided. Often, when holding a small child, she would burst into tears. Still she constantly sought out young people of all ranks and races. Children, it was said, were attracted to her skirts like magnets. Canton’s youngsters often followed after her carriage, calling “Auntie McKinley, Auntie McKinley,” and she would stop and present them with a kiss or a token. The string of events to follow would characterize her personal life as tragic, while the McKinleys’ public life would seem always golden—a type and shadow of the era they lived in, the Gilded Era.

Among the personal tragedies would be then-Governor McKinley’s cosigning of a $15,000 bank loan for a friend, which would leave him unwittingly indebted $130,000 and produce financial ruin. Other tragedies were the suicide of William’s brother David, which left two orphaned children; the murder of Ida’s brother George and the converging of the world’s press upon that disaster; the death of the president’s closest confidant, “Mother McKinley” (Nancy Allison McKinley), who did not live to see her son’s second inaugural; and their long desire for a home of their own, one that the salary of public life would not support. The couple never lived off Ida’s independent wealth. In their thirty years of marriage, they predominantly lived in hotels. For a few years at the beginning of their marriage and then a few years at the end, they owned homes and kept house. Ironically, their marital years would begin and end in the same house, at 723 North Market Street in Canton.

The couple’s final tragedy was their separation by an assassin’s bullets. The twenty-fifth president was shot twice in the abdomen while visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901. He died on September 14. Three funerals commemorated his life and death: one in Buffalo, one in Washington, D.C., and one in Canton. Forty-five days after McKinley’s death, the confessed murderer, twenty-three-year-old anarchist Leon Czolgosz of Detroit, the son of Polish parents, would be put to death in the electric chair in Auburn State Prison, New York. A crew sent by Thomas Edison would film the funeral and the execution of the assassin.

The four months preceding William’s death were the happiest that William and Ida had known. From June through September each year, Canton had been the summer White House. Cabinet officers did not see the attraction that Canton, Ohio, held but were obliging. Spending summertime in Canton enabled the president to engage in his favorite pastimes, such as dining on fresh vegetables from his Minerva, Ohio, farm and visiting his groom and favorite horse, Midnight.

Although the widowed Ida was begged to return to the Saxton House, now owned by her sister, Mary, she preferred to stay on, alone, at 723 North Market Street, cared for by a maid and nurse. Her friends tried in vain to encourage her to travel to visit friends; however, her days were dominated by daily visits to Westlawn Cemetery to see the graves of William and the girls. Seldom would she leave her home, except to attend small, local tributes to her “dear William.”

Often she would wonder aloud to friends why she had not been taken before her husband and girls. Much to most everyone’s surprise, Ida’s health improved after leaving the White House. At the entreating of President Theodore Roosevelt, she even began to look forward to the September, 1907, opening of the national memorial to her husband. Ida Saxton McKinley died of a stroke on May 26, 1907, just three months before the dedication of the national memorial. It had pleased her that a “penny campaign” had been conducted among American children to help fund the building of the memorial, which was dedicated by President Roosevelt and Ida’s sister, Mary Saxton Barber.

Legacy

Ida’s legacy was that she supported her husband unwaveringly. Detractors knew better than to criticize him in her presence, for she would immediately exhibit anger, a tendency much unlike her William. It was said that McKinley only ever lost his temper twice: once when he saw a black maid mistreated and the other time when a so-called friend cost him $130,000.

McKinley sought and gained Ida’s opinion on every matter. While he was a perpetual student of domestic topics, it was she who was the avid reader of the world’s news, keeping track of even the smallest story.

Ida and William were matched in their passion to serve the underprivileged. They found the high infant mortality rate of the Philippines intolerable, and they would send aid to cure the ills of the people and feed them. The concept of foreign aid was a first for this U.S. president.

Although McKinley was a longtime proponent of suffrage for women and blacks, Ida supported these tenets long before their marriage, she being a product of her own time in Canton, Ohio. They were both opposed to slavery. McKinley’s first public speech was in support of Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency, his second for women’s suffrage, and his third for black suffrage.

McKinley was passionate about healing the wounds from the Civil War, and he made it a point to speak to and embrace veterans from both sides, thus endearing him to both the Union and Confederate soldier. Ida, too, felt strongly about veterans, and many of her pairs of crocheted slippers were blue or gray gifts.

Ida encouraged William’s life of public service and supported him in it. In light of their early losses, William felt duty-bound to love and care for her in every way. He never deferred any kindness he could extend to her. The McKinleys were among the most devoted and loving couples ever to occupy the White House.

Bibliography

Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of William McKinley. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1980.

Halstead, Murat. Life and Distinguished Services of William McKinley. Chicago: M. A. Donohue, 1901.

Heald, Edward Thornton. Condensed Biography of William McKinley. Canton, Ohio: Stark County Historical Society, 1964.

Leech, Margaret. In the Days of McKinley. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959.

Olcott, Charles S. The Life of William McKinley. 2 vols. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1916.