Grace Coolidge

First Lady

• Born: January 3, 1879
• Birthplace: Burlington, Vermont
• Died: July 8, 1957
• Place of death: Northampton, Massachusetts

President:Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929

Overview

Grace Coolidge was known to the American public as a glamorous First Lady. She was suddenly thrust into the role at age forty-four. Since her husband discouraged any interviews with the press, her public silence only enhanced her mystery and glamour. Because Calvin Coolidge was often perceived as taciturn, her outgoing nature impressed visitors and dignitaries, making for a joyous White House.

Early Life

Grace Anna Goodhue was the only child of Andrew Issachar Goodhue and Lemira Barrett Goodhue. Her mother was from Merrimack, New Hampshire, and her father was from Hancock, New Hampshire. Andrew, at eighteen years of age, was apprenticed to be a mechanical engineer. He married Lemira in 1870, and shortly thereafter the couple moved to Burlington, Vermont, to work at Gates’s Cotton Mill. They lived in mill housing, and after nine years of marriage, their daughter, Grace, was born. Her parents built their own home on lower Maple Street and moved there when Grace was two years old.

An early memory for Grace was that of an injury her father sustained at the mill. Despite the fact that she was only four years old, she remembered that a knot in the wood he was cutting flew out and struck his face so that bones of his nose and jaw were broken and his eye muscles were injured. Because her father needed a quiet recovery, Grace was sent to live with Mrs. John Lyman Yale and her family. Grace grew to love this family and respected their work at the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Grace graduated from high school in 1897, and even though the population of women was small at the University of Vermont, she assumed she would attend. She took a year off for health reasons before going to college, needing exercise to overcome a slight curvature of the spine. Her father built a new home up the hill on Maple Street, and she lived there during college. When Grace entered the university, she was five feet, four inches tall and considered herself to be plump. She had thick, curly black hair, gray-green eyes, and a generous mouth. She liked her life at college. She enjoyed sleigh rides in winter and theater productions. To enhance her social life, she joined with thirteen other women to petition Pi Beta Phi, a national sorority, for a charter at the University of Vermont. The group was successful and met many times in the attic of her house.

Upon graduation, Grace did not apply to teach in Burlington but wrote Caroline Yale, principal of the Clarke School for the Deaf, to apply for a position in the teacher training class. Grace’s mother agreed that Grace should teach in Northampton, which was a town of many young women, with Smith College dominating its social life.

Grace’s chosen career of teaching deaf children was a challenging one, sought by few. Despite the fact that Grace taught only a few years, she had a lifelong interest in children who were deaf.

Marriage and Family

There are two versions of how Calvin Coolidge met Grace Goodhue, but the proximity of the two was helpful: They lived across the street from each other. Grace saw Calvin Coolidge stand in his window to shave with a derby hat on the back of his head (to keep down a cowlick). One story is that she laughed and he pursued her. Another is that she asked her janitor to deliver a flower in a pot to him. The next morning, the janitor brought back Calvin’s calling card, asking if he might call. The two began dating; Calvin’s letters of this period survive and show their shared plans and interests.

Wed on October 4, 1905, Grace characterized her marriage to Calvin as uniting people of “vastly different temperaments and tastes” and commented that her mother “was not in her usual good health” on Grace’s wedding day. Actually, Mrs. Goodhue opposed the timing of the marriage and wanted the couple to wait longer. Only relatives and a few friends attended the wedding; however, the Northampton newspaper called the groom “one of the best known young lawyers of Northampton” and “prominent in Republican politics,” so his visibility in this Massachusetts city was already noted.

Grace treasured the simplicity of their early years of marriage. She characterized the knotted counterpane blanket that Calvin’s invalid mother made as “our most precious heirloom.” They set up housekeeping in rented rooms and then in half a house. She wrote, “What matter these trappings if love is strong and life is sweet?” She also immediately agreed to a traditional marriage with one head of the household, Calvin. This was based on economics as well. As she had stopped teaching, his law firm and political offices would be their sole income. She gave birth to a son, John, on September 7, 1906; soon after they moved into their two-family house.

Calvin’s description of John’s birth showed how much he revered his wife and their new family: “The fragrance of the clematis which covered the bay window filled the room like a benediction, where the mother lay with her baby. We called him John in honor of my father. It was all very wonderful to us.” However, as Calvin climbed the political ladder, mainly in Boston, Grace was often left alone to raise the baby and make a home. She said, “I marvel at the father’s confidence in my ability to cope with the problem.” The Coolidges quickly added a second son to the family in 1908, so she had two boys to raise. She was the one who laid out the train tracks and built the sport roadster with John, not his father.

Grace’s sorority, Pi Beta Phi, was a meaningful part of her social life. She went to their conventions and, in 1901, before the boys were born, had been president of the Western Massachusetts Alumnae Club. She traveled with her sorority sisters to Berkeley, California, in 1915 for the national convention. She enjoyed the comradeship of the tour, but this was abruptly interrupted with a telegram from Calvin announcing his race for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. She did not finish the trip and took the next train home.

Political offices did not pay large salaries in the early 1900’s, so Calvin Coolidge borrowed funds from his father and tightened his budget. He did not want to be beholden to anyone. As his political trajectory escalated, Frank Waterman Stearns, his political backer, offered the couple a house on Beacon Hill when Calvin was elected governor. They turned it down, with Grace remaining in Northampton with the boys and Calvin taking an extra room at Adams House in Boston. They had no car; Calvin took the train and public transportation to social affairs. Grace did hire a housekeeper in Northampton. Calvin also liked to buy hats for himself and Grace; buying clothes for his wife was his one extravagance.

The governorship, which Coolidge was elected to in 1918, would probably have been the pinnacle of his political career if not for the Boston police strike of 1919. His strong stand against the striking public servants was lauded across the land, and his name appeared on the list at the Republican convention. Grace was in Boston with him when Calvin received the call from Chicago. She was surprised that he accepted the vice presidential nomination.

The 1920 victory of President Warren G. Harding and Coolidge over James M. Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt brought a major change for Grace. Her husband had been in politics since the year their son was born, 1906, while she had been on the periphery. Only when Calvin was mayor of Northampton had she been part of the political equation. Now things would change. They moved to Washington, D.C., to live at the Hotel Willard, since no residence was provided for the vice president. The boys were to board at Mercersburg Academy, about one hour away. Grace no longer had daily responsibility for them. Now she was expected to preside over “the Ladies of the Senate,” the wives and hostesses of U.S. senators. She felt more prepared to play with train tracks, but Lois Marshall, wife of the outgoing vice president Thomas S. Marshall, gave friendly guidance to Grace, which helped her break through the Washington façade. Grace’s natural charm and ability to recall names and faces also helped break the ice. Frances Parkinson Keyes, a noted author and wife of a senator, wrote, “I doubt that any vice presidential hostess has ever wrung so much pleasure out of Washington or given so much in return. She is the only woman in official life of whom I have never heard a single disparaging remark in the course of nearly twenty years.”

It was common to travel to cooler climes during the summers, when Washington was hot and humid. Thus, Calvin and Grace went to visit his father in Vermont in August, 1923, while Warren and Florence Harding toured the West Coast. Calvin’s autobiography described the trembling in his father’s voice as he climbed the stairs of the farmhouse to tell the couple of the death of President Harding. After praying, they went to the parlor, and Grace brought in an oil lamp so they could make plans. Calvin wrote a telegram to Mrs. Harding. Then Congressman Porter Dale of Vermont drove up and encouraged an immediate oath of office for the new president. Calvin turned to his father who, as a notary public, had the authority to witness such an oath. Grace produced the family Bible, and Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as president.

Presidency and First Ladyship

“This was I and yet not I, this was the wife of the President of the United States and she took precedence over me; my personal likes and dislikes must be subordinated to the consideration of those things which were required of her.” A role had been thrust upon Grace Coolidge, and she admitted to having no influence over national decisions, even if they affected her personally. This obviously could have brought stress upon her as she tried to perform her obligations without really having substantial input. As a college-educated woman whose ideas were valued by many, this position must have felt submissive. However, the role of First Lady as greeter and cheerleader was something she liked; she admitted to loving the interaction with people. Just as her father greeted people at church, she greeted them at the White House. She liked making people feel at home.

A high point for Grace was a visit to the Executive Mansion from her sorority sisters, the Pi Phis. They made a gift to the White House: a portrait, by Howard Chandler Christy, of Grace in a red dress, next to the president’s dog, Rob Roy. The thirteen hundred women filled the White House with joy and pride.

The low point was the death of her second son. Admiral Boone, the assistant White House physician, encouraged the boys to play tennis. He arrived one day to play and found Calvin Jr., resting in a room, his mother watching him. When Boone examined the boy, he found an infection due to a blister from playing tennis. Fast-moving septicemia took the life of Calvin Jr. within a few days. Grace was very religious and believed that her son would be waiting for her in heaven. She even wrote a poem, Open Door. Some historians believe that President Coolidge became clinically depressed at this time. Grace had to soldier on as well as look to their other son, John, now at Amherst College.

When Calvin chose not to run again for president in 1928, the family planned to retire to the two-family house in Northampton. Lacking the privacy they needed, they bought The Beeches, a gated estate. Grace plunged into community service and wrote articles. After Calvin’s sudden death of a coronary thrombosis in 1933, Grace filled her retirement with her “precious four” (son John, his wife, Florence, and their children Cynthia and Lydia) and her many interests. She hiked and swam and loved baseball enough to attend games into the late innings of her own life. In the 1950’s her heart began to fail. She died at seventy-eight years of age of congestive heart failure related to kyphoscoliosis.

Legacy

Grace Coolidge remains a popular presidential wife among First Ladies. This is probably due to her image as an elegant and vibrant First Lady. The Secret Service nicknamed her Sunshine. The social climate of the White House, under her guidance, exemplified tradition, such as her emphasis on holidays, and also included children and those with disabilities. International in outlook, she raised funds for victims of World War II and loaned her house to the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) military unit as their headquarters in Northampton.

Her interest in White House history inspired her to ask for a joint resolution by Congress to authorize acceptance of gifts of furniture. She wanted to restore antiques to the building and treat it as a living museum. She also renovated the family quarters, adding a sky parlor to let in more sunlight.

To help preserve the legacy of her husband, she donated materials and memorabilia to the Forbes Library, a public library in Northampton, and made plans to transfer the Coolidge family homestead, where Calvin had been sworn in as president, to the state of Vermont.

Bibliography

Ferrell, Robert H., ed. The Real Calvin Coolidge 10 (1994).

Heller, Milton F., Jr. The Presidents’ Doctor: An Insider’s View of Three First Families. New York: Vantage Press, 2000.

Ross, Ishbel. Grace Coolidge and Her Era: The Story of a President’s Wife. Plymouth, Vt.: Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, 1988.

Stoddard, Gloria May. Grace and Cal: A Vermont Love Story. Shelburne, Vt.: New England Press, 1989.

Wikander, Lawrence E., and Robert H. Ferrell, eds. Grace Coolidge: An Autobiography. Worland, Wyo.: High Plains Press, 1992.