First Lady Lucy Hayes: She taught deaf and speech-impaired orphans

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Many First Ladies have supported education and even worked as teachers before they went to the White House. One of these was First Lady Lucy Hayes, who taught deaf and speech-impaired orphans.

Many of our nation’s presidential wives supported education and even worked as teachers before their husbands were elected to the highest office of the land. One of these was Lucy Hayes, wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes, our country’s 19th President. After serving in the US House of Representatives and as the Governor of Ohio, Hayes served as President from 1877 to 1881.

Lucy Webb was born on August 28, 1831, in Chilicothe, Ohio, the daughter of Dr. James Webb and Maria Cook.

As First Lady, Lucy Hayes was widely considered the role model of a modern educated woman. In fact, she was the first First Lady to have earned a college degree, having graduated from Cincinnati Wesleyan Female College in 1850

When her husband served as the Governor of Ohio, Lucy worked as a teacher of hearing and speech-impaired orphans. She often accompanied her husband on his visits to prisons, correctional institutions for boys and girls, hospitals for the mentally ill, and facilities for the deaf and mute. She was also part of a group that established a home for the orphans of soldiers.

As First Lady, she regularly visited schools in all corners of the young democracy. She made a special effort to include visits to schools dedicated to the education of African American men and women, Native Americans, and impoverished white students. Lucy supported her husband’s commitment to public education, and served as president of the Women’s Home Missionary Society, an organization dedicated to educating and improving the living conditions of the poor.

To read more about First Lady Lucy Hayes, see the  book From Classroom to White House: The Presidents  and First Ladies as Students and Teachers by James McMurtry Longo, available on amazon.

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt: A champion for education

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First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was born into an aristocratic family, yet she championed education for the underprivileged.

It is common knowledge that Eleanor Roosevelt was a popular First Lady who served our county during the presidency of her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He served during the Great Depression and World War II. During that period, Eleanor worked tirelessly to advance her husband’s social and political agenda. But did you know that this great lady was a teacher before her marriage to FDR?

Eleanor Roosevelt was born into an aristocratic family in New York city. Her mother died when Eleanor was quite young, and her father was an alcoholic. As a child, she was socially and physically awkward and starved for attention. When her father also passed away, young Eleanor became a ward of her maternal grandmother.

Eleanor was educated by private tutors until she was 15 years old. Then her grandmother sent her to private finishing school, the Allenswood Academy, in England. There Eleanor flourished under the guidance of the school’s headmistress, Marie Souvestre, who encouraged social responsibility and independence for young women. When Eleanor completed her formal education at age 18, she returned to New York City. There she made her social debut in 1902, according to the customs of her social class.

After Eleanor’s debut, she shunned the social life of a debutante that her family expected her to follow. Instead, she turned her boundless energy into progressive projects that helped improve the lives and working conditions of immigrants and those living in poverty. She joined an organization known as the Junior League, and helped established a community center known as the Rivington Street Settlement House on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The center specialized in teaching life skills and vocational skills. Many of the center’s clients were children who worked long hours in the confined spaces of sweat shops. These children did not have many opportunities to engage in physical exercise and movement. To help them improve their health, Eleanor worked as a dance teacher and calisthenics instructor.

Because of her work at the Junior League, Eleanor Roosevelt found her voice as a social activist long before she became First lady. Her work at there was the start of a career in public service that extended even after she left the White House.

To learn more about this amazing historical figure, see this link at the National First Ladies Library.

President William McKinley: The former country schoolteacher

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President William McKinley was a country schoolhouse teacher when he was a young man.

In my research about former residents of the White House who have also been teachers. I have been very surprised to learn just how many of them there are. For example, did you know that President William McKinley was once a teacher?

William McKinley was born in Niles, Ohio, and was raised in Poland, Ohio. When he was a youngster, education was very important to William, and he studied diligently at  the school he attended that was run by the Methodist seminary in his hometown.

After William graduated from high school, he briefly attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. However, he had to drop out because of health and financial difficulties. As the seventh child in a large family, he needed to go to work to help support his family. Like two sisters, William decided to go into teaching. He inaugurated his career as an educator as a teacher at a one-room country schoolhouse not far from the home of his parents.

In his classroom, the 17-year-old William taught 50 students of all ages and skill levels. For this work he earned $25 a month. According to the custom of the day, the neophyte educator boarded with the families of his students, although at times he walked several miles to and from school to stay at home with his parents.

William hoped to eventually earn enough money to return to college but, when the Civil War broke out in 1861, he decided to enlist in the army on the Northern side. He fought in the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, where he rose to the rank of Second Lieutenant.

Once the war was over, William moved to Canton, Ohio, and returned to the classroom. Later, he shifted careers and went into the practiced of law. Eventually, the former teacher became the governor of Ohio, and then, in 1896, he was elected the 25th President of the United States.

“How priceless is a liberal education!” President McKinley once declared. “Our hope is in the public schools and in the university. Let us fervently pray that they may always be generously supported,” he concluded. To read more about this Chalkboard Champion, see this link provided by the Miller Center at the University of Virginia.

Business teacher and former First Lady Pat Nixon

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Pat Nixon: The high school business teacher from Whittier, California, who became our nation’s 37th First Lady. She served from 1969 to 1974.

Many well-known political personalities were once schoolteachers. One of these is Pat Nixon, who served as our nation’s First Lady from 1969 to 1974. She was employed during the 1930s as a business teacher at Whittier Union High School in Whittier, California. In fact, Pat was working as an educator when she met her future husband, a young and ambitious city attorney named Richard Nixon.

Pat Ryan Nixon was born into a family of farmers on March 16, 1912, in Ely, Nevada. She grew up in a rural community now known Cerritos, California. Her mother died of cancer in 1924, when Pat was only 12 years old. After her mother’s death, the young girl kept house for her father and two older brothers, William, Jr., and Thomas. It was a big responsibility for such a young girl.

In spite of her challenges, Pat graduated from Excelsior High School in 1929, and then worked her way through college working a variety of odd jobs. These jobs included retail sales, pharmacy manager, typist, and telephone operator. After her high school graduation, she first attended Fullerton Junior College in Fullerton, California, and then transferred to the University of Southern California, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Merchandising, cum laude, in 1937.

In her first year of teaching, Pat Nixon earned only $180 a month, a princely sum considering the poverty in which she grew up. A pretty and popular teacher, the former Miss Ryan instructed courses in typing, bookkeeping, business principles, and stenography. On her performance evaluations, her supervisors wrote that she had a “splendid attitude toward young people,” they praised her ability to get “good results from them.” She was highly respected for her careful balance of friendliness, high expectations, and strict classsroom discipline. Her students remembered her fondly, writes daughter Julie Nixon Eisenhower in a detailed and personal biography published in 1986. The book is called Pat Nixon: the Untold Story, and is available on amazon.com.

In the political arena, Pat served her country as the wife of the Vice President from 1953 to 1961, and then as First Lady during her husband’s presidency, which spanned the years of 1969 to 1974. Her major platform as First Lady was to promote volunteerism. Through this platform, she encouraged Americans to address social problems at the local level through volunteering at civic organizations, hospitals, and rehabilitation centers. Like the First Lady, many teachers are known for emphasizing the importance of citizenship.

Pat Nixon passed away on June 22, 1993, in Park Ridge, New Jersey. She was 81 years old. She is interred next to her husband at the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California.

Charismatic First Lady Grace Coolidge: She taught the deaf

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Grace Coolidge, former teacher of the deaf  and charismatic First Lady.

Several of our First Ladies have had experience as educators. One of these was Grace Coolidge, wife of President Calvin Coolidge. She taught at the Clarke Institute for Hearing and Speech in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Grace Goodhue was born and raised in Burlington, Vermont, She earned her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Vermont. Following her graduation, she traveled to Massachusetts to study and teach at the Clarke Institute. The school was made famous by Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, and other prominent educators of the deaf. There she worked first with students in the primary grades and later with middle school students. As a teacher, Grace had a reputation for being charismatic, and for bringing energy and warmth to her classroom. Her students loved her, and she felt she had truly found her calling.

While teaching at the Clarke Institute, she began to date a man who was known for being exceedingly shy and quiet. His name? Calvin Coolidge. In fact, he was so reserved that he became known as “Silent Cal.” During the time Grace and Calvin were dating, he gifted the young teacher with a beautiful illustrated children’s book to share with her students. In the book he wrote this inscription: “I wonder if your students realize what a good teacher you are.”

Grace and Calvin married in 1905, and, following the custom of the day, she retired from the teaching profession. Once they returned from their honeymoon, the ambitious but introverted man launched his career in politics. When President Warren G. Harding passed away in office in 1923, Calvin became president. Grace became First Lady, serving in that roll until her husband left office in 1929. During her tenure, Grace Coolidge did volunteer work for the Red Cross, the Civil Defense, and the Visiting Nurse Association. For this work, she garnered a gold medal from the National Institute of Social Science. In 1931 she was voted one of America’s twelve greatest living women.

To learn more about this amazing educator and First Lady, click on this link to the Encyclopedia Brittanica.