First, Lady Bird Johnson. Born Claudia Alta Taylor in Karnack, Texas, in 1912. A family nurse called her "pretty as a lady bird" and the nickname stuck. She is best known in Texas for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and for her championing of the use of native plants in landscaping, but she was also a fierce advocate for women's rights, lending her support to the War on Poverty and the Equal Rights Amendment.
My second First Lady is another Texan, Barbara Bush, and that choice is very personal--I've met her more than once and admire her enormously. She's witty and warm and charming, she's a huge reader, and she's spent her life doing everything she can to promote literacy.
Reds, do you have a First Lady you admire? Tell us who and why!
INGRID THOFT: My choice would be Hillary Clinton, but Michelle Obama is also at the top of my list. Hillary was a First Lady who wasn’t afraid to take on health care as her cause, a cause that proved divisive. However, she didn’t let that deter her from enacting real progress in the form of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (better known as CHIP these days.) I recently heard Hillary speak, and she pointed to this program as an example of not letting perfection be the enemy of good. She noted that when universal healthcare was shot down that might have been the end of the push for affordable health insurance for Americans. However, she decided to work with both Democrats and Republicans to put CHIP into place, and millions of children received insurance as a result. I admire Hillary for her wisdom, her courage, her strength and her restraint. When her character has been disparaged again and again, she’s taken the high road (just as Michelle suggested!)
RHYS BOWEN: When I was young I was so impressed with Jackie Kennedy.
HALLIE EPHRON: I know so little about former First Ladies. Pat Nixon and her cloth coat. Nancy Reagan and her astrologist. Lady Bird and her billboards. Seemed like being First Lady turned them cardboard cutouts whose main function was to stand by the president and make him look like a human being. I thought Hillary was heroic for trying to remake healthcare.
In my opinion, no one's done it with as much grace as Michelle Obama. I was smitten by her relationships with Barack and her daughters. And let's not forget the clothes! And easy, given that she got to stand beside a man who made it easy to stand by.
HANK PHILIPPI RYAN: Can you even imagine? Every single thing you do, or say, or wear. Every single sidelong glance, or closed eyes or lifted eyebrow. Your shoes, your child-rearing, your arms, the actions of your husband, the books you read and the color of your lipstick, foibles and hobbies and passions. ALL under the microscope every single moment. Are you smart enough, pretty enough, wise enough, patient enough, impatient enough, caring enough, too caring, deferential enough, not deferential enough...Ahhh. I admire them all, absolutely for bearing up under that.
DEBS: Hank, I absolutely agree. I can't imagine how hard it would to subject yourself to that sort of scrutiny and criticism--not to mention the First Ladies who put their own careers on hold!
JENN McKINLAY: Hank, I could never. I swear like a sailor, play pranks with my sons that would be fodder for all the judgy types, and am about as far from a fashionista as a woman can be. Ingrid and Rhys, count me in on the Michelle Obama fan club. I simply adore her. But there is one first lady, who lived before my time, whose words echo in my head with great regularity. Eleanor Roosevelt. She said, "You must do the thing you think you cannot do." I turn to this quote in times of self doubt and it has always guided me through it.
LUCY BURDETTE: This was my comment too, Hank, only you said it so much more eloquently. Serving as First Lady is an impossible job. You didn't choose the job. You aren't being paid for it. Your freedom to live a normal life is gone. And if you don't adore your husband or agree with his positions, you sure better be a good actress!
That said, I loved Michelle's grace and dignity and sense of humor, and admire many other of these women, as well. It's been interesting to go on several tours of the Little White House here in Key West as research for DEATH ON THE MENU. Harry Truman spent a lot of time here--and did important work here too, often with other government figures and the press in attendance. But Bess Truman did not love it, so she often didn't come. And that didn't seem to bother anyone! Can you imagine that happening these days?
DEBS: Lucy, I was so sorry I didn't get to see the Truman White House when I visited Key West. I can't wait to read DEATH ON THE MENU so I'll be up to snuff the next time!
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I'm going to go back in time a bit - a hundred years, to be exact. I've always been fascinated by Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, the second wife of Woodrow Wilson. Edith was the widow of a socially prominent but somewhat inept businessman when she was introduced to the also-widowed Wilson. She was forty-three and he was fifty-nine and they fell deeply in love, despite a swirl of rumors that they must have been having an affair before Ellen Wilson's death (some even speculated that the two had done away with the first Mrs. Wilson - clearly the Alex Jones conspiracy-monger types aren't a new phenomenon.)
Edith was prepared for the sort of social hostessing First Ladies were called upon to perform; what she got instead was WWI. She flung herself into supporting the effort (and setting an example) with "gasless Sundays, meatless Mondays, and wheatless Wednesdays" at the White House. In a move that may remind you of Michelle Obama, she set a flock of sheep to graze on the White House grounds, to free up the manpower mowing took, and then had the sheared fleeces auctioned off to benefit the Red Cross.
But she's best known for what she tried to most keep under wraps - stepping in for her husband after he suffered a devastating stroke in 1919. From then until the end of his term in 1921, she read every legislative paper and piece of correspondence sent to the president, dealt with the ones she didn't think her husband needed to bother with, and condensed the rest into easy-to-digest summaries to suit Wilson's weakened condition. She always described herself as a mere steward for her husband's work, but members of the Executive branch tacitly acknowledged she was, in reality, running the show.
She was politically active in the Democratic Party for the rest of her life. Born in the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, she was an honored guest at JFK's inauguration, and died at the ripe old age of 89 in 1961. Hurrah for Edith Wilson!
DEBS: Julia, I love this story about Edith Wilson! I had no idea! I was hoping we'd learn some things we didn't know about First Ladies, and I had great fun hunting up the photos.
READERS, do you have any great stories about First Ladies to share?
