Jackie Kennedy about to helicopter off away from the White House for one of her famous “Thursday-to-Tuesday” weekends at her private home in pastoral Virginia, her daughter seated on her lap.
The Trumps in their apartment home.
Melania Trump, the president-elect’s spouse and their 10-year old son Baron will remain at their New York apartment through at least the end of the spring 2017 school year, it was announced earlier this week.
The decision does not necessarily mean she will be separated from Donald Trump, given his suggestion that he will use the White House to essentially conduct work but living as often as possible at the New York apartment.
Barron Trump stares at his parents interacting on Election Night.
The decision is apparently being made to permit the youngest of Trump’s five children by three wives time to reasonably adjust to the high-visibility and high-security home life to be had on the second floor of the nation’s most famous and continuously-occupied residence.
Despite all the glamorous backstory of Mrs. Trump’s career as an uber fashion model, she has intently focused all of her attention on protecting and raising her son.
Mrs. Trump embraces her son as an infant in the gold apartment they call home.
A talented linguist who speaks five languages herself, she’s taught him to speak her own native Slovenian, although he has not been strictly home-schooled.
Also, while uniformly supportive of her husband, she has shown scant interest in any derivative personal glory she can garner from her husband’s publicly flamboyant words and deeds.
Melania Trump exits New York restaurant Serafina with her son Barron. (TMZ)
Yet even by not living with the visibility of White House occupancy, Melania and Barron Trump are already experiencing the often oppressive nature of presidential fame.
Taking her son out for lunch on a school-day off last week at the New York City Italian restaurant Serafina, inside the bubble of Secret Service agents, their presence stirred rapid-word-of-mouth momentum even outside the eatery.
By the time they left, there was a thick crowd of curious public waiting on the sidewalk, aiming their camera phones for a snap as mother and son were whisked into a armored car and back to the golden tower they call home.
Trump leads, wife and son follow, at their Florida estate.
It is expected that Mrs. Trump will make the 45 minute plane trip from New York to Washington when formal entertaining at the White House might beckon her presence.
From all accounts, it is clear that it has been his mother who has singularly raised Barron Trump and served as his primary caretaker.
It isn’t, however, without historic precedence although one must go back more than a century to find parallels.
Louisa Adams, feeling trapped and lonely in the White House, raised silkworms.
Just as Melania Trump, born in what is now the nation of Slovenia when it was under control of the Soviet Union’s Communist puppets, will be the first First Lady from a foreign country since the tenure of Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, wife of sixth president John Quincy Adams (1825-1829), she will also be the first presidential spouse not to assume occupancy on the first day of her husband’s presidency since Anna Harrison, who’s husband William Henry was inaugurated on March 4, 1841.
An older woman, burdened by the grief of an adult son’s death to alcoholism, she lingered behind at the family’s North Bend, Ohio farm, intending to take the arduous stagecoach ride to Washington when the dirt turnpikes were easier to travel. Substituting for her in the First Lady role of hostess was her widowed daughter-in-law, Jane Harrison.
Anna Harrison, who didn’t move into the White House when her husband first became President – and never got a chance to do so.
Anna Harrison was packing for her new life in the White House, when she received word by a relay of messengers on horse that her husband had died in what was then also commonly called the Executive Mansion. Thus, this First Lady became a presidential widow before she ever had a chance to publicly serve as White House,
There were lots of Harrison kin living in the White House during his one-month presidency. but no spouse.
There are two other direct parallels, even further back.
Abigail Adams was not present in the then-capital city of Philadelphia for her husband’s March 1797 inauguration, remaining home in Massachusetts where she was caring for his dying mother.
She did come to live in the Philadelphia Executive Mansion for at least as many months as is anticipated in the case of Melania Trump.
Abigail Adams preferred living home at her Massachusetts farm.
Detesting the fact that her position made her recognizable, she felt as if she were always on public display.
The Philadelphia Executive Mansion.
She was also financial manager of their struggling Massachusetts farm and felt her presence there to be necessary.
John Adams welcomes Abigail Adams upon her long-delayed arrival at the White House.
In fact, during the four years of her husband’s presidency, Abigail Adams only spent a total of 18 months living in the Philadelphia Executive Mansion and the White House in Washington.
Elizabeth Monroe did not move into the White House until seven months after her husband’s March 4, 1817 inauguration – but then, neither did he.
Elizabeth Monroe.
At the time, the rebuilding and new furnishing of the White House was not yet complete, following the building’s near-total destruction in August 1814, when British troops burned all but its four sandstone walls during the War of 1812.
The Monroes moved in that autumn, the President having directed the furnishing, importing a great deal of furniture he’d purchased in Europe from the estates of deposed nobility. There was a preponderance of gold and gilt in Monroe’s White House.
The lavish gold dining room centerpiece and gilt chairs bought for the White House by the Monroes.
Eight spouses didn’t move into the White House the same day their husbands became President because of the sudden nature of their assumption of power, inheriting the position due to death, assassination or resignation: Letitia Tyler, Abigail Fillmore, Eliza Johnson, Edith Roosevelt, Grace Coolidge, Bess Truman, Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford (Chester Arthur, who became president when Garfield was assassinated, was a widower).
Frances Cleveland.
The Cleveland home they called “Oak View,” but the public called “Red Top” because of its red roof.
Frances Cleveland moved her two-year old daughter Ruth, herself and the President out of the White House during his second, non-consecutive term which began in March 1893.
In 1886, anticipating his marriage to the young Frances, the President purchased a large private home set in a thicket of woods several miles from the executive mansion in an area they popularized, known today as Cleveland Park.
Although some sources indicate that the Clevelands sold the house in 1889, after he lost his initial bid for re-election, they may have either leased the house or one near it during his second term; it is unclear.
Frances Cleveland with two of her three daughters, Marion and Esther.
The Clevelands did, however, frequently return for long stays in the White House: Frances Cleveland, the only First Lady married in the White House, also became the only First Lady to give birth there, her daughter Esther born in what is now the private dining room on the second floor in 1893.
Two years later, a third daughter, Marion, was born at the presidential summer retreat in Buzzard’s Bay, Massachusetts.
When she noticed that tourists were taking one of her baby daughters out of a pram and passing the child around as the helpless nurse stood by, Mrs. Cleveland knew they couldn’t live full-time in the White House.
There are only two relatively recent examples somewhat analogous to that of Melania Trump.
The “summer” White House in Independence, Missouri.
Bess Truman, who truly hated publicity, resisted for nearly six months the reality of how her life would have to change following her husband inheriting the presidency after FDR’s April 1945 death.
Bess Truman enjoyed tending to the flowers of her garden back home in Independence, Missouri.
To physically escape it, she not only spent all three summer months back home in her Missouri Victorian mansion, but also took a lengthy holiday season break there as well.
Initially, at least, her lengthy absence from White House life it was explained as a family obligation, so she could tend to her elderly mother who still lived there.
Glen Ora, the first of First Lady Jackie Kennedy’s two different private homes in Virginia.
Jacqueline Kennedy spent many of her famous “Thursday to Tuesday” weekends at “Glen Ora,” a private home in Middleburg, Virginia that she rented about an hour south of Washington, so she could also ride horses in relative privacy.
Jackie Kennedy riding near the Glen Ora stables.
Here she also took both of her young children, Caroline, only three years and three months old at the time her father became president, and John, Jr., an infant barely two months old.
President Kennedy pets one of his wife’s horses.
Of course, it there was any home Jacqueline Kennedy truly cherished it was the White House, and she lavished her talents and time in working to furnish it with an historical context of the president and American history, taking enormous pride in her effort. It was just not the most private place for a young family to flourish.
With his true family life being based here, President Kennedy was increasingly drawn away from the White House on weekends to be with them, when he wasn’t scheduled at events around the nation.
The First Lady welcomed the President of Pakistan upon his arrival at the private home of the Kennedys, 1962.
Inevitably, this soon enough drew Cabinet members, advisors and even visiting heads of state who came to meet with JFK there, thus nullifying one of Jackie Kennedy’s original reasons for having a home away from the White House.
The JFKs and her German shepherd Clipper at their home Wexford.
When she planned “Wexford” (named in homage to JFK’s Irish ancestral origins) her own mid-century modern split-level house as their permanent home retreat in 1963, she had it constructed on land more isolated in a spot far more remote than Glen Ora had been.
If that wasn’t enough to keep outsiders at bay, she hoped the name of its location would do the trick.
It was built on “Rattlesnake Mountain.”
Categories: First Families, First Ladies, The Kennedys, The Trumps
I’m sorry but its not a matter of being away or moving in late. I can’t recall a President who had school aged children over the past 70 years who did not move into the White House. The Carters moved Amy to a new school. The Bush’s moved their girls to a new school. And the Obama’s. Mrs. Trump will be the first not to move her children into the White House in January – which honestly does begin a new term for most children. Naturally a mother and father have a right and responsibility to their children. But oddly enough I cannot imagine the Trumps to refrain from the advantage of the Air Force’s ample fleet of planes between La Guardia or JFK or a Naval Base and DC on a weekly basis. And I think that’s where it will get interesting. Because Obama was vilified for his use of the Presidential plane – the Trump’s will try to use their own plane but the Air Force will nix that. Having a child at boarding school was common – many Presidents did that. This is highly unusual. Also since Herbert Hoover I’m unaware of a President who has had so much security in New York – a very expensive place indeed.
Have to comment — the purple-ish suitcase being loaded into the helicopter is from T.Anthony (still going strong in NYC). Both Mrs. Reagan and Marilyn M favored the red color. Elton John has hundreds of gigantic, hard sided TAnthony luggage for when he travels.
(Oh, and they do free repairs for life.)
(Just FYI!) xo