It’s become something of an impossible problem, but it’s hardly the first time for a First Lady. Unveil your ambitious plan to get your husband’s new Administration to initiate the most sweeping national mental health care reform legislation in… Read More ›
First Families
John Eisenhower’s Death Makes Caroline Kennedy “Dean” of First Kids
Five days before Christmas Day, John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower, the second and only surviving son of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and First Lady Mamie Eisenhower died at his Maryland home. He was ninety-one years old. John Eisenhower was… Read More ›
JFK’s Children: John’s Birthday on his Father’s Burial Day & How Caroline Was Told JFK was Gone
The absence of their mother during the shocking aftermath of their father’s murder had led to several hours of uncertainty about who should first break the news to Caroline Kennedy and John Kennedy, Jr. and how it should be explained…. Read More ›
The Kennedy Family’s Last Weekend Together in Home Movies
Jackie Kennedy returned from her European trip on October 17, 1963 refreshed. In fact, President Kennedy telephoned Greece to speak directly to Aristotle Onassis, who had hosted the First Lady and her sister on his yacht, and profusely thanked the… Read More ›
The House that Jackie Built: Home Movie Inside the Kennedy Weekend Home
Later in life she mused that she might have studied architecture, so interested was she in the design and flowing layout of rooms as the primary blueprint for creating the interior furnishings of a beautiful home. Jackie Kennedy came close… Read More ›
The Kennedy Family’s Last Public Appearance Together
Among the many public projects of Jacqueline Kennedy as First Lady which continue to be overlooked was her ongoing effort to use the expanse of the great South Lawn of the White House as an outdoor space to provide entertainment… Read More ›
Why John F. Kennedy Took His Son to Arlington Cemetery
(This is the first in a series of illustrated articles recounting the last days of the Kennedy family in the White House during November of 1963. Some will be made available for nominal purchase.) The President and Mrs. Kennedy with… Read More ›
The “Lost Girls” Ghosts of a President & First Lady Who Affected Presidential Policy
November first, the day after Halloween, is the religious All Souls Day in the Catholic faith. In the Mexican culture, it has usually been marked with iconography of skeletons and other unearthly representations of dead family members as the centerpiece… Read More ›
The Teddy Cats: Slippers & Quartz Roosevelt, (Cats in the White House, Part 5)
When Theodore Roosevelt succeeded to the presidency upon McKinley’s assassination in September of 1901, he brought not only his wife and five children but soon enough accumulated a breadth of other beings which constituted a bona fide White House zoo…. Read More ›
The Never-Was McKinley Kittens: Neither Killed Cats (Cats in the White House, Part 4)
Presidents and First Ladies are often uncredited for many things which they do. And there are those who are blamed for many things they never did. Like the legend that Dolley Madison started the annual tradition of the Easter Egg… Read More ›