I don’t usually chase a presidential book with a book about his First Lady. But when I do… I pick a Confederate couple.

(Actually, I just checked and it doesn’t look like I’ve ever done this… Confederate or otherwise.)

I admit, I was playfully annoyed with @Historywithher for telling me about Presidentess: The Life of First Lady Julia Gardiner Tyler by Christopher J. Leahy and Sharon Williams Leahy… which had a pub date eleven days before my John Tyler presentation. That’s not enough time to read and doodle my way through 300 pages! Luckily, the book arrived early. And thank goodness — it was such a treat to get to know Julia.

There are a handful of storylines here that are absolutely 🤯🤯🤯 enough that any one of them alone would have been worth reading. You’ll just have to trust me on that, because I’m not giving any spoilers.

Read it yourself, ok? (And then let me know what you think.)

PS I love being sent off to explore tangents while reading; it’s one of my favorite things. There were too many with this book to fit here; they’re gathered in a separate post.

Flip through my sketchbook.

Then scroll through more doodles. As always, my doodles don’t necessarily highlight the most important parts of the book. And they are in no particular order. Certainly not chronological. No spoilers.

USS Princeton

I would have thought I’d be bored when the USS Princeton appears because by now I’m sure I’ve learned all there is to know and holycrapIhavenot.

The Big Huge Hoopla aboard the ship wasn’t something that President Tyler was invited to. It was an event carefully orchestrated for Tyler’s “maximum political benefit” (in the Leahys words). Also, he hoped it would impress Julia Gardiner because (as I learned in the last book I read) they did not meet on the ship like I’ve thought for years.

Tyler bragged about “the three big guns” aboard:

Oregon
This was originally named Orator and built in Britain, but we renamed it. We were having a border tiff with them over in Oregon and also there was the whole thing with Texas, who we wanted but the British quite fancied them as well.
Peacemaker
Made in the USA, this “monster gun” was a “glutton” … and also not well made. Kinda (literally) blew up in our face to demonstrate how superior our weapon was right next to a weapon made by our competition that we renamed after the argument we’re having.
Richard Stockton
Stockton did not think it was a good idea to have this type of event (particularly with women on board) and lost sleep worrying about “some accident” or “unpleasant incident” that might occur.

Also, I always thought Senator David Gardiner was a senator. He was. Past tense. As in, he served for one term … seventeen years before the explosion. He was not a sitting senator at the time.

They went bowling on their honeymoon

Even though I know Abe Lincoln used to bowl, it still tickled me to learn this.

Sigh… the French secret…

I’m not going to get into the details here (because just read the book) but my jaw was on the floor with this section….

Julia’s mom begged her to stop at one kid. The thing is, her husband was much older and people laughed at their age difference and what better way to silence the haters than to have boatloads of kids and prove you’ve still got it.

Even if pregnancy was incredibly dangerous at the time. For Julia. Not him. Obviously.

Tyler joked that he hadn’t been “an idle drone since [he] parted with politics and the politicians” and bragged to his sister “so you see I am not likely to let the name become extinct” while she covered her ears and say lalalalala to drown him out. (Kidding about the last part.)

Queen Victoria showed up!

Pregnant again, Julia was bummed but vowed not to “sit down and mope”. Her mom cautioned her not get lazy as she “increase[d] in fat”.

This made me think about how Queen Victoria’s doctor wrote that she was “unhappily very fat” and her uncle was like “have you tried getting taller?” or some such nonsense.

Becoming Queen Victoria: The Unexpected Rise of Britain's Greatest Monarch by Kate Williams (The doodle below was inspired by this book, too.)

In any case, Julia heard that Queen Victoria used chloroform or was planning to during childbirth. Julia was curious. (She didn’t end up trying it.)

BTW: shortly after Queen Victoria got married, she was pregnant… and not happy about it. “I must say that I could not be more unhappy; I am really upset about it and it is spoiling my happiness”, noting that she’d prayed “to be left free for at least six months, but my prayers have not been answered and i am really most unhappy.” Both women would have benefitted from birth control and now I need to add a book to my list about the history of it.

Fast forward to when Queen Victoria’s son visited the United States: Julia heard that Harriet Lane (who served as her uncle President James Buchanan’s First Lady) invited Prince Alfred to visit the former president. She wrote to her daughter Julie suggesting Julie’s husband call on the prince and invite him.

It’s unclear if Prince Alfred wore this outfit while in the states, but I can’t be sure. Also, my doodle is off-base. He showed way more leg.

Varina Davis

Varina Davis (married to Jefferson Davis) jokingly called Julia “my beautiful stepmother” because her sister married Julia’s stepgrandson, William Griffin Waller I. When I looked into him, I was surprised to learn he died in 1894 because I learned in the last book I read that he was killed in action during the Civil War. Friends, the Civil War had ended nearly three decades before he died.

Whoops.

Glad I cleared that up before my John Tyler presentation. (Also, my presentation mentioned that three of Tyler’s grandsons fought for the Confederacy. Yup. Plus a fourth.)

Please look at this photo.

Started the tradition of hanging First Ladies’ portraits in the White House!

It’s unclear whether President Johnson’s tour (pointing out presidential portraits) sparked the idea. Or if she came with that idea already loaded and ready to go.

Nevertheless, she gifted him her portrait. With detailed instructions on where to hang it, lol.

First Lady Julia Grant found the portrait in the attic, had it cleaned, hung, and showed Other Julia when she visited. (I wondered which Julia was older at the time… the First Lady of our 10th president. Or the First Lady of our 18th. Any guesses? Julia Tyler. But only by six years… even though they served 24 years apart.)

Julia Gardiner Tyler’s son was “nearly apoplectic” (Leahys’ words) that she’d call on First Lady Grant… who was married to a guy he called a “pig-headed ass.”

Mary Lincoln says: nope

She did not think that “a woman who was so bitter against our cause during the war” deserved a pension.

(The bottom left is Sherwood Forest, their home in Virginia.)

Since we’re talking about Mary Lincoln, I’d like to point out that Julia Gardiner Tyler (a New Yorker married to the only president to join the Confederacy) signed her name with her maiden name throughout her life, while Mary Lincoln (from a slaveholding family; married to the guy who defeated the Confederates and, you know, ended slavery) did not. She was branded “Mary Todd Lincoln” by her late husband’s friend/former law partner William Herndon who was an asshole and wanted to tie her to her slaveholding family to smear her reputation. Hear it from historian Alexis Coe here.

Julia was there when they figured out Hayes vs. Tilden

…which I thought was cool… but not as cool as Cornelia Adele Strong Fassett! She painted The Florida Case Before the Electoral Commission. It took her two years to paint and featured all 256 attendees, 60 of whom were women (including herself and Julia Gardiner Tyler). She gave everyone in attendance the opportunity to sit for their painting; some had multiple sittings.

When I checked out the key, I was surprised to recognize two of the signatures: James A. Garfield and George Frisbee Hoar. (Check this out to see why I was so excited to see them.)

Frances & Julia

Frances Cleveland and Julia were our youngest two First Ladies, but they had even more in common:

Much older husbands
From New York
Brought their moms to the White House

This made me think of my Venn diagram with Frances (excuse the typo) and Jacqueline Kennedy (Onassis), the only women widowed by presidents who remarried.

The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and Vilifies the Courageous Newspaperman Who Dared Expose the Truth, by Matthew Algeo

Wore John’s face

When I read that Julia wore a giant brooch with John Tyler’s face, I assumed she started doing that when she was newly widowed.

Nope.

It started around the time their youngest daughter, Pearl, got married. She wore the brooch to Grover Cleveland’s inaugural ball (as well as other events).

BTW

Julia wrote her letters… then turned the paper 90 degrees and kept right on going. Can you imagine having to read through her papers?! Thank goodness the Leahys did it for us.