10 Question World Quiz: First Ladies of the United States | U.S. Government

Answer: She refused to attend it

Martha Washington (1731-1802) is one fascinating woman. At a time when wives were expected to obey and admire their husbands, she flatly refused to attend George Washington's inauguration. After years of following him wherever he went during the long battle for America's break from England, she just wanted George and herself to spend the rest of their lives together quietly and privately. It was not to be. Though she came good and played the role of the President's wife loyally after that great occasion, she most definitely dug her heels in at attending his inauguration.

Martha was outspoken but dignified, wealthy in her own right, had a good business head on her shoulders (she ran five plantations after the death of her first husband), and had two surviving children from her first marriage when she married George. It appeared to be a happy partnership, with General Lafayette recording in his notes that Martha loved George "madly". Though unable to free the hundred slaves she had inherited from her first husband under the terms of his will, she was happy to release Washington's numerous slaves when he passed away. Paintings of this first of the First Ladies do not do Martha Washington justice, in fact they seem to have endowed her with a man's face, but it has been recorded in many first hand accounts from the time of her youth, and as she aged, that she was considered "pretty" by all who knew her. She was also elegant, musical, cultured and charming. In short, the perfect wife, and match, for the first of America's long line of presidents.

Answer: Mrs President

Abigail Adams (1744-1818) was a delicate child when young, and taught to read and write at home by her mother. Mama certainly did a good job, for Abigail is considered today to be one of the most intelligent, open-minded, widely read women of her time, with firm and sensible views on women's rights, philosophy and government matters in particular. The hundreds of letters that passed between her and John Adams on his many trips away from home reveal that she had a remarkably incisive mind, and that, indeed, John Adams stood a little in awe of her intelligence and often either bowed to her thinking, or sought her approval of many of his political decisions. Demure and rather shy as a girl, Abigail could, more often than not, be found in the many libraries that filled the home of her relatives. John and she had known each other since small children as they were, in fact, third cousins. Together they had six children.

So active was Abigail Adams in politics and policy making after Adams was elected President, that she was referred to by many of her political opponents as Mrs President. Three examples of this interesting First Lady's canniness follow: On women's rights, in a letter she wrote to John and the Continental Congress in 1776, she requests that they be "...more generous and favorable to (women) than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation". On slavery, which she thought was evil, she wrote that she " doubted most of the Virginians had such "passion for Liberty" as they claimed they did, since they deprive[d] their fellow Creatures of freedom". And on religion, she wrote "When will Mankind be convinced that true Religion is from the Heart, between Man and his creator, and not the imposition of Man or creeds and tests?" One very intriguing woman indeed.

Answer: In a freezing one room cottage

The story of that honeymoon is almost comical. Initially the couple spent two weeks on a plantation owned by Martha's father, but then decided, all dewey-eyed, to make the journey to Monticello for the remainder of that time. They set out happily enough but ran into one of the worst known snowstorms to hit Virginia. Their carriage promptly got bogged in a huge mass of snow, and they had to complete the trip on horseback, arriving at their destination, Jefferson's "mansion", late at night. A building only just begun, this was just a small one room cottage at that time, and very, very cold. Yet it obviously contained happy memories for the pair, for they afterwards named it "Honeymoon Cottage". Such is love.

The Jeffersons were very happy together, but Martha's health was fragile at best. In the all too short ten years they had together, this small woman gave birth to six children, births which worsened the diabetes from which she already suffered. She died four months after the last birth. Initially very slender, with auburn hair and hazel eyes, her weight ballooned out of control as a result of her illness. All who knew this lovely, highly educated and musically gifted woman were impressed by her good nature, and her dedication to raising money towards the cause of independence for the nation. She could however lose her temper on the odd occasion and was known to be rather tart with her responses to Jefferson whenever this happened. Jefferson adored her though, and, following her early death, he passed out into a state of unconsciousness for hours, was inconsolable when he came to, spent three weeks alone in his room barely eating or drinking, and then, a broken-hearted figure given to "violent bursts of grief", spent several months riding endlessly around the grounds of the plantation where they had been so happy together.

Answer: Yellow fever epidemic

Poor Dolly's first husband, John Todd, died at the age of 29 during a terrible 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia that killed over 5,000 people. That death list also included both his parents, and her baby son. She was left on her own with another young son to raise. Well, not quite on her own. Her sister Anna lived with her, as did their household slaves. The following year, Dolly was introduced to the bachelor and politician, James Madison, who was seventeen years her senior, and the pair were married four months later in September. Goodness, he was a fast worker. Retiring from politics in 1797, Madison was only coaxed back when President Jefferson asked him to serve as his Secretary of State in 1800.

In the years before Madison himself became President (1809-1817), Dolly occasionally acted as the widowed Jefferson's First Lady at official events. She furnished the White House during this period as well, with her known elegance and taste. There is a paucity of information on Dolly the person however. What we are given is rather like a public relation's print out. She was responsible for saving George Washington's portrait during the war of 1812, we know, and, with Madison, for mortgaging half their property at Montpelier to keep her son Payne Todd out of debtor's prison (he was an alcoholic). We also know that she was so poor after Madison's death, until Congress purchased his papers from her, that her long term ex-slave, who by then worked as a servant for senator Daniel Webster, often gave her money out of his own pocket on which to live. What a wonderful man! However, of Dolly the personality, we know nothing. That is a real shame, for it is only by knowing these bits and pieces from the leading figures of the past, that they become alive to us today.

Answer: Napoleon Bonaparte

The short and delicate Elizabeth (1768-1830) married James Monroe when she was just seventeen and he was twenty-seven. While in France with Monroe during the time he was serving as Minister to that country from 1794-1796, their daughter Eliza went to the same school that was attended by the step-daughter of Napoleon, Hortense de Beauharnais. Napoleon was married to Hortense's mother, the famous Josephine from 1796 until 1810. Through their daughters, a friendship developed between the two families, and when Monroe was later posted back to France in 1804 for a short period, Napoleon invited the couple to attend his coronation later that year.

From 1801 until her death, Elizabeth began to suffer from a series of seizures and subsequent collapses. These first began at the same time as the birth and death of their only son, James, and are believed today to have been the result of late developing epilepsy. As they began to occur on a more frequent basis over the years that followed, Elizabeth withdrew more and more from attending official functions as First Lady of the United States, after Monroe took up that position between 1817-1825. Their daughter Eliza stepped into the role instead on many occasions. Collapsing near a fireplace during one of her seizures saw the unlucky Elizabeth suffering from severe burns as well. Worn out and exhausted, she finally passed away in 1830, with Monroe dying the following year. Sadly for our sake though, any further details about the real Elizabeth, her thoughts, feelings and beliefs are lost to us forever. Shortly before her death, all correspondence that passed between herself, her husband, and other people of note - was destroyed. That is the real tragedy of Elizabeth's life.

Answer: London

Louisa Johnson (1775-1852) was born to an English mother and an American father. She grew up in London and also spent time in France during the American Revolution. When she first met John Quincy Adams at the age of fifteen, he was more interested in her older sister, but soon switched his attention to Louisa instead. The couple were married seven years later, after overcoming the initial resistance of the groom's father who disliked the idea of his son marrying a girl not born in the United States. Poor Louisa followed John Quincy all over the continent during the first years of her marriage, including a trip of forty days across war torn Europe which terrified her beyond all measure. Prone to fainting attacks and severe migraines, that trip must have almost finished her off completely.

It was only when the family moved to live in Washington in 1817 that her true forte as an outstanding hostess emerged, but alas, the bitterness of politics was not her style, and she eventually withdrew into a type of seclusion, preferring to write and compose music, play her beloved harp, and, interestingly, winding her own silk from the hundreds of silkworms she kept. Becoming more and more depressed as time went by, her husband would later describe their marriage as many "differences of sentiment, of tastes, and of opinions in regard to domestic economy, and to the education of children between us...(but) she always has been a faithful and affectionate wife, and a careful, tender, indulgent, and watchful mother to our children". Damned with faint praise indeed. Louisa on the other hand found her famous husband, and indeed all the Quincy men, to be "cold and insensitive". Still, they managed to muddle along together, and she died in 1852, aged seventy-seven, four years following his death, after a long marriage of fifty years.

Answer: True

Born in 1767, Rachel Donelson was married to Andrew Jackson from 1791 until 1828. Though her husband became the 7th President of the United States, Rachel didn't live long enough to become First Lady. She died the year before he took up that Presidency. Before she met Jackson, Rachel was married to another man from 1787 until 1794, an unhappy marriage that ended in divorce. Or so she thought. She met the future President while he was a solicitor in Ohio, and paying board and rent at her mother's establishment. The young pair married shortly afterwards. That early divorce had never been finalised however, and to the couple's horror, they found they were in a bigamous relationship instead. Food for the scandalmongers indeed and a fact that saw Jackson later involved in a number of duels defending his wife's honour. The wedding proper took place (once more) in 1794.

Rachel was described as being strikingly lovely as a young woman, with shining dark hair and eyes, full red lips, a lovely complexion - and dimples. Goodness, I should be so lucky. The pair were so in love that whenever he was away from home for politics or war, she fretted and pined for him, and on his return, smothered him with love and affection. It's no wonder then that Jackson was so smitten. Beauty, love and adoration in one plump little woman's body. The pair could have no children of their own, but adopted three, two of whom were Indian boys, while the third was the son of her deceased brother. They also became the legal guardians of eight other children, some of whom lived with them. These are all the kind of facts that make the lovely Rachel seem so real today. However, in 1828, at the age of sixty-one, she died suddenly of a heart attack. Jackson was distraught with grief and had to be pulled away from her body. He never quite got over her death, never remarried and suffered from deep depression for months afterwards. One is almost inclined to think that, given such sorrow, the Presidency (1829-1837) for him came as a distraction from his grief.

Answer: Tuberculosis

Hannah Hoes lived from 1783 until 1819, dying at the young age of thirty-five. She was the wife of the 8th President of the United States, Martin Van Buren. This delicate, lovely woman had warm soft hair and big blue eyes, and was known to be extremely shy.

She and Martin were first cousins once removed and had known each other since children. The grey spectre that took this lovely woman's life was tuberculosis. Because she died so young, little else is known of her nature, her likes and dislikes and her hobbies. Nor did she live long enough to become First Lady. Van Buren, who was President from 1837-1841, never remarried after Hannah's death, and died at the age of 79, some forty-three years later. That's a long time to grieve.

Answer: They eloped

How's that for romance? But wait, there's more. Following the honeymoon, when the irate father of the bride confronted Harrision at a social function some time later, and demanded to know how Harrison was going to support his daughter, Harrison responded with "By my sword, and my right arm, sir". So gallant. I just wish he didn't bear such a resemblance to my piano tuner. Anna, incidentally, was quite lovely as a young woman, and had a pronounced dimple in her chin. She lived from 1775 until 1864, an enormously long life for the times, with the last twenty-three years of those as a widow, and only one month of that long life as First Lady. Harrison died one month into his inauguration.

Anna's father was a judge, so she was accustomed to a comfortable life when young. She grew up on Long Island, and, for the times, received an exceptional education. When she was twenty, she met that dashing young soldier who looked like a piano tuner, and he swept her off her feet. She holds the record up to 2015 for being the oldest woman to become First Lady of the US. Harrison didn't take up the Presidency until he was aged sixty-eight. In the interim, they had ten children, with five of them tragically predeceasing them while young adults. After Harrison's death, Anna retired quietly to live with one of her sons, and helped raise his children. One of those children included her grandson, Benjamin, who would go on to become the twenty-third President of the United States from 1889 to 1893. Her other claim to fame is that, under the presidency of John Tyler (1841-1845), he enacted a law that saw Anna became the first First Lady to receive a president's widow's pension.

Answer: Letitia Christian

Born into a well off family, Letitia Christian lived from 1790 until 1842. Records of this charming but frail woman indicate that she was very religious, shy and quiet, with a description from a contemporary stating that she was "the most entirely unselfish person you can imagine". She met John Tyler, the man who would become the tenth President (1841-1845), when she was eighteen. It was a long courtship of five years, and astonishingly so, in all that time, the couple didn't kiss until three weeks before the wedding - and that was when he placed a kiss upon her hand. Dear me, such passion. However he did love her dearly, as evidenced in his only surviving letter from that lengthy courtship. Married for twenty-nine years, the couple had seven children together. Sadly, Letitia suffered a stroke in 1839, and, as First Lady of the Land in 1841, she spent most of that time living in the family quarters of the White House. She passed away one year later from a follow up stroke, earning her the dubious distinction, still so in 2015, of being the youngest First Lady to die while her husband was in office.

Julia Gardiner (1820-1889) was Tyler's second wife and second First Lady. She was the daughter of a Senator and prominent businessman from Long Island. This is amusing: At the age of eighteen she was packed off overnight to Europe to learn how to improve upon her social skills. Why? She had posed, leaning on the arm of a strange gentlemen, in an advertisement for a department store - under the heading of "The Rose of Long Island". She met John Tyler at a White House reception three years later, but didn't care for the much older reserved man at first. In fact she laughed off the poor man's first proposal. It seems her sojourn in Europe hadn't worked one iota. Eventually though, under the weight of his constant attention and gallantry she weakened, particularly so after the death of her much loved father. Oh dear, Freud would writhe in delight at that one. They married quietly in 1844. His oldest daughter, incidentally, was five years Julia's senior, and most definitely did not approve. Nor did another daughter who refused to ever have anything to do with her young step-mother. Oh this is hilarious: A description of this marriage from Wikipedia states that although Letitia "thoroughly enjoyed the duties of First Lady", the President looked "often visibly fatigued by the exertions of marital life". Seven more children issued from this marriage - such stamina on his part! He had the youngest at the age of seventy, but died two years later. Letitia spent the remaining twenty-seven years of her life, living part of it in an exquisite old mansion (now on the National Register of Historic Places), and died from a stroke at the age of sixty-nine.