24 Feb Descendants Newsletter- February 24, 2024
AMAZING: THE SOCIETY OF PRESIDENTIAL DESCENDANTS
This past week, we had the opportunity to watch a panel of Presidential Descendants at the Truman Little White House in Key West.
Left to Right above are Kurt Graham, Moderator and Director of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum; Clifton Daniel, Harry Truman’s grandson; James Earl Carter IV, Jimmy Carter’s grandson; Patricia Taft, William Taft’s Great Granddaughter and the Granddaughter of Senator Robert Taft; Mary Jean Eisenhower, Dwight Eisenhower’s Granddaughter, and Massee McKinley, William McKinley’s Great-Great Nephew. It was interesting as there were descendants of two Republicans and three Democrats (the third Republican, Ulysses Grant’s Great-Grandson, had to cancel).
Afterward, I learned that Massee McKinley was also the great-great-grandson of Grover Cleveland. He never spoke of that, which I thought was odd because rather than being a great nephew, he was a direct-line descendant of Cleveland. All I can guess is that he trades off his surname, McKinley. So, he’s not a double-descendant, sort of a one and a half, more about double-presidential descendants in an article below.
The panel started with over 100-year-old perspectives of differences as McKinley selected Teddy Roosevelt as his Vice President, who handpicked Taft, then changed his mind and ran against him. Truman offered that if Eisenhower ran as a Democrat, Truman would be his Vice Presidential candidate, and then Eisenhower ran as a Republican. The added dimension was that Eisenhower beat Taft’s son, Robert Taft, to secure the nomination. And, of course, Jimmy Carter is still alive at 99.
Here are some gleanings: The moderator asked about their ancestor’s campaigns, and it emerged that McKinley twice beat William Jennings Bryan, Truman beat Thomas Dewey, who had already lost to Franklin Roosevelt, and Eisenhower beat Adlai Stevenson twice. He observed that both parties had nominated someone who had already lost once. The audience chuckled thinking of the upcoming election, where Trump hopes to be the second Grover Cleveland. We covered two of these stories in our December 2, 2023, edition with” Dejavu at the Ballot Box”
James Carter is the owner of Carter Research, which is an opposition research company. He talked about how his namesake grandfather did not actively campaign against Reagan, as the negotiators told him that it could undo the deal with Iran to release the hostages.
Taft’s great-granddaughter told the story of William Howard Taft being a “stress-eater” and how he ballooned to 340 lbs in the White House and was our largest president.
Truman’s grandson told the story of how he went to school with Thomas Dewey’s grandsons in NYC and would tease them by making a train whistle sound, as the perception was that Truman beat Dewey with his whistlestop campaign.
McKinley’s Great Grandnephew told of how his ancestor campaigned off his front porch in Canton, OH, which was the appeal to the commoner in small towns. After a speech, he and his wife would escape out the back door and return to another home a couple of blocks away, where they stayed during the campaign because so many favor-askers would knock on the door of their home at all hours. Their home today serves as the First Ladies Museum.
Eisenhower’s granddaughter told the story of hearing as a child, and it was being openly discussed in the family that the Interstate System was being funded as a defense initiative to ensure it was easy to move troops and supplies cross-country. One of the supposed design features was that there had to be a mile of straight road for every five miles of road that could be used as a runway. The Federal Highway Administration differs in their view:
https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/mayjune-2000/one-mile-five-debunking-myth
Eisenhower got his pilot’s license as a soldier. He did not get his driver’s license until he was 74. The sheriff in Eisenhower’s Gettysburg Farm community asked that he get another retirement hobby rather than driving, as he would take off driving through the Gettysburg Battlefield. She also shared the next story.
The picture below is labeled “General Dwight D. Eisenhower meets with U.S. soldiers from Co. E, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, just before they load up for the drop on Normandy on June 5, 1944. Most of the men in this photo were killed or wounded in battle a few hours later.” Mary Jean said that in a later interview with the soldier with the #24 sign, he said that Eisenhower asked him about fishing. Mary Jean said that he was focused on helping the boys relax, knowing many would soon face death.
I found a 2018 article about 42 presidential descendants gathered together in a Washington D.C. summit:
https://www.washingtonian.com/2018/08/26/a-whole-bunch-of-presidential-descendants-are-about-to-be-in-the-same-place/
The article mentions a distant cousin of mine, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, whom I had an article about in April 2022: https://gem.godaddy.com/p/7d17c31
Contents
GIVE ‘EM HELL HARRY
A couple of days later, we saw the play “Give ‘Em Hell Harry,” a one-person play for which James Whitmore (above left) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of former U.S. President Harry S Truman, but now is played by his grandson Clifton Daniel, member of the Presidential Descendants (above right), at the Truman Little White House.
One nugget was that Eisenhower had requested in writing Army Chief of Staff George Marshall (as in the Marshall Plan) if he could return home from Europe to file for divorce from his wife to marry his chauffeur Kay Summersby (see picture below). Marshall told him no. When Truman was president and was told of the letters residing in Eisenhower’s file, he advised Marshall to get the letters and destroy them. Imagine if they had fallen into the wrong hands during Eisenhower’s campaign. I would imagine Mary Jean Eisenhower seeing the play, but no doubt she had already heard the story. There is some debate about this story; here’s a link to the story and its responses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Summersby
Another nugget was Harry’s response to a poor review of his daughter’s performance in the first photo up top.
ARE THERE PRESIDENTIAL DOUBLE-DESCENDANTS?
Of course, you must exclude the people who descend from John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Harrison, and George W. Bush, as presidential descendants themselves, all of their descendants would all be double descendants.
The only double descendants of presidents I knew of were Jennie, Melanie, and Alex Eisenhower, who descend from Republican President Eisenhower and his V.P. Richard Nixon as Nixon’s daughter Julie married Eisenhower’s grandson David (pictured below). Interestingly, Jennie is a Democrat and voted for Barack Obama.
As I mentioned in a July 1, 2023, article, that while my wife is not blood-related to Richard Nixon’s daughters, her relationship would be that her maternal aunt was Nixon’s cousin by marriage. By marriage, her paternal uncle’s father was Nixon’s second cousin. She is not keen on my idea of starting “The Barely Related to a President Society”.
The only other president double-descendant I could find was when Benjamin Harrison’s Granddaughter, Dr. Jane Harrison (Walker) Garfield (1929-2020), married Newell Garfield (1923-2003), a great-grandson of 20th President James Abram Garfield. Their daughter, Eliza Newell Garfield, is the only person who descends from three presidents (Garfield and the two Harrisons). Eliza’s only children were adopted, so biologically the line has played out.
Dr. Jane Harrison Walker was born and raised in NYC. Jane was the daughter of James Blaine Walker and Elizabeth Harrison Walker. Born in Indiana in 1897, she graduated from New York University School of Law in 1919 and was admitted to the bar in Indiana and New York.
Jane’s mother Elizabeth Harrison (pictured above) participated in a 1916 Emergency Services Corps camp in New Jersey. This camp was conducted in the name of military preparedness as tensions grew in Europe, though the intention was never to train women for the trenches but rather to train women on how better to serve the war effort. At this camp, women learned to shoot rifles, ride horses, practice flag signaling, hike for 30 miles at a time, and perform first aid procedures. As a side note, her husband was a grandnephew of James G. Blaine, a presidential candidate who lost in 1884 to Grover Cleveland by only 57,000 votes and 37 electoral votes.
Dr. Jane herself graduated from The Chapin School, Bryn Mawr College, and Cornell Medical School, where she was one of only two women in her graduating class. Jane had a remarkable career as a doctor. After medical school, Jane ran the pulmonary clinic at Bellevue Hospital for much of the 1960s and early ’70s and worked on the initial cure for Tuberculosis (INH). Subsequently, she headed up the international medical department of Mobil Oil.
In 1961, Jane married Newell Garfield Jr, grandson of another president. and became the stepmother to Newell’s four children. In 1962, Newell and Jane welcomed their own daughter, Eliza.
In 1983, Jane and Newell moved to Hope Town, Bahamas, to run three island clinics for over a decade. “Newie” played the pharmacist, x-ray technician, and general business manager role there. At the same time, “Dr. Jane” doctored the people of Elbow Cay, Man-O-War Cay, and Guana Cay, commuting by boat between the islands and joining all kinds of local activities and organizations on each island.
In the early 1990s, they moved to Blue Hill, Maine, and became active in the community. Jane and Newell purchased the MedNow clinic in Ellsworth, where Jane worked full-time. After Newell died in 2003, Jane ran MedNow until 2012, when she retired and established the Free Clinic in Blue Hill. Jane served on the boards of the Peninsula Ambulance Corps, the Blue Hill Library, and the Congregational Church.
WERE NIXON AND EISENHOWER’S DESCENDANTS INSPIRATION FOR A ROCK AND ROLL SONG?
The song, Fortunate Son was released during the peak period of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, is not explicit in its criticism of that war in particular, instead, it “speaks more to the unfairness of class than war itself,” according to its author, John Fogerty. “It’s the old saying about rich men making war and poor men having to fight them.” In 2015, while on the television show The Voice, he also said:
The thoughts behind this song were a lot of anger. So, it was the Vietnam War going on. … Now I was drafted, and they’re making me fight, and no one has actually defined why. So, this was all boiling inside of me, and I sat down on the edge of my bed, and out came, “It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son!” You know, it took about 20 minutes to write the song.
According to his 2015 memoir, Fogerty was thinking about David Eisenhower, the grandson of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who married Julie Nixon (pictured above) after he escorted her at the International Debutante Ball, the daughter of then-President-elect Richard Nixon in 1968 when he wrote “Fortunate Son”. Eisenhower spent three years in the military, most of it as an officer aboard the USS Albany in the Mediterranean Sea.
“Fortunate Son” wasn’t really inspired by any one event. Julie Nixon was dating David Eisenhower. You’d hear about the son of this senator or that congressman who was given a deferment from the military or a choice position in the military. They seemed privileged, and whether they liked it or not, these people were symbolic in the sense that they weren’t being touched by what their parents were doing. They weren’t being affected like the rest of us.
USE AI TO WRITE YOUR BLOGS AT YOUR RISK
The Hive Law must be using AI to write their stories, as they say in the article below:
• There were three father-son presidents in the history of the United States
The Adams family had:
• John Adams – 2nd President
• John Quincy Adams – 6th President
The Harrison family had:
• William Henry Harrison – 9th President
• John Tyler – 10th President
The Bush family had:
• George H.W. Bush – 41st President
• George W. Bush – 43rd President
John Tyler was William Henry Harrison’s successor, not his son. You can guess where the AI got it wrong, as successors are often sons, and sons are often successors, even though no son has ever immediately succeeded his father as U.S. President.
https://www.thehivelaw.com/blog/are-all-presidents-related-us-presidents-family-tree/
THE HISTORY OF BOOP
In honor of Black History Month, we share the story of Baby” Esther Lee Jones, billed initially as Little Li’l or Lil’ Esther, a child entertainer living in Chicago, Illinois. She was initially managed by her parents, Gertrude and William Jones. Esther was a trained scat singer, dancer, and acrobat who performed regularly at nightclubs in Harlem and all over the United States in the 1920s. In her act, “Baby Esther” danced, made funny faces, rolled her eyes, and—most famously—interpolated wordless phrases such as “Boo-Boo-Boo”, “Wha-Da-Da”, and “Doo-Doo-Doo”.
By 1924, she was being managed by Lou Bolton. According to Bolton, Esther began using wordless syllables in her singing between 1926 and 1928, when she arrived in New York. That year, Tony Shayne, Jones’ New York booking agent, also served as the booking agent for Helen Kane. In the later Kane v. Fleischer court case, Bolton claimed that Kane first saw Esther perform in 1928 when the former had a ringside seat with Shayne at the Everglades Club on Broadway.
While touring Europe in 1930, Esther had already been honored, along with Josephine Hall, as representatives of both African Americans and the United States of America.
This comparison between Kane and Betty Boop was published in Photoplay’s April 1932 issue (above, with a photo of Esther next to her), one month before the lawsuit was filed, where singer Helen Kane sued Fleischer Studios, claiming that they had appropriated her persona for the voice of the cartoon character Betty Boop, the studios defended themselves by arguing that Kane’s style of singing—characterized by her baby voice and use of the phrase “boop-boop-a-doop”—was not her invention.
Theatrical manager Lou Bolton testified during the Kane v. Fleischer trial that Kane saw Baby Esther’s cabaret act in 1928, in which Esther used interpolated words such as “boo-boo-boo” and “doo-doo-doo”. An early test sound film of Baby Esther’s performance was used as evidence. Other evidence introduced at the trial included a recording by the Duncan Sisters and testimony from performers such as Bonnie Poe, Margie Hines, and Little Ann Little, who testified that she had been singing in a baby voice and using interpolations such as “bo-de-o-do” for several years. The court ruled against Kane.
REMEMBER ALL OF THOSE HIJACKINGS?
We spotted this plane behind a fence at Key West Airport. Here’s the story about it:
Hijacked Cuban Plane Lands In Key West
March 21, 2003 / 12:55 AM EST / AP
A Cuban airliner carrying 29 passengers was hijacked at knifepoint Wednesday night and landed under U.S. military escort in Key West, U.S. authorities said.
Six hijackers took over the plane and surrendered to authorities in Key West, said FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela in Miami. They will face federal hijacking charges, she said.
There were no immediate reports of injuries among the hijackers, passengers, or six crew members. Five of the passengers were minors, an airport spokesman said.
It was not immediately known what motivated the hijackers. Nor was their destination clear.
The plane departed from Cuba, and air traffic controllers at Miami International Airport spotted it on radar at about 7:45 p.m. They were unable to make voice contact, said FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen.
Bergen said that Air Force fighter jets were sent from Homestead Air Force Base, and the Douglas DC-3 was escorted to Key West.
An airport worker said he saw the plane land at about 8:20 p.m.
“It was followed by three or four U.S. Navy jets. The plane sat on the runway for about 15 minutes before the doors finally opened,” Robert Accerra said.
The hijackers surrendered to airport police on the tarmac, said Peter Horton, manager at Key West International Airport. Passengers were brought into the airport within a half hour.
The alleged hijackers were in FBI custody, and U.S. Customs agents were interviewing the passengers, said sheriff’s spokeswoman Becky Herrin.
“The hijackers were separated fairly quickly from the passengers and crew. Everyone’s OK,” she said.
The plane took off from Nueva Gerona — the principal city on the tiny Isle of Youth, about 185 miles southwest of Key West, according to civil aviation authorities reached by telephone in Havana late Wednesday.
The Cuban aviation authorities did not know who owned the plane, but Florida officials said Aerotaxi owned it.
State-owned Cubana Airlines provides passenger service between Nueva Gerona and Havana using Soviet-era Antonov AN-24 planes.
The hijacking follows strained relations between the United States and the Communist-run island. Late Tuesday, the communist government announced the detentions of several dozen opponents and said U.S. diplomats may no longer move freely around the island. Descendants.
WHAT ABOUT YOUR DESCENDANTS?
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