Of Pranksters, Pets, and Peaceful Transitions: Presidential Tidbits of Trivia

As long as I can remember, I’ve loved history, particularly presidential history. Visiting Washington’s Mount Vernon and Jefferson’s Monticello at a young age arrested my senses and filled me with an enduring fascination. To this day, rattling off the Presidents in order as I learned to sing them to the tune of “Ten Little Indians” is an enjoyment.

So in the spirit of celebrating our rich tradition of peaceful transitions and the dignity, elegance, and ceremony of an inaugural weekend, here are a few tidbits of trivia about Presidents and First Families past and present. As a contextual aid, the numbers in parentheses indicate the place each President holds in the order, from 1^st to 45^th.

-          Melania Trump (45) is the second First Lady of foreign birth. The first was English-born Louisa Catherine Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams (6).

-          Richard Nixon’s (37) daughter Julie married Dwight Eisenhower’s (34) grandson.1

-          Donald Trump is the 45^th President, but only the 44^th man to be President. How does that work? We can thank Grover Cleveland for the confusion. He served as the 21^st and 23^rd Presidents, with his first term from 1885-1889 and his second from 1893-1897.

-          Sandwiched in between Cleveland’s two terms was Benjamin Harrison (22), who was the only President to be a grandson of another President, namely William Henry Harrison (9).

-          William Henry Harrison (9) not only was the oldest President to be elected at the time, but also was the last President born as a British subject (i.e. before American independence) and the first to die while President. He was also President for the shortest amount of time, having died one month into his term.2

-          “Thomas Jefferson [3] had a pet mockingbird named Dick, who would hop up the stairs beside him when the president retired for the evening.”3

-          George H. W. and Barbara Bush (41) have become the longest married Presidential couple just this month, celebrating 72 years of marriage.

-          John Quincy Adams (6) served in the House of Representatives after his Presidency.

-          More Presidents (eight) have been born in Virginia than in any other state. They are George Washington (1), Thomas Jefferson (3), James Madison (4), James Monroe (5), William Henry Harrison (9), John Tyler (10), Zachary Taylor (12), and Woodrow Wilson (28). The runner-up is Ohio, with seven, and with Donald Trump’s inauguration, New York has emerged out of a tie with Massachusetts for third place. President Trump joins Martin Van Buren (8), Millard Fillmore (13), Theodore Roosevelt (26), and Franklin D. Roosevelt (32), to be the fifth President born in New York. Massachusetts is the birthplace of four Presidents, John Adams (2), John Quincy Adams (6), John F. Kennedy (35), and George H. W. Bush (41).4

-          Barron Trump (45) is the first male First Child to live in the White House since John F. Kennedy, Jr. (35) in the 1960s.

-          Gerald Ford (38) was the only President to serve, not having been elected as President or Vice President. He was nominated as Vice President by Richard Nixon (37) to replace Spiro Agnew, and became President upon Nixon’s resignation. He lost his subsequent election run to Jimmy Carter (39).

-          James Buchanan (15) was the only bachelor President. His niece, Harriet Lane, served as First Lady.5

-          The terms of Bill Clinton (42), George W. Bush (43), and Barack Obama (44) [1993-2017] marked the first time we saw three consecutive 2-term Presidents since Thomas Jefferson (3), James Madison (4), and James Monroe (5) [1801-1825].

-          “Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. [26] had a pet macaw named Eli Yale. Other Roosevelt pets included raccoons, snakes, and badgers—and some plain old dogs.”6

-          President Coolidge (30) was known for being a prankster. One trick he pulled off as President was to push every button on his desk in the Oval Office, only to run and hide behind the door as every aide, assistant, and Secret Service member rushed in to answer his call.7

-          Andrew Jackson (7) and Chester Arthur (21) were both widowers by the time they were President.8

-          William Howard Taft (27) is the only former President to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

-          “Grace Coolidge [30] had a pet raccoon named Rebecca.”9

-          George Washington (1) not only set the precedent for serving only two terms (which precedent was broken by FDR and then made the law of the land by the 22nd Constitutional amendment in 1947), he also sent a profound nonverbal message on the day of John Adams’s (2) inauguration. The swearing in ceremony took place indoors in Philadelphia, after which the former President (Washington), the new President (Adams), and the Vice President (Jefferson) would exit to a waiting crowd of the populace. Instead of exiting first, Washington consciously stepped back and made way for Adams, so that Adams would be the first one the people saw. Had he exited first, he would have been sending the message that he was still really in charge, but he deferred to Adams, silently proclaiming that the first peaceful transition of power in American history was real and effective.

      Photo credit: Alandra Blume Hinkle. Used with permission.

[1] Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, “The Nixon Family,” https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/thelife/thenixonfamily.php (accessed January 21, 2017).

[2] Biography.com Editors, “William Henry Harrison Biography,” Biography.com http://www.biography.com/people/william-henry-harrison-9329968#synopsis (accessed January 23, 2017.

[3] Catherine O’Neill Grace, The White House: An Illustrated History (New York: Scholastic, 2003), 122.

[4] Chris Cillizza, “Where every president was born, in 1 map,” Washington Post, January 14, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/01/14/where-every-president-was-born-in-1-map/?utm_term=.b80fadfa43c4 (accessed January 21, 2017).

[5] C. Brian Kelly, Best Little Stories from the White House, (Nashville: Cumberland House, 1999), 377.

[6] Grace, The White House, 122.

[7] Kelly, Best Little Stories from the White House, 54.

[8] Ibid., 377-378.

[9] Grace, The White House, 122.

God of the Body, King of the Highway, Lord of All

Unwittingly or not, we in the Church have fostered the perception that there exists a hierarchy of prayer requests. Ask for salvation of someone’s soul or boldness in sharing the Gospel, and the request is treated as of utmost worthiness. Ask for physical healing for yourself or a loved one, and the request is noted but often with an aside about spiritual encouragement or, if need be, spiritual healing being added to the request. Ask for safety in traveling, and the request is acknowledged almost in passing.

Granted, in some ways these assigned values make sense, for Scripture does teach that eternal things are of the most importance (see Matthew 6:19-21; Matthew 16:26). We can have perfect health on this earth, yet our eternal health is based not on that but on the status of our soul: dead or reborn. Conversely, a person’s physical death, say for instance in a car accident, is not what determines the eternal destination of his or her soul. It’s what we do with Jesus that determines that.

However, the concerning effect of perpetuating such a value hierarchy is manifold. First, the mindset, taken to the extreme, implies that our physical bodies and circumstances don’t matter. But we know, again from Scripture, that this is not true. Multiple times God speaks of caring for the poor and needy (e.g. Deut. 15:11; Acts 2:45). Furthermore, God designed and created our physical bodies, so it stands to reason that He cares about them. 

Sometimes, though, it seems we fail to acknowledge our need. Sure, when it’s cancer or another serious disease, we recognize our inability to bring about healing ourselves. But when it’s a cold or a headache, or some other “minor” thing, we muscle through in our own strength, not thinking to ask our Maker for assistance and healing. Similarly, when we’re pulled over on the side of the hail-assaulted interstate because a tornado is heading straight for us (yes, that has really happened to my family and me), we plead for God’s protection. But when we’re embarking on our routine drive to work, we don’t sense a need for protection.

Another, related, unfortunate effect of devaluing certain prayer requests is the implication that God’s power only extends to the spiritual realm. We know that it is His power that awakens our souls and gives us new hearts in repenting and believing in Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross, but we reject the doctrine of Deism, which posits that God merely created the world then lifted His hand as He stepped back from any level of involvement in it. The truth is, God is Jehovah Rapha, i.e. the Lord our Healer (Exodus 15:26), and He has the power to heal physical ailments and diseases from big to small.

His power is not limited to the inner workings of the body, though. He is sovereign over external forces as well. The Psalmists speak of God’s protection on numerous occasions (Ps. 5:11, Ps. 68:5, Ps. 91:14, etc.), and there are many accounts of God’s delivering His people from physical danger, even specifically when it comes to travel. In Ezra, we see one example.

Ezra, a priest and prophet living in Persia during the exile (see the previous post for more context on the captor empires), had been called to lead a large contingent of exiles back to Jerusalem. The western journey was a long, treacherous one, and Ezra and his people had no military escort to defend them (see Ezra 8:22). But they had God. “And Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king. For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him” (Ezra 7:8-9, ESV, emphasis added).

Not only did God protect the returnees, but they knew that He was able to even before He did, and they asked Him to shield them as they traveled. Ezra recorded, “Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods” (Ezra 8:21, ESV, emphasis added). To them, asking for safe travel wasn’t a minor, insignificant thing. They knew that they could face very real danger from enemies and the elements, and they were convinced that God could protect them from both. In fact, they took the potential threats so seriously that they didn’t just pray, they fasted. They obviously thought the request was worth asking.

Let us be the same. Let’s not think God is too small or too unconcerned with healing our physical bodies or protecting us while we are on the road or in the air. Let’s also not think ourselves invincible to illness or accidents. Instead, let us cast all our cares on Him, knowing that He does care for us and that He will answer “according to the counsel of His will” (1 Peter 5:7; Ephesians 1:11, ESV). That means, of course, that His answer might be “No.”

Sometimes, no matter how fervently or frequently we pray for healing or protection, God still allows physical death to come or traumatic accidents to occur. Even then, we see that He is sovereign, that life and death are held in his hands, and we can trust that His purpose will still prevail. As the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, how He answers is His prerogative, but far be it from us to neglect to ask.

Photo credit: Casey Cruver. Used with permission.