Grace
Grace Coolidge said that her marriage to Calvin Coolidge united two people of “vastly different temperaments and tastes.” These two vastly different people loved each other deeply. Like every other successful couple, they learned to make it work.
The public came to know her husband as Silent Cal. Secret Service agents who worked with the couple called Grace “Sunshine.”
Secret Service agent Edmund Starling, First Lady Grace Coolidge,
President Calvin Coolidge, and agent Jim Haley leave the
First Congregational Church on Thanksgiving Day, 1925.
Grace was a beautiful woman with thick, curly dark hair. Her eyes were gray-green. From the time she came to Washington as the wife of Vice President Coolidge, the public saw her as glamorous. She was 44 years old when she became an immensely popular first lady.
Warren G. Harding and his wife, Florence, with Grace and Calvin Coolidge
just before Harding and Coolidge were inaugurated in 1921.
Before her marriage, Grace had been a teacher of students whose hearing was impaired. For the rest of her life, she had a special interest in helping children who were deaf and people with disabilities. The president joined her in this interest. At the end of his presidency, their interest helped to raise $2 million for the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Grace Coolidge invited people with disabilities to the White House. She especially enjoyed Helen Keller.
Grace Coolidge with Helen Keller
The first lady loved baseball. She gained the nickname The First Lady of Baseball. The American League sent her a yearly pass.
Grace Coolidge sits by her husband as he throws out a baseball at a game.
Grace Coolidge at a baseball game
Grace Coolidge was a devoted mother to her two sons. When Calvin Jr. died at age 16, the very religious Grace believed that he would be waiting for her in heaven. She spent her lifetime being close to her son John and eventually to his wife and two daughters.
Grace Coolidge enjoyed inviting children to the White House.
Grace Coolidge with children in colonial costumes
Like other first ladies, Grace had many responsibilities.
Many involved meeting with people from a variety of organizations.
Tasting a Girl Scout cookie on the grounds of the White House
Visiting at Walter Reed Hospital
Grace Coolidge with a child promoting Christmas seals
Handing out presents to children in December 1927
Planting a tree at the Lincoln Memorial
One of her last duties as first lady was planting a tree at a Washington, D.C., playground.
Girl Scouts watch as the first lady plants a tree at a Washington, D.C., playground.
While in college at the University of Vermont, Grace Coolidge lived at home with her parents. She and 13 other women applied to the national Pi Beta Phi sorority to begin a chapter at the university. The new chapter met often in the attic of her parents’ house. Grace continued lifelong friendships with her sorority sisters, who eventually began writing round robin letters to each other.
While Grace Coolidge was serving as First Lady, 1300 members of her sorority came to visit her at the White House. They donated to the White House this portrait of Grace by Ohio-born artist Howard Chandler Christy.
Grace Coolidge’s frugal husband enjoyed one expenditure that seemed out of character. He loved to buy clothes and hats for Grace. I thought you would enjoy seeing Grace Coolidge wearing fashions of the 1920s.
Calvin and Grace Coolidge at the circus
After leaving the presidency, Calvin and Grace Coolidge returned to their rented duplex in Northampton. However, their fame caused them to lose their privacy there, so they purchased a home called the Beeches, the only home Calvin Coolidge ever owned.
In retirement, Coolidge wrote articles for magazines and wrote an autobiography. He also wrote a syndicated column called “Thinking Things Over with Calvin Coolidge.”
On the morning of January 5, 1933, Calvin Coolidge went to his office in Northampton to work. He returned home later in the morning and had a short conversation with his wife. Grace left to do some shopping. When she returned, she discovered that he had passed away from heart failure. He was sixty years old.
Grace Coolidge lived as a widow for 24 years. She began to write magazine articles. She also wrote an autobiography. Mrs. Coolidge volunteered with the Red Cross and with her local church. In 1939, when Nazis were wreaking havoc in Europe, she raised money to bring refugee children to America. She also continued going to her much-beloved baseball games.
Grace Coolidge died in 1957 at age 78. She was an excellent example of a wife who loved and gave grace to a husband who was so different from herself. In his Autobiography, Coolidge said: “For almost a quarter of a century she has borne with my infirmities, and I have rejoiced in her graces.”
Coolidge also wrote: “What men owe to the love and help of good women can never be told.”
An excellent wife, who can find?
For her worth is far above jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
And he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good and not evil
All the days of her life.
Proverbs 31:10-12
To read Charlene’s entire series on Calvin Coolidge, click here.
All photos courtesy of the Library of Congress.