White House gossip : $b from Andrew Johnson to Calvin CoolidgeColman, Edna M. (Edna Mary)
History
White House gossip : $b from Andrew Johnson to Calvin Coolidge
Colman, Edna M. (Edna Mary)
Presidents -- United States -- Biography; Washington (D.C.) -- Social life and customs; White House (Washington, D.C.)
The sympathetic interest in the White House romance expressed itself in
gifts of all kinds and descriptions, coming from all sources and from
all classes of people. Finally, the numbers of presents reached such
proportions that the effort which had been made to catalogue, classify,
and acknowledge them had to be abandoned by Mrs. Wilson’s secretary and
be delegated to the White House office staff.
Because of the desire of the President to keep all of the details of
his marriage as simple and informal as possible, the names of most of
the donors of the gifts were withheld from the public. A few, however,
were known.
The joint gift of the Virginia delegation in Congress was a silver
loving cup in the form of a beaker with massive silver handles. It
stands two feet high on a pedestal of ebony, and is appropriately
inscribed. Citizens of Wytheville, the birthplace of Mrs. Galt, sent
handsomely framed miniatures of the bride’s father and mother, Judge
and Mrs. Bolling, painted by Miss Ellen Douglass Stuart, a niece of the
late Gen. J. E. B. Stuart and a talented artist.
Among the most unique of Mrs. Wilson’s gifts were a wonderful scarf
sent by the former Queen of Hawaii; the statuette of Pocahontas, the
gift of the Pocahontas Memorial Association; the queer old painting of
Pocahontas sent from Scotland in recognition of Mrs. Wilson’s descent
from the Indian maid; the gift of the splendid collection of furs
from the Blackfeet Indians of the National Glacier Park reservation,
consisting of the selected skins of forty-eight animals native to the
western part of the United States; a bracelet of Brazilian gems and an
ornament of rare tropical feathers presented by Dr. A. J. de O’lvera
Botelho of Brazil, the first of the delegates to arrive in Washington
from the Pan-American Scientific Congress; and a basket woven from
Georgia pine needles and filled with the biggest Georgia pecans the
Confederate veteran giver could find.
The Wilson honeymoon and all of its details were of such interest that
papers published estimated summaries of the expense involved as follows:
COST OF WILSON HONEYMOON
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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