I can’t help but feel I’m doing a disservice by not giving every First Lady some award. Oh well.
Most Helga the Horrible-esque: Helen Taft
Like the comic strip character, Helen Taft constantly berated her husband for his foibles and soft demeanor in the rough and tumble world of pillaging/politics. By all accounts, President William Howard Taft hated politics. He was a lawyer by trade and his dream was to one day be on the Supreme Court. Repeatedly, he ran for office to get his wife to shut the hell up and each time won—the curse of being a generally likeable, nice guy. Helen didn’t just push around the 300-pound Taft, though. When President Theodore starting looking for a Secretary of War in 1904, Helen barged in and pushed Roosevelt into meeting and appointing Taft to the position—despite Taft’s complete lack of military service up to that point. For the record, convincing Teddy Roosevelt of anything was kind of like convincing a lion; I mean people lost their arms doing that. And if that wasn’t enough, Helen symbolically unseated Roosevelt by becoming the first wife of a president to ride alongside her husband down Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day. Traditionally, the outgoing president had accompanied the new president—cramming as much humiliation and overwhelming glee into one carriage as possible.
Acquired the Most State Secrets: Edith Galt Wilson
Famously, Edith Wilson was Woodrow Wilson’s second wife and primary caregiver after his stroke(s). For a little more than a year, Edith relayed information to the “recovering” president and then relayed his directions to the White House staffers, advisors, generals, Cabinet secretaries and other politicians. While this stands as (only possibly) one of the most audacious conspiracies in American history, Edith and Woodrow’s courtship was far more appalling…and juicy! As one joke went, when Edith Galt heard the President propose marriage, she nearly fell out of bed. Moreover, the Washington Post famously ‘misprinted’ a line about the couple (not yet married) at a local theater production. The line “rather than paying attention to the play, the President spent the evening entertaining Mrs. Galt” was actually circulated as, “the President spent the evening entering Mrs. Galt.” Hey-Oh! More horrifying, in wooing Edith, Woodrow routinely shared state secrets and correspondences between world leaders. Woodrow even taught Edith to decode messages from Europe—you know, in case she had to act as president some day, or something crazy like that. For real, it’s not like anything was really going on in European from 1915 to 1919. Oh wait. World War I.
Most Likely to Have Murdered a President: Florence Harding
If Edith’s exploits horrified you, you might want to skip this paragraph because Florence Harding takes the cat (what?) for most potentially dangerous First Lady. When a young Warren G. Harding was the chief editor of an Ohio newspaper, he put his wife in charge of shaking people down for their subscription payments. In 1920, he was coaxed into running but was a long shot. Unsure about a life in politics, Florence went to a fortuneteller who said Warren would win the presidency but die shortly after. This stellar news prompted Florence to begin campaigning for her husband by, again, shaking people down. Two years later, the President became wrapped up in a series of scandals—usually as a result from trusting friendly criminals. While trying to solve the scandals and/or not getting implemented, President Harding died. Several attending doctors disagreed over the cause of death, speculating stroke, apoplexy, heart attack or “angel shortage in Heaven.” Florence made things more difficult by not allowing any autopsies and burning her husband’s correspondences, letters and tell-all memoirs. In truth, several sources heard her tell her husband, during his funeral, “no one can hurt you now.”
Most “Out of his League”: Lou Hoover
Lou Hoover grew up in Iowa as a tomboy who enjoyed camping, hunting, horseback riding and taxidermy (kids never change). She then graduated from Stanford University as the school’s first female geology major. Bored, Lou and her husband moved to China during the Boxer Rebellion and there became fluent in Mandarin—making her first known phrase likely, “Don’t shoot me, I know where the opium is!” During WWI, she helped Belgium refugees and was decorated by the Belgian king. And she spoke Latin. As First Lady, Lou invited Jessie De Priest, wife of America’s first black Congressman, to the White House for tea. This outrageous(?) display of hospitality was unacceptable to several political couples who then refused to come to the White House after it had been “defiled.” Lou gave several radio broadcasts and was praised for having a voice that made Connee Boswell sound like a garbage truck. Lou's husband was Herbert Hoover—one of the least popular presidents in history after his inept handling of the Great Depression, Mexican Repatriation and the "Bonus March" disaster. But Lou was always great.
Also, they should have called her "Babe-raham Lincoln," am I right?
Most Globetrotting (in time, not distance): Eleanor Roosevelt
Aside from her inexplicable ability to swish half-court shoots, Eleanor deserves this title for racking up millions of frequent flier miles before, during and after WWII. In 1918, Eleanor discovered love letters between Franklin Roosevelt and his mistress Lucy Mercer. Playing it cool, Eleanor offered Franklin a divorce but Franklin refused, as he believed no divorced man could possibly have a future in politics. Pause. Okay, so Eleanor never quite gets over the affair—especially since FDR kept seeing Lucy up to the day he died. Literally, Lucy held him as he died. Of course at the time nobody knew about the affair and everybody just thought Eleanor liked traveling. Bob Hope, at the 1942 Correspondence’s Dinner, joked that FDR and Winston Churchill’s hardest task in war planning was finding out where to attack and not have Eleanor get caught in the crossfire. FDR nearly choked on his cigarette, he laughed so hard. When Eleanor finally had to play hostess to the king and queen of England, she served them hotdogs—delighting everybody. Oh, and for speaking in favor of Civil Rights on a cross-country tour in the 1950s, the KKK put a $25,000 bounty on the former First Lady’s head—to which she said (something along the lines of), “Come and get me, assholes.”
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