White House gossip

by Edna M. Colman

Among the many budding projects to which Mrs. Harrison gave the support and encouragement of her active interest and the prestige of her name was that of the newly formed national society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which now numbers more than a quarter of a million women, and which is the most potent factor in the preservation of American patriotic traditions and the greatest existing force in directing the education of the children of the country toward an understanding and an appreciation of the principles and standards formulated by their forefathers.

Mrs. Harrison accepted the leadership of this patriotic society, serving as its first National President General. Her influence went far toward giving its growth the needed impetus. Patriotic societies were not plentiful, and in the East, no organization of descendants of the Revolution save that of the Sons of the Revolution existed. This association, meeting in Louisville, Ky., in April of 1890, cast a vote excluding women from membership, although the original organization formed in California in 1875 had both men and women on its roster.

When the news of this action was broadcast through the press, Miss Eugenia Washington, great-grandniece of General George Washington, decided that it was time for women to form a society of Daughters. With the aid of Mrs. Ellen Hardin Walworth and Miss Mary Desha, of Washington, D. C., the Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in August of 1890. Meanwhile, Mrs. Mary Lockwood, member of the National Press Association, aroused to protest against the action of the “Sons” in Louisville, published in the Washington Post the story of a Revolutionary War heroine, Hannah Arnett, as an illustration of the fact that women were worthy of honour for their service in that conflict as well as men. Mrs. Lockwood, not being in the city at the time of the meeting, could not be a founder but was given an especial honour for her service through the press.

After a time, when Mrs. Harrison’s health began to decline, Mrs. McKee made the White House her home and relieved her mother of the greater part of the routine, particularly that of correspondence.

But it is not so much for the pleasant and important official functions that the twenty-sixth administration is remembered as for the picture of delightful home life presented by these doting grandparents and their little folks.

Their first grandson, Benjamin Harrison McKee, was the autocrat of the White House, around whose daily performances and schedule of living volumes were written, and this publicity was shared by his baby sister and his little cousin Marthena Harrison. From the time young Benjamin smiled and cooed at the crowds at the Harrison home in Indianapolis, where he got the name of “Baby McKee,” until the little Cleveland lassie usurped his Washington residence, he held the centre of the stage. Idolized by his grandparents, the chum and special playfellow of the dignified President, he became a national figure as much discussed as his elders.

With all of the President’s dignity and conventionality, he did not hesitate an instant in giving chase in all of the inappropriateness of frock coat and silk hat when, one day, the goat team elected to run away with Baby McKee, dashing directly out of the grounds and into the street. However, young Benjamin sat tight, and the anxious grandfather reached him in time to prevent a real catastrophe.

The critics who accused Benjamin Harrison of being “an iceberg” should have seen him romping with the children of the family.

The presence of these little folk was the incentive for many delightful children’s parties, particularly during the holidays, and Colonel W. H. Crook, so long attached to the White House, has claimed that the first White House Christmas tree in his memory was the very large, gorgeous one put up in the library the first Christmas of the Harrison administration, in the trimming of which the President, all of the family, and the staff assisted. It carried toys not only for the children of the family but for everyone attached to the White House and their families. Around it, too, were piled the hundreds of gifts and remembrances sent by friends and presidential admirers.

Mrs. Harrison’s social plans had many unhappy interruptions through the unusual number of deaths in their immediate and official family. The first of these, about at the beginning of their administration, was that of Mrs. Lord, Mrs. Harrison’s sister, a resident of Washington and an employee of one of the government departments, who had also kept house for their aged father, Dr. John Scott. Mrs. Harrison was untiring in her devotion to her sister, and after Mrs. Lord’s death, took her father and Mrs. Mary Lord Dimmick, Mrs. Lord’s widowed daughter, to the White House to live.