LUCY WEBB HAYES.
Mrs. Hayes is the product of the last half of the nineteenth century, and in her strong, healthful influence gives the world assurance of what the next century women will be. Her life, for many years, was spent before the public, and she so fully identified herself with her husband’s administration that it can never be remembered apart from her. She gave her every thought to the maintenance and advancement of her husband’s fame and name as the Chief Magistrate of the United States; she deemed no act, however insignificant of itself, too slight to be considered unimportant if, in its results, it could add to his renown. In no one particular did she so ably display her strength of character as in commanding, by her strict adherence to her domestic duties, the recognition due her for her able performance of the responsibility devolving upon her as the counsellor and friend of the President. Mrs. Hayes went to the White House prepared through her happy married life, through her winsome, cheerful spirit; through her long experience in official circles; through her intelligence and culture, and her social rank and attributes, to fill the highest place a woman can occupy in a Republic. Through her husband the dignified place she filled was hers, and in the daily performance of the pleasant duties of hostess of the Executive Mansion she thought of his honor first. In the results attained by her was again exemplified the truth of the old adage that we cannot rightly help others without helping ourselves. She, in lending additional strength to her husband’s administration, commanded increased respect for her sex. She gave the world a fair example of the power for good which a woman of fine breeding and social opportunities can exercise. Mrs. Hayes called forth, through her successful efforts in placing herself beside her husband in his official rank, a more just appreciation of her womanhood and a higher reverence for the relations of wifehood and motherhood. This service, though it has not been generally recognized as such, is perhaps the greatest she could have done the world. The assertion will be endorsed when the fact, which cannot be controverted, is recognized, that great men in this country have not always been fortunate in being wedded to representative women. From the time of Franklin down to the era of Henry Clay, and even more recently, the wives of many of the leading public men of the country have not been remarkable. It will require but little effort to recall the many representatives of the commonplace in women who have filled—or rather failed to fill—the places made theirs by reason of their husbands’ positions. The harmony of domestic life has been lost to public men, no less than to those not known to the public, by their refusal or their inability to recognize the individuality of their wives and the duty these same wives owed to society and the world at large. Ignorance and prejudice, combined with jealousy, have cost men in their domestic relations more misery than the world readily perceives, but it is gradually coming to appreciate the fact through the tares that have come up in the places where a harvest was anticipated. People do not gather grapes from thistles nor figs from thorns with any greater success than in olden times. And from the days of Socrates down to that of President Hayes homes have been bright and happy, or otherwise, according to the respect in which the women at the head of them were held. Many of our great men have left an unpleasant record of their domestic lives, and the retribution has come in the misconduct of children, sometimes to the third and fourth generation. Mrs. Hayes, in her honored place, helped men and women to realize the glory of life when love is its impelling power; and in the hearts of women this feeling was much strengthened by observing the universal and spontaneous reverence exhibited toward a woman who was strong in herself and in the public position she sustained.
Mrs. Hayes was born in Chillicothe, when it was the capital of Ohio, and was the daughter of Dr. James Webb, and the granddaughter of Dr. Isaac Cook. The Webbs were natives of Granville county, North Carolina. In the last century three worthy brothers belonging to this family went out from home to carve their own way. One of them became a leading merchant of Richmond, Virginia; a second one lived near his old home, wedded to farm life; and the third removed to Ohio and became a prominent physician. This latter brother was the father of Lucy Webb. He died in 1833, of cholera, in Lexington, Kentucky, where he had gone to complete arrangements for sending slaves to Liberia who had been set free by himself and his father. The maternal grandfather of Miss Webb was one of the first settlers of Chillicothe, and belonged to the best Puritan stock of New England. Her mother, Mrs. Webb, was a lady of unusual strength of character and of deep religious convictions. After the death of her husband she removed to Delaware, in order to be near the Wesleyan University, where her sons were educated. Her fortune was ample, and she was enabled to give her children every advantage. In order to be near them she fitted up a cottage on the college grounds, and her house was thenceforth a happy gathering-place for the classmates of the brothers at holiday times. She studied with her brothers and recited to the college instructors, and had the advantages of a training which prepared her for the Wesleyan Female College at Cincinnati, which she entered at the same time that her brothers commenced their studies in the medical college. She was peculiarly fortunate in having as her early teachers the professors of the university at Delaware, and it is no small credit to the denomination to which she belonged to have it said that it gave to both sexes the best school advantages to be procured in the West in that day or at the present time.
The training of girls was not considered as important twenty-five years ago as it is now, and when the opportunities enjoyed by Miss Webb are considered, together with the fact that she was a graduate of the first chartered college for young women in the United States, it will be realized from whence came her executive ability and well-balanced character. She was, while at the college in Cincinnati, under the instruction and in the family of Rev. Mr. and Mrs. P. B. Wilbur, and her stay with them was a season of enjoyment and study. It was during her life in this school that her affections were engaged by Mr. Hayes, then a promising young lawyer of Cincinnati and a native of Delaware. She was at the Delaware Sulphur Springs enjoying a vacation when she formed his acquaintance, and he thenceforth became a frequent visitor at the Friday evening receptions held at the college parlors. The expression the vivacious under-graduate made upon him during this summer vacation is expressed in a letter he wrote to a friend in Delaware after his return to the city. He says: “My friend Jones has introduced me to many of our city belles, but I do not see any one who makes me forget the natural gayety and attractiveness of Miss Lucy.”
Her schoolmates have many pleasant memories of her. One of them, writing of her in 1880, while she was yet in the White House, referred to her great likeness to her mother in mental and moral qualities in this wise, and thus speaks of one of her traits of character. She says: “There is one trait in the character of Mrs. Hayes which I should like to emphasize. She absolutely will not talk gossip. Even in the intimate confidences of daily intercourse she is as guarded as in the presence of a multitude. The Executive Mansion has for its mistress one who is a living exemplification of Christ’s Golden Rule. Except in very rare instances, when some act of oppression to the poor or the defenceless outrages her sense of right, she is always thoroughly kind in expression. I think this trait of carefulness for the feelings of others a gift from her mother, who had a nature exceedingly genial and kind. It is indeed a blessed thing for our country that such a woman had the training of our President’s wife.”
While yet at school Miss Webb became a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and was even in those early years ardently attached to the duties and requirements of a Christian life, and in this, as in other respects, followed closely in the footsteps of her mother. She was a clever student, as one of her companions in school admits in a letter in which she says: “Lucy Webb was a first-class student in botany and other studies, and I have reason to recall my feeling of mingled annoyance and admiration as our teacher, Miss De Forrest, would turn from us older girls to Miss Webb, who sat at the head of the class, and get from her a clear analysis of the flower under discussion, or the correct transposition of some involved line of poetry. Somewhat of this accuracy was doubtless due to the fact that she had been trained in the severe drill of the Ohio Wesleyan University. She remained in the Ladies’ College of Cincinnati until she completed its course of study.”
In 1852, two years subsequent to her meeting with Mr. Hayes, the young lady, whom he had courted most assiduously while she was yet engaged with her studies, became his bride. The marriage ceremony was performed by Professor L. D. McCabe, of the Wesleyan University, December 20, 1852, and the only attendant of the young pair was a pretty child of eight years, the daughter of the bridegroom’s only sister. It was a simple, unpretentious wedding, attended by loving friends, and crowned by the most absolute affection. It has proven a marriage of absolute happiness, and the successful career of Mr. Hayes is in a large measure due to the devotion of his wife, and the intelligent appreciation of his aspirations which she had, and which she inspired and encouraged. This sentiment of loyalty for and faith in her husband is one of her admirable traits, and it has been one which has greatly endeared her to others; “all the world loves a lover,” runs the old saying, and if the feeling entertained for Mrs. Hayes by the public were analyzed it would be found to be due to her womanly and wifely qualities and to the healthful atmosphere of her home-life. Several incidents which aptly portray the sensitive appreciation she has of what is due the fame of her husband from her are related, the following being a prototype of many told. Soon after Mrs. Hayes reached the White House she was visited by the wife of a minister of Washington, and asked to forbid the use of wine in the mansion during her stay there. Mrs. Hayes heard the request with polite surprise, and replied in these words: “Madame, it is my husband, not myself, who is President. I think that a man who is capable of filling so important a position, as I believe my husband to be, is quite competent to establish such rules as will obtain in his house without calling on members of other households. I would not offend you, and I would not offend Mr. Hayes, who knows what is due to his position, his family and himself, without any interference of others, directly or through his wife.” This reply, in the face of the fact that Mrs. Hayes was a strong temperance woman, a Methodist, and very likely as entirely decided in her mind then as later regarding the subject, is a pleasing evidence of the earnest self-respect of the President’s wife. As to the stand she did take, the following letter, written by Rev. Dr. Read, fully explains. The subject created considerable discussion at the time and afterwards:
“Mrs. Hayes has decided that hereafter, while she occupies the White House, there shall be no wine upon the table, even upon state occasions, when American citizens dine with the President. Noble stand for a noble Christian woman! God be praised for such a grand, heroic woman to occupy the highest social position in the nation at this time! It is an answer to prayer. She comes from Ohio, where the woman’s crusade against intemperance began, and where she caught from her Christian sisters something of that noble, heroic spirit that dares to do right in the face of the world. Henceforth the name of Mrs. Hayes shall be enrolled with the noblest women of the race, and with the Marys who stood by the cross of Jesus, even when all the men, except the womanly John, had deserted him.”
President Hayes, whose public life for a quarter of a century has been a series of successes, was the youngest child of Rutherford Hayes, who died before his son’s birth. The mother upon whom the sole care of the family devolved, and the only parent her boy ever knew, was a character of rare sweetness and strength. She was left in straitened circumstances, but was a self-reliant woman and a good manager, and she was able to give her children excellent educational advantages. Mr. Hayes was a graduate of Kenyon College, Ohio, and of the Cambridge Law School. In 1845 he was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Ohio, and began his legal life in Fremont, his present home. He removed to Cincinnati in 1850, and resided there for many years. Mr. Hayes was twice elected city attorney of Cincinnati, and at the outbreak of the civil war entered the army as Major of the 23d Ohio Volunteers, of which General Rosecrans was Colonel and Hon. Stanley Matthews Lieutenant-Colonel. During the war he was four times wounded, and served with distinction until the close, though he was elected to Congress before peace was declared.
Mrs. Hayes spent two summers and a winter taking care of her husband’s soldiers, and they loved her for her motherly ministrations to them in their hours of sickness and mental dejection.