1889-1892
Caroline Lavinia Scott, daughter of Prof. Scott, President of Oxford Seminary, was born in Oxford, Ohio. She married Benjamin Harrison in 1853, before he attained his majority. Nearly forty years passed in congenial companionship, before death deprived him of a faithful and devoted wife. She was talented in music and painting and had decided literary taste. She was also an earnest church worker and truly charitable. Her social bearing in her high station was dignified, womanly and hospitable, and her death during her husband’s term cast a heavy shadow over its closing months. They had two children, Russell and Mary. The latter, Mrs. McKee, made her home at the Executive Mansion, assisting her mother most graciously in her many and varied social duties. After Mrs. Harrison’s death, she assumed entire charge as mistress of the White House, until the close of her father’s administration in 1893.
CAROLINE SCOTT HARRISON
Copyright 1903, by Bureau of National Literature & Art.
Ida Saxton McKinley
TWENTY-FOURTH PRESIDING LADY
1897-1901
Ida Saxton, daughter of a prominent banker of Canton, Ohio, married Wm. McKinley in January, 1871. She was a devoted wife and inspiring companion in whose sound judgment her husband placed entire faith, while her personal attractions were also great. An enduring sorrow, caused by the deaths, in infancy, of the two children born to them, added to a chronic physical ailment, rendered her an invalid. Therefore, when appearing at public functions she received her guests seated. However, the death of the President’s mother early in his term, and the grave situation resulting from the war with Spain, suppressed the festivities at the White House temporarily. Mrs. McKinley sustained a terrible shock in the assassination of her husband, early in September, 1901, from which she has never entirely rallied, although she shows great resignation, and a devotion to her husband’s memory as great as that bestowed upon him in life.