Grace Anna Goodhue was born in Burlington, Vermont on January 3, 1879. She married Calvin Coolidge in 1905 and rose with him to prominence in our nation as First Lady of the Land, serving from 1923 to 1929. In Vermont, we remember her with a marker at the home where she lived during her college years at the University of Vermont, 312 Maple Street. A college dorm at the University of Vermont is named after her and the faculty dining room is decorated with her memorabilia. We also have a bronze bust at the Coolidge Foundation’s national base in Plymouth, Vermont. Mrs. Coolidge’s letters are scattered in repositories from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. to the Forbes Library in Northampton, MA, to the Vermont Historical Society in Barre, Vermont. This year, two sets of letters were donated to the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation creating a new repository for future scholars. I will draw on information from these newly donated letters in my talk today.

We do not have childhood materials or letters from Grace Anna Goodhue. In contrast, relatives did save Calvin Coolidge’s school essays and diaries. However, when Ms. Goodhue began the Pi Beta Phi fraternity chapter at the University of Vermont, she began to write to the national fraternity. A curator at those archives has shared materials with us. Grace’s first letter as corresponding secretary to them lists the active members of the Vermont Beta.

Grace Goodhue befriended Ivah Gale from Newport, Vermont at the University of Vermont. Later in life, Grace wrote, “Totally unlike in every way, we became fast friends and I knew in her the strong ties which often bind together two sisters.” Ivah, according to Grace, “is a wonderful person, the most unselfish person I have ever known.” Both of them graduated from the University of Vermont and entered the teaching profession. Grace taught at the Clarke School for the Deaf. Once she started dating Calvin Coolidge, living in a nearby boarding house in Northampton, MA, she kept his letters. They are now at the Vermont Historical Society. What I have gleaned from them was their common interests and his romantic interest in Grace.

Grace Goodhue’s letter to her best friend, the woman she called sister, on the eve of her marriage to Calvin Coolidge in 1905, shows her mixed thoughts at the time.

“My dearest beloved sister: It isn’t without a great big sigh and a bigger little pain down in my heart that I begin this my last letter before the scene is changed. That might surprise my mother who claims to believe that I have no feelings, because I don’t talk about them. I sometimes think that those who can speak of them don’t always have the most sensitive ones. I don’t know why it is—I’m sure nothing can ever make the tie between you and me any less strong, Gaby—but there is something about it all that makes me a little sad. Mercy, I don’t expect to die or be buried alive after the fourth and I do expect we shall all see just as much of one another as when we were both “single”. If I can’t be with you quite as long every summer, you are to make it good by spending just so much more time with me. I am sure that you and Calvin are going to like one another very much. He is quiet and doesn’t say much but what he does say amounts to something. That’s one thing I like about him. Miss Willonghby was having some work done at the dentist’s in Northampton the other day and Dr. Nichols said that he was glad Coolidge was going to get married and he hoped his wife would be somebody who would train him right. He said he didn’t talk enough, that people thought him unfriendly when quite the opposite was true. I knew that would amuse Calvin so I wrote him about it and he wrote back that he expected I’d make a great deal better man of him but that he didn’t believe I’d ever get him to talking much.” …”but far more than the gift do I prize the love which prompted it and the expression of it in your letter did me no end of good. These last weeks have been pretty hard for us all, I guess. Mother isn’t very strong and she feels a little bit hard because I am going so hurriedly and sometimes she says things which strike in pretty deeply. She and Calvin set the time but she says he was very persistent. He talked with father later in the day and he called him very reasonable. Well, it is almost over, anyhow, and time will effect a cure, I think. Everything now stands ready, and even the City Clerk has been warned to make sure of no delay. Calvin, Dr. McCormack, and Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge came to town Tuesday. The Humphreys, Stevenses and Ethel will be here. An aunt of Calvin’s and her husband may come. I cannot remember how much of this I have told you. I’m sure I told you what I was to wear. Calvin appears in a Prince Albert and (?) hat, I believe. Of course, he changes before we go. We shall leave on the 4:20 or so, (I forget which it is), for Montreal. We shall probably stay there over Sunday and come back here early in the week, pack up, and start for Northampton. Yes, you are so faraway that it is only too safe to tell you where we are going...

Her conclusion:

“I’ll surely not forget to tuck in that dollar. Be sure and write to me at the usual time, and send the letter here, then I’ll get it on my way back. I’ll be looking for that “note before the fourth.” With unending and unbounded love, Always your own devoted Sister.”

Grace Coolidge did marry Calvin and did continue to write her friend. Tucked inside an envelope dated September 10, 1906, one day after the birth of their first son, was a surprise to me, a note from the new father, Calvin Coolidge. “Our boy came Friday at six p.m. Grace and he are perfectly well. She was sick only a short time. He has blue eyes and dark hair. He will be light like his Aunt Ivah. Grace and the boy send love.”

At this point, I have not found many letters during the years when Grace and Calvin raised the boys (Calvin Jr. was born on April 13, 1908) and Calvin stepped up the political ladder in Northampton, Massachusetts. Of course people are more apt to save letters from the White House years and thereafter, once someone is well known. Grace wrote her Pi Beta Phi fraternity sisters over the years with round robin letters and many of these are saved.

I have found some interesting letters from the White House years to share with you. She wrote her fraternity sisters, August 21, 1923, “Good morning to you all. Alice in Wonderland or Babe in the Woods—however you wish to regard me—I’m here and nothing has happened to me.” She wrote to Ivah, “This is a beautiful old house, rich in memories and traditions. Those who live here are of necessity very much hemmed in by form and circumstance but there are many compensations.”

The boys both attended Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, about an hour from Washington, D.C. The last letters of Calvin Junior from the school to his parents show a sharp mind and a loving boy. Knowing as we do that he will be cut down in his prime by a blood infection that summer, the letters are a poignant reminder of a boy just growing and studying. He was so smart. He showed interest in technology and current events beyond his years. What a flame to be snuffed out.

At age 15, Calvin Junior lived at home during the summer while they were at the White House (in August, 1923) and traveling. Calvin described his harvesting of tobacco that he was doing in August near his home in Northampton. He biked to work.

Then, there are the Mercersburg Academy letters that Calvin wrote to his mother when she was at the New Willard Hotel (she and her husband lived there during his Vice Presidency) and at the White House. Obviously Calvin Jr. was a better student than his brother John and that created some tension between them. Both liked to report about sports and Calvin Jr. even enclosed a picture of himself and his brother watching a Cross Country race. Often the boys seem forlorn. Here they are an hour from Washington and writing for some basics such as overshoes for the snow. Calvin seems to watch out for his parents being exploited by others. He sent a letter from a man seeking the president’s signature (torn up) “Some nerve. I suppose he thought he could fool me easier than you.” He suggests his mother not lay the cornerstone at the chapel at the school since “He (Dr. Irvine) wants to get you into the movies.”

Ironically Calvin Jr. discusses death in some of these letters. He describes the funeral of a Mercersburg boy and refers to two poems on the subject. He comments on missing his mother. This must have been the real reason for not wanting her to come to school. “I felt pretty homesick after you left, mother. I have only been afflicted with that two or three times since I have been here.” This last letter is one from both boys. John Coolidge writes that his brother is to be called “the biggest drag in the lower class” in the yearbook. Calvin Jr. writes of his new trouser size. It is quite a sad chapter in history that we lost this boy of such promise.

In July of 1932, Grace wrote her son, John (age 25) and his wife, Florence, from Plymouth, Vermont. She was vacationing there with husband Calvin and walking their dog Timmy to the cemetery where their son, Calvin Jr. is buried. She began by writing of the memory of her son, Calvin Jr.’s smile:

The letter includes these passages:

“I think of Calvin’s smile—somehow, this morning it seemed very vivid and I thought of the last afternoon, eight years ago, when I leaned over his bed knowing that he was fast slipping beyond the reach of my voice, perhaps even then would not hear, and I said, “You’re alright Calvin, as I had said it so many times in the days when he was troubled about some little matter. Without opening his eyes, he nodded his head, ever so little and the flicker of his old smile came and was gone. Then, they began giving him oxygen and kept his heart beating but his spirit had slipped away. All the afternoon, dark, awe-inspiring clouds had rolled across the sky, the lightening was almost constant and thunder followed it in mighty roars of majestic power. Calvin’s delirium seemed to be apart of it all and, for a long time, he seemed to be on a horse leading a calvalry charge in battle. He called out, “Come on, come on, help, help! And, for a time, he thought he was sitting backwards on his horse and asked us to turn him around. Father put his arms under him and tried to persuade him that he had turned him but he thought he was still wrong side around. Finally, he relaxed and called out, “We surrender, we surrender!” Dr. Boone said, “Never surrender, Calvin.” He answered only, “Yes.” And some how I was glad that he had gone down, still fighting. After it was all over, Dr. Coupal broke down and cried. I found him at the window…I put my arms around him and told him that everything was alright that he and the other doctors had done everything within their power and we must comfort ourselves with the thought that courage such as Calvin had shown us all must now be our example.

I have written all this down for you, this morning, because I want you to know that death seems to me a very natural, even a very beautiful transition, a passing from life here, interesting though it is into a more abundant life.”

Grace Coolidge’s strong faith kept her going. She wished to explain this death scene to show her faith in the afterlife. She also writes of life in Plymouth where “tourists are thickening up.” She is writing her son, John, while her husband naps. “He went to service last Sunday and will today. He looks better day by day and is regaining some of his lost pounds.”

She signs off with her usual affection, “I wish you knew how much I love you. Perhaps you will, some day. Devotedly, Mother C.”

Right after Calvin Jr.’s death she wrote the Rev. Rose at Mercersburg, “I have so many beautiful memories of my boy to comfort me. And always I am mindful to give thanks to God that he considered me worthy to be the mother of such a splendid boy and that I have with me still another fine son.”

White House:

One of her most glorious days was when the fraternity came to the White House on April 11, 1924 to present a portrait of Grace to the White House Collection. 1300 sisters were welcomed through the East entrance of the White House assembling in the East Room and formed a semi-circle about the panel where hung curtains of wine red velvet with cords of silver blue which covered the portrait. At 4:30 p.m. the Marine Bank began to play and a presentation group faced the portrait. Senior aides escorted Mrs. Coolidge to the room. The painting was unveiled (the famous one with her collie) and they all sang the Pi Beta Phi Anthem. The sorority sisters remember her saying, “this is the loveliest thing I have seen here. I should like to keep you here always, to make beautiful the White House lawn.” In November of 1923, she had written the Robins, “Daily I am impressed anew with the responsibility and opportunity that has been given me in coming to this wonderful old mansion. In no sense does it overwhelm me, rather does it inspire me to increase my energy and I am so filled with the desire to measure up to this God-given task that I can almost feel strength poured into me. Please, every one of you, pray for me and love me. Yours in the bonds of friendship, Grace Coolidge.”

William Seale, a White House expert, wrote that “The tall, elegant Grace Goodhue Coolidge was one of the most beautiful and gentle of the First Ladies.” “Her personal appearance was dominated by big gray-green eyes and the smile. She carried herself regally, and the fashions of the day suited her so well that her frugal husband urged her to abandon her plain cottons and woolens and buy dresses with rhinestones, feathers and fur.” He often bought her clothes on his walks around Washington. However, the president felt he should shield his family from the press. “No interviews were allowed with Mrs. Coolidge or the boys.”

PLYMOUTH

Obviously both Grace and Calvin had a special place in their hearts for Plymouth, Vermont. Calvin’s most famous speech in the state was “Vermont Is a State I Love” in 1928. It was at Plymouth that Calvin became the 30th U.S. President, sworn in by his father after the sudden death of President Harding on the West Coast. Grace knew how much her husband loved Plymouth and arranged their first Summer White House there in 1924 after their son’s death.

In August of 1932, she wrote their son John and his new wife Florence that her husband had said, “I should think the children had better spend their vacation here, this summer.” “Of course it will be quiet, with no other young people around, but the air is good, the food fair-to-middlin, sleeping excellent and a welcome as deep and wide as the universe.”

In another letter to Maude Trumbull, her son’s mother-in-law, on September 27, 1932, Grace wrote about an impending visit to Plymouth:

“The lean-to, as Mr. Coolidge has called the new wing, in referring to it, is far from complete, as far as furnishings go, but there is everything essential, and I think we can make you comfortable. Mr. Coolidge does things when he gets around to it and I do not make him uncomfortable nor myself unhappy by urging him—as I told John, it is his wing and I am letting him flap it.”

Grace, after Calvin’s death, was in charge of the Plymouth homestead. In October of 1933, she wrote of Aurora Pierce, their housekeeper in Plymouth, “I sent Aurora her quarterly fifty dollars.” “I expect to hear from her any day asking where the wood is coming from for the winter.” Aurora had been Calvin’s father’s housekeeper for 40 years. Grandson John remembered lifting his feet during breakfast so she could mop under them. She was also the one who saved many artifacts in the house. She was so practical she was planning to use them up some day.

In another letter of August 27, 1953, Grace wrote to son John about the town cemetery: “Father (Calvin) ordered his stone and Calvin’s at the time of your brother’s death and had a blank place left for the date of his own death. He also had a piece of matching granite reserved ...for my grave.”

Since we are about to commemorate the birthday of Calvin Coolidge this July 4th by marching a wreath from the White House to the cemetery in Plymouth, this is an interesting comment. Many have noted the simplicity of the gravestones. Calvin, the president, chose them.

LOVE BETWEEN MOTHER AND SON

On January 2, 1929 (before his marriage to Florence Trumbull on Sept. 23, 1929), John Coolidge wrote his mother from New Haven, CT where he was working with the New Haven Railroad, on the day before his mother’s birthday:

“Just to let you know I’m thinking of you on your birthday and loving you as no boy has ever loved his mother. Every happiness I know, or ever will know, is enhanced a thousand fold by your love and care. Your own, Johnny”

Grace wrote on June 19, 1929:

“John, you are a son for a mother to be proud of and I want you to always feel that I am standing by ready to do anything for you and Florence. You two together should make something very beautiful of your lives. Just don’t let little things be-cloud your vision and when the rough places have to be gotten over hold your chin up, throw your shoulders back and go forward—for it’s the rough places which steady the feet and strengthen the muscles—life is so beautiful—never do anything which will mar the sweetness of it. So shall each year bring you new appreciation of it. Truly, how I love you—and now I want you to find in life all that is just and true and right and live it gloriously!”

BASEBALL

The “greatest White House baseball enthusiast of all time” was one of our first ladies, Grace Coolidge. She was a fixture at Opening Days, World Series, and ordinary games at Fenway. She told her friends, “Not one of you cares a hoot about baseball but to me it is my very life.” She seems to have taken up the passion after entering the White House (her son John explained). Washington Senator baseball player Bucky Harris recalled, “all the Washington players knew her and spoke to her. She was the most rabid baseball fan I ever knew in the White House.” During those years she even influenced her husband, the President, to stay for important games. When the Senators tied the Giants in the middle of the 1924 World Series, Calvin stood up to leave. Grace sputtered, “Where do you think you’re going? You sit down.” And he did.

When the First Lady could not attend a game, she listened to the play by play on radio. Her son recalled, “She liked to visualize it…She liked to keep busy, she liked to knit during those radio broadcasts.” She did not watch television when that was available. Her needlework for chair seats that she worked at during the games justified her time, she believed. Her passion was recognized by the American League when its president sent her handbags with season passes each year.

Note this letter of September 30, 1950, from Grace Coolidge in Northampton, MA to Miss Ivah W. Gale in Strafford, VT

“Florie and I have been busy forenoons getting together a few duds to wear to the ball games. We bought some things in Boston and went to Springfield…for dresses and hats. Afternoons we glue our ears to the radio listening to the broadcasts of these last exciting games. We get so tense that we practically fold up when they are over. I succeeded in getting reservations… in Camden, New Jersey which is just across the river from Philadelphia. The Phillies could lose out in the race for the pennant. If they did it would be the Dodgers who won it. The race in the American League is between the New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers. Today, tomorrow and Sunday will doubtless settle the matter but in case of a tie in either League there would be a play off Monday. In any case we shall be starting at the crack of dawn Tuesday morning. Your Boston Paper will tell you what happens.”

She and Rex Sox manager Joe Cronin arranged a day for “deaf children” to attend a Boston game. This combined two of her interests, baseball and finding opportunities for children with disabilities.

Grace Coolidge followed baseball into her own late innings. Her obituary in the Boston Globe, July 9, 1957 headlined her with the recognition, “Long Active Red Sox Fan.” I often think she thought of life as a game. Each day was filled with opportunities and she would carry on whatever the score.

POLITICS AND CALVIN SR.

People often wonder what an outgoing, gregarious woman saw in Calvin Coolidge. Grace, in her articles, even wrote, “the wedding ceremony has seldom united two people of more vastly different temperaments and tastes…” Of course Calvin countered in his Autobiography, “We thought we were made for each other. For almost a quarter of a century she has borne with my infirmities, and I have rejoiced in her graces.” In these newly donated letters, we find Grace commenting to Maude Trumbull after Calvin’s death in 1933 when she must have sent a photograph to her, “I am glad you like the photograph of Calvin. I think it is one of his best. Having a photograph taken was always a serious matter with him and most of his studio pictures are very serious—often stern. Life was always a serious matter with him. He never felt the need of “play”—wouldn’t have known how to satisfy the need if he had recognized it. Early in our acquaintance I tried to teach him and sometimes he made an effort to respond but usually tried to show me how important it was to face life in a serious manner. I am so thankful that it was given me to see him through---.”

In 1931, before her husband’s death, she commented to her son and his wife, “You and she are the only children I have and there isn’t anything I wouldn’t be happy in doing for you. Of course, I have Calvin, too, but there is nothing I can do for him.”

Grace is respectful of her husband’s chosen profession. She wrote to Maude Trumbull, in 1932: “It is said that “a woman’s work is never done” but I think it is equally true of a man who holds or has ever held public office, if he has conducted it successfully.” Later she comment on politics: “It is not the way of peace and quietude. Here in this household we have been in a travail over a campaign speech and as I walked over the hills (she is in Plymouth) for a broader vision of the pattern of life I thought that the pangs of childbirth were as nothing compared with this. The whole household has stood with baited breath at the bed-side of the Republican baby, I assure you. I wrote John yesterday that it was as well that you were not coming this weekend, after all for although the speech will be finished the delivery will be ahead and the style of the rest of us would be exceedingly cramped.” (She is referring to Coolidge’s speech on November 7, 1932 from his study in Northampton. He strongly urged support of President Hoover who did go down to defeat.)

However, she compliments her husband and son in a letter to Dr. Boone after the death of her husband, “…John comes forward with suggestions and advice in a way so like his father, at times, that I realize how strong a help he is.”

Her interests:

I have not found much about her work to restore and refurbish the White House. In the fall of 1924, she embarked on a project to furnish the family quarters in “American colonial” style. After Coolidge’s election, she quietly sought donations for this project. Congress also traditionally gave $20-50,000 for each new administration. She appointed a committee of experts (the first time this was ever done for the White House.) The upper floors of the White House had to be renovated and the couple moved to DuPont Circle during this work in 1927. The most conspicuous and enduring innovation in the remodeling was designed by Mrs. Coolidge. She wanted a sky parlor to be built on the roof of the south portico and masked from view by the stone balustrade with a view of the Washington Monument and the Mall. Many a First Lady has enjoyed its sunshine.

As mentioned before, Grace Goodhue came to Northampton to teach deaf children at the Clarke School for the Deaf. She once said, “it became my purpose in life to see what I could do in the way of teaching deaf children.” After her years as a teacher there and retirement to marry and raise her children, she kept up her interests. As First Lady she frequently invited students to visit the White House from Clarke and other similar schools. She invited prominent deaf people such as Helen Keller. Keller found Grace as “one whose heart is responsive to every whisper of sorrow.” The President and First Lady raised money for Clarke School and after Calvin’s death, she continued to attend their meetings. In 1935, she became president of the board.

These newly donated letters remind one of what a fine writer she was. A few of her poems have been published. In a letter to Florence, her daughter-in-law, from Superior, Wisconsin, on July 16, 1928, she described the Brule River. “I cannot picture a more quiet scene than the one which lies before me as I sit on the porch of Cedar Island Lodge and look out upon it. Just here the Brule is a very quiet little stream…The splash of the fish jumping is the only sound we have from it here. All was so quiet that when we first came I felt rather oppressed by it but once accustomed to it I do not mind and it certainly is peaceful and restful.”

During the changing times of the 1920’s Grace Coolidge continued the Hardings’ precedent of garden parties and musical gatherings. In 1925, the State Department was charged with formal entertaining and that relieved some of the pressure on Mrs. Coolidge and her personal secretary. Grace revived many White House traditions and added a few as well. The Coolidges were the first couple to light the community Christmas tree by pushing a button to activate the lights on the tree; electricity was a new invention at the time. Mrs. Coolidge, a church singer, invited carolers to the White House and decorated a tree with the boys.

Sounds of children at play during the Easter egg-rolling were a joy to Grace. She truly loved children and animals. She showed off her raccoon, Rebecca, for the children to admire. When the raccoon was too rambunctious for the White House, Grace thought a mate would settle her down. Reuben was recuited, but both raccoons did have to go to the zoo at the end of this experiment. Both Calvin and Grace had animals in their houses from the days even before they had their own children, but no White House couple had such a variety of pets. Their dogs, birds, cats, and raccoons must have been the talk of the town.

Legacy

Grace Coolidge remains a popular presidential wife in the rankings of all First Ladies. This is probably due to her image as an elegant, young, and vibrant First Lady. The Secret Service nicknamed her “Sunshine.” The social side of the White House, under her guidance, exemplified tradition, such as her emphasis on holidays, and also included children and those with disabilities.

Her interest in White House history was important in that she asked for a joint resolution by Congress to authorize acceptance of gifts of furniture. She wanted to restore antiques to the building and treat it as a living museum. She also improved the building by adding a sky parlor for more sunshine; she renovated the family quarters.

She was a very modern woman; she hiked and swam. She loved baseball enough to attend games into the late innings of her own life.

International in outlook, she raised funds for victims of World War II and loaned her house to the WAVES as their headquarters in Northampton.

She wanted to help preserve the legacy of her husband. She gave materials and memorabilia to the Forbes Library, a public library in Northampton, and made plans to transfer the homestead, where Calvin Coolidge had been sworn in as president, to the State of Vermont.

Grace’s modesty is part of her legacy. She once said, “It has been my experience that those who are truly great are the most simple people at heart, the most considerate and understanding, with a decided aversion of talking about themselves.”

SOURCES:

Grace Coolidge, An Autobiography, edited by Lawrence E. Wikander and Robert H. Ferrell, available at CCMF

Boone papers, Library of Congress

Letters from Grace Coolidge to Ivah Gale, her best friend, in the archives of the Coolidge Foundation, Plymouth, Vermont

Letters from Calvin Jr. and John to the White House, recently donated by the Sayles family

Letters from Grace Coolidge to her family, recently donated by the Sayles family

Pi Beta Phi Archives, letters from Grace Coolidge

William Seale, The President’s House, White House Historical Association, 1986, Washington, D.C.

David Pietrusza, “Grace Coolidge—The First Lady of Baseball”, The Real Calvin Coolidge, #10, 1994 and other articles in this publication. Available at CCMF

Calvin Coolidge, The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge, 1929, reprinted by CCMF

Ishbel Ross, Grace Coolidge and Her Era, 1962, reprinted by CCMF