A First Lady Who Deserves a Second Look

By the Editors

The last Saturday in April marks National First Ladies Day. On this occasion, Grace Coolidge is likely to suffer from unjust neglect—much like her husband.

Just as historians tend to dismiss or ignore President Calvin Coolidge, they pay too little attention to his wife.

Grace was a fitting name for a woman known for her warmth and charm. Biographer Robert Ferrell noted Grace Coolidge’s “ability to meet anyone and make that person feel at home, that the first lady knew that individual as a friend.” While in the White House and for years afterward, Mrs. Coolidge had, in Ferrell’s words, “a wondrous hold on the American people.”

The vivacious Grace posed a sharp contrast with her shy, taciturn husband. In her autobiography, Mrs. Coolidge acknowledged that marriage “has seldom united two people of more vastly different temperaments and tastes.”

Grace Coolidge’s tastes made her a figure of admiration. She became a fashion icon as first lady—nearly forty years before Jacqueline Kennedy moved into the White House. In 1929, the Washington Herald celebrated the outgoing first lady as “a veritable ‘glass of fashion.’” The paper added, “Everything she wears is the last word from the swanky shops that line the fashionable shopping district along Connecticut Avenue.”

Like Mrs. Kennedy, too, Grace Coolidge brought the arts and an appreciation for history to the White House. She hosted performances of classical music, including by the celebrated Sergei Rachmaninoff. Mrs. Coolidge “also took an unusual degree of interest in the history of the White House rooms, what had occurred there, and what objects were historically associated with former residents,” according to the National First Ladies’ Library. “Hoping to provoke the public into donating items which might have once been used in the White House, Grace Coolidge successfully requested that Congress pass legislation which permitted the acceptance of any potential contributions.”

On the eve of war in Europe, Grace Coolidge stood up for victims of Nazi persecution.

Humanitarian

Also overlooked are Grace Coolidge’s humanitarian efforts. 

When Grace Anna Goodhue met Calvin Coolidge, she was teaching at the Clarke School for the Deaf in Northampton, Massachusetts. She had attended the University of Vermont at a time when few women attended college. Indeed, she became the first first lady to complete a four-year undergraduate degree. Grace gave up her position at Clarke after she married Coolidge in 1905. But as her great-granddaughter Jennifer Coolidge Harville has written, “she dedicated her entire life to working with the deaf community.” 

As first lady, Mrs. Coolidge welcomed deaf students to the White House and also hosted Helen Keller. At the end of the Coolidge presidency, friends and supporters raised $2 million to support a Coolidge presidential library. The Coolidges instead donated the entire amount—a massive sum in 1929—to the Clarke School for the Deaf. Mrs. Coolidge served on the school’s board for many years.

Nor did she restrict her humanitarian efforts to the deaf community. She frequently welcomed wounded veterans to the White House and visited Walter Reed Hospital. She raised money for the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, children’s hospitals, tuberculosis treatment, World War I veterans, and other causes. 

Biographer Cyndy Bittinger points out that Mrs. Coolidge “started the first orphanage in Northampton in the early years of her marriage” and “plunged into community work again” after her husband died in 1933. 

On the eve of war in Europe, Grace Coolidge stood up for victims of Nazi persecution. As Bittinger explains, in January 1939 the former first lady joined a group in Northampton that called on the State Department to “explore every possible means” of admitting German refugee children into the United States. The Northampton refugee committee, Bittinger writes, “had secured homes and funds for at least 25 children.” 

Mrs. Coolidge continued her efforts after World War II broke out. Again, Bittinger: “She led a Northampton committee to raise funds for Dutch victims of Nazi invaders in 1940 and joined the women’s organization of the National Fight for Freedom Committee, formed in April of 1941. This committee urged immediate entry of the United States into World War II to defeat Hitler.” 

Tragedy

Anyone who serves as first lady feels the strain of the role even in the best of circumstances. Grace Coolidge, in her autobiography, recounted the strange position in which she found herself after Warren Harding’s death elevated her husband to the Oval Office: “This was I and yet not I, this was the wife of the President of the United States and she took precedence over me; my personal likes and dislikes must be subordinated to the consideration of those things which were required of her.”

But the Coolidges faced tragedy, too. In July 1924, their younger son, sixteen-year-old Calvin Jr., died. A blister on his toe had turned into an infection. Sepsis took the young man’s life within a week. President Coolidge later wrote that when Calvin Jr. died, the “power and glory of the White House went with him.” 

Mrs. Coolidge’s religious faith enabled to endure this tragedy. On the fifth anniversary of their son’s death, Mrs. Coolidge wrote a poem to him, “Open Door.” The poem begins, “You, my son / Have shown me God.” 

A few years later, in a letter to her son John, she recalled the day of Cal Jr.’s death. Describing the boy’s delirium, she wrote: “For a long time, he seemed to be on a horse leading a [cavalry] 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.”

She told John, “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.”

A Tradition of Service

Grace Coolidge’s warmth, intelligence, compassion, and gregarious personality endeared her to all who encountered her. 

Mrs. Coolidge outlived her husband by nearly a quarter century. During that time, she loyally served the Clarke School, continued her humanitarian efforts, and delighted in her son John and his family. Historian Allida Black notes that Grace Coolidge also “undertook new ventures she had longed to try: her first airplane ride, her first trip to Europe.”

On National First Ladies Day, take a moment to remember Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge.

Indeed, take a moment to remember the contributions first ladies have made throughout our country’s history. No first lady represents a mere appendage to her husband. The dozens of women who have held that role embody a tradition of service. That is why the National First Ladies Day Commission leads an initiative to honor our first ladies with a national day of service.

The commission includes descendants of many presidents and first ladies—among them, Jennifer Coolidge Harville (who also serves as a trustee of the Coolidge Foundation). On National First Ladies Day, you can honor Grace Coolidge and other first ladies by getting involved in service projects in your community.