Over the course of 46 presidencies, four presidents have been assassinated while in office. One of these was James Garfield. However, instead of dying immediately or a day or so after the violent act, Garfield lingered for 80 days while a team of doctors tried to save him. During those hot summer days while her husband was mostly confined to a bed in a small room in the White House, first lady Lucretia Garfield nursed him, made decisions about his care, and parented their four sons and one daughter who ranged in age from 9 to 19.
Despite almost dying herself from malaria fever that started in May 1881, Lucretia handled James’s July 2 shooting, done by a mentally ill Charles Guiteau, with grit that undergirded a nation still shaky from the divisiveness of the Civil War. Although she believed that she paled in comparison to predecessor first ladies, the public “took pride in Lucretia’s courage,” according to the book “Destiny of the Republic” by Candace Millard. The book also shared that, at the time, The New York Times conveyed that “Mrs. Garfield has achieved a distinction grander and more lasting than ever before fell to the lot of a President’s wife.”
Mabel Bell, wife of Alexander Graham Bell, wrote to her husband about Lucretia: “She must be a pretty brave woman. The whole nation leans upon her courage.”
Until the shooting, life’s hardships, traumas, and disappointments had weakened Lucretia’s resolve. In fact, she was in a delicate state when James took her to the train station in June 1881 to send her on to New Jersey to finish recovering from malaria. An observer, Charles Guiteau, in fact, who had initially planned the assassination for that day, reported afterward that “Mrs. Garfield looked so thin and clung so tenderly to the President’s arm, my heart failed me to part them.” James planned to rendezvous with her in July 1881; he was about to board the train in D.C. when Guiteau shot him. Despite Lucretia’s frail state, when she received a telegram that her husband had been “seriously hurt,” she insisted to know the truth.
From that point on, even while enduring a train accident during the trip back to Washington D.C. to be with her injured husband, Lucretia presented an about-face transformation from debilitated patient to resolute first lady.
Resiliency Despite Adversities
Lucretia was born in rural Garrettsville, Ohio, on April 19, 1832, and grew up in a hardworking but stoic family. She enjoyed learning, and it was at Geauga Seminary, an academy for boys and girls at the crossroads of Chester Township, Ohio, where she first met James. But it was not until the fall of 1851, when they were both also students at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute in Hiram, Ohio, that they shared interests in literature and other subjects. They talked, wrote when separated, and later shared their first kiss in 1854.
James was gregarious and cheerful in demeanor and personality, while Lucretia was described as shy, reserved, and serious. He expressed his feelings toward her, but she did not reciprocate. Still, they married in 1858 to “try a life in union.” Then came the Civil War, during which time James actively served in various leadership roles and also had a brief affair, for which Lucretia forgave him. As for their family, two of their seven children died at a young age.
Instead of crumbling from life’s weight, Lucretia’s quiet fortitude affected James in a surprising way. He eventually fell in love with his wife and she with him. He wrote to her in December 1867: “We no longer love because we ought to, but because we do. Were I free to choose out of all the world the sharer of my heart and home and life, I would fly to you and ask you to be mine as you are.”
Lucretia wrote to James in September 1870: “I stopped amazed to find myself sitting by our fireside, the loved and loving wife, ... we are scarcely the same beings, but like conquering sovereigns we live in high isolation, wedded in heart and soul and life.”
Forging On
When it was clear that James would not survive the assassin’s bullet wounds, Lucretia kissed him on his brow and then, after physicians, attendants, and James’s secretary left the room, she sat for an hour with the body of the man she had been married to for 23 years. “Without a word, she stood, and allowed [their friend, Almon Rockwell] to lead her away,” Millard wrote.After attending to her husband’s funeral, considered the “funeral of the century” due to James’s popularity and the sympathy aroused by the assassination, Lucretia settled at their Mentor, Ohio, farm where she was surrounded by her children, friends, and other family members. Newspapers labeled her as the “Vanishing First Lady,” but she had decided to focus on her children, grow the farm, and create the country’s first presidential memorial library to keep her husband’s papers safe and his memory alive.
Instead of becoming a traditional first lady, Lucretia had endured the unthinkable during her short time at the White House. However, when she passed, almost 37 years after her husband, she had 5 surviving children, 16 grandchildren, and 45 great-grandchildren and was adored and respected as the family’s matriarch.
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