Home Fires Burn, Even in White House

Curators at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda wrote to Hillary Rodham Clinton not long ago seeking anything she might be willing to donate for their exhibit on White House husbands and wives.

To their delight, and amazement, she sent them her wedding dress.

Certainly the dress is one highlight of the exhibit, “My Dearest Partner, Husbands and Wives in the White House.” Still, the temporary exhibit is so loaded with richly historic pieces that the Clintons hardly stand out to visitors touring its two halls.

What does stand out is the love expressed, mostly in handwritten letters, by those who took up residence at the White House.

“Your health is the continent, the solid land on which I build all my happiness and hope,” James Garfield wrote to his beloved wife, Lucretia, after she had gone, due to illness, for a stay by the sea in New Jersey.

The Nixon Library exhibition opened in May and was scheduled to shut down in

November. It’s been so popular the library has extended it to next January.

If you go, be forewarned: You can’t capture what it has to offer in an hour. Plan for a full afternoon to absorb it all.

The exhibition includes pictures, documents, artifacts and letters from more than half of our 42 presidents and their wives. Most are on loan from 30 historical institutions. About two-thirds of the letters and documents are originals. Yet even copies bring alive presidents rarely mentioned.

The oldest piece is a locket given to Abigail Adams by John in 1778, before he sailed for duties in France. Underneath her initials are intertwined strands of their hair. Other older pieces include an 1804 gold tiara from James Monroe to his wife, Elizabeth, and a dark blue silk bodice belonging to Rachel Jackson, who died shortly before her husband Andrew’s inauguration in 1829.

Some pieces have treasured meaning between the husbands and wives. There’s the cover of the large, leather-bound book of John F. Kennedy’s speeches that Jacqueline gave him on their first wedding anniversary. There’s a five-diamond ring on black onyx that Abraham Lincoln bought his wife, Mary, for an anniversary.

Barbara Bush donated boating sneakers, Nancy Reagan her wedding bouquet. Betty Ford sent the garter belt from her wedding.

One item co-curator Olivia Anastasiadis is quite proud of is the original check sent to Ulysses S. Grant’s widow, Julie, for the sale of his memoirs following his death in 1885. It was then the largest royalty advance ever, $200,000.

Anastasiadis and co-curator Carl Anthony knew that the Mark Twain curators had a copy of the check and wrote to them seeking a duplicate. The Mark Twain people wrote back that the original belongs to the Players Club in New York. Another coup for the library--the Players Club was willing to loan it out.

Many of the presidential couples’ marriage certificates are included--William McKinley had to swear he was 21 to get married; his wife, Ida, had to be 18. And there is some interesting trivia--the Reagans spent their wedding night at the Mission Inn in Riverside, the same place the Nixons were married.

If you don’t take time to read the letters, you’re missing most of the exhibition.

Perhaps the most poignant is from Eleanor Roosevelt to her husband, Franklin Delano, in Warm Springs, Ga., dated March 25, 1945. She writes in part, “You sounded cheerful for the first time last night [by telephone]. I hope you’ll weigh 170 pounds when you return.” Signed, “Devotedly, ER.”

It was the last letter between them; he died four days later.

Perhaps the most beautifully written words come from Theodore Roosevelt. His mother and his wife, Alice Lee, died the same day, in the same house, on Feb. 14, 1884--Alice Lee two days after childbirth.

“She was beautiful in face and form, and lovelier still in spirit,” his tribute to her begins. It ends: “And when my heart’s dearest died, the light went from my life forever.”

If you think you’ve heard those words somewhere before, it was the quote Nixon read to his White House staff on the day he resigned the presidency in 1974. Roosevelt was 26 when he wrote that, and went on to greatness. Nixon was noting that he too had much to do after his darkest hour of resignation in disgrace.

Another standout piece, both for its prophetic thoughts and for her dramatic handwriting, is the lengthy poem Jacqueline Kennedy gave to her husband on their first wedding anniversary. It says in part:

“He would build empires

“And he would have sons.

“Others would fall where the current runs.

“He would find love

“He would never find peace,

“For he must go seek the Golden Fleece.”

One piece in the exhibit is so mesmerizing I found myself going back to it again and again. You see immediately that the two halves are written by different people.

It’s a copy of a handwritten poem that Thomas Jefferson’s wife, Martha, wrote on her deathbed. It was Lawrence Stennis’ “Tristam Shandy.”

“Time wastes too fast,” she began. She died in 1782 with the poem half written. As a tribute to his wife, Jefferson finished the last verses on the same sheet: “And every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, every absence which follows it are prelude to that eternal separation which we shortly are to make.”

The Clinton table shows pictures donated by the first lady from their wedding day. The narrative--written many months ago--notes that the Clintons will be in the White House for their silver wedding anniversary on Oct. 11, 2000.

The exhibition is a reminder that things did not always work out as planned for White House couples. And these glimpses into their lives are only that, moments of their times together.

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com