Unhappy White House Wives

 

When I heard that Donald and Melania had a nasty fight on inauguration day, I chuckled, studying the video of them dancing the evening together. They sure didn’t look too happy. Neither smiled nor spoke, and they barely held each other close. Like two wooden dummies, they fulfilled their obligations and attempted to force their miserable faces into a happy expression.

After the inauguration, Melania flew to New York to finish packing but was late arriving back to Washington because she refused to show up until she renegotiated her prenup. Smart lady, I thought. Get it done before he throws you aside like he did all the others. 

I wondered how many other presidential couples had to fake it in the public eye. Turns out there were lots of them, but Warren and Florence Harding rise to the top, barely tolerating the other.  Harding won the presidency in 1921 but died two years later. His time in office was short, but hardly sweet. His friends were crooks, like Trump’s, and although he was never implicated, he showed lack of judgement and foresight.

In other words, he was just plain dumb while busily loving his mistress. He fathered a daughter, Elizabeth Blaesing, in 1919, the only child he ever had. Although Florence felt no love for him, she was devastated by the rumors of the child and soon learned the truth. One man wrote a book about the affair while others claimed it was nothing but a lie.

When his scandals began going public, Harding decided to tour the country and explain his policies when he died of a sudden heart attack in his San Francisco hotel room.

Florence claimed she had been reading to her husband at the time of his passing, but one journalist stated she had actually poisoned him. 

She didn’t, or probably didn’t, the scholars say, but we’ll never know for sure.

There were lots of unhappy marriages though Andrew Jackson had the opposite problem. He loved his wife Rachel so passionately that he was willing to die for her.

When Rachel was seventeen, she married an abusive man and continually suffered his beatings and black eyes. When Jackson came upon her, she was still married but covered with bruises. Sickened by the horror, Andrew rescued her, and they lived together unmarried until they tied the knot in 1791.

Trouble was, her divorce didn’t come through until 1793, which meant Rachel was married to two men for a couple of years. Word got out, and John Sevier, the Tennessee governor, cracked a joke about Rachel’s infidelity to Jackson. Enraged, Jackson drew his pistol. Shots rang out, but no one was killed.

Yet things turned uglier the next time around. After arguing about a horse race that turned into a fight about his wife, Jackson got shot but still managed to kill the man. 

The presidential election became downright dirty, and the stress grew so intolerable that Rachel died soon after, never living to occupy the White House. Heartsick and bitter, the seventh president entered the mansion alone.