Now that Jenna Bush has scheduled her wedding day for May 10, the spotlight is on presidential children married during their fathers' time in office. This information can be very confusing. Some of this is caused by divorces that took place during the White House years. For example, in the last years of his father's administration, Elliot Roosevelt had yet another divorce and so some journalists placed his next wedding date that same year.
Something similar happened to Chip Carter. Accounts have him remarrying in 1980. Actually, he divorced that year and did not remarry until 1984, after the Carter family left Washington.
Readers beware, there are even common mistakes about presidential children in the official records used by the White House office of protocol, prestigious reference books on the presidents and numerous Pulitzer Prize-winning books. When my White House Wedding Web site first was moved last month we found numerous mistakes made by well intentioned staffers "correcting" copy with new information taken from the Internet.
Below is my own list of such weddings.
It comprises 22 presidential children married during their father’s presidency. Jenna Bush will be the 23rd. Children married in the White House are underlined.
Presidential child | date of wedding | groom |
Maria Hester Monroe | March 9, 1820 | Samuel L. Gouverneur |
John Adams | Feb. 25, 1828 | Mary Catherine Hellen |
Andrew Jackson Jr. | Nov. 24, 1831 | Sarah Yorke |
Abraham Van Buren | Nov. 27, 1838 | Angelica Singleton |
Elizabeth Tyler | Jan. 31, 1842 | William Nevison Waller |
Nellie Grant | May 21, 1874 | Algernon Charles Satoris |
Frederick Grant | Oct. 20, 1874 | Ida Marie Honore |
Alice Roosevelt | Feb. 17, 1906 | Rep. Nicholas Longworth |
Jessie Wilson | Nov. 25, 1913 | Frances Bowes Sayre |
Eleanor Wilson | May 7, 1914 | William Gibbs McAdoo |
Anna Roosevelt | Jan. 1935 | John Boettiger |
Elliot Roosevelt | July 22, 1933 | Ruth Googins |
FDR, Jr. | June 30, 1937 | Ethel duPont |
John Roosevelt | June 18, 1938 | Anne Lindsay Clark |
James Roosevelt | April 14, 1941 | Romelle Schneider |
Elliot Roosevelt | Dec. 3,1944 | Faye Emerson |
Luci Baines Johnson | Aug. 6, 1966 | Patrick John Nugent |
Lynda Bird Johnson | Dec. 9, 1967 | Charles Spittal Robb |
Tricia Nixon | June 12, 1971 | Edward Ridley Finch Cox |
Maureen Reagan | April 25, 1981 | Dennis Revell |
Patti Davis | Aug. 14, 1984 | Paul Grilley |
Dorothy Walker Bush | June 26, 1992 | Robert Koch |
Jenna Bush | May 10, 2008 | Henry Hager |
Doug Wead is a presidential historian and author of 30 books including The New York Times Best seller, "All the Presidents’ Children." See www.dougwead.wordpress.com.
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.