Lucretia Garfield

Notable people · First Lady · Politics · Education · Women

Lucretia Garfield

Portage County farm girl and Hiram-trained teacher who was first lady for 200 days in 1881, then turned the family farm at Mentor into Lawnfield and built the first presidential memorial library there.

Born April 19, 1832, Garrettsville
Died March 13, 1918, South Pasadena, California

Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born: April 19, 1832, Garrettsville (Portage County) source
Died: March 13, 1918, South Pasadena, California source
Buried: James A. Garfield Memorial, Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland (Cuyahoga County) source
Also known as: Lucretia Garfield, Lucretia Rudolph, Crete Garfield, Discreet Crete
Known as: First Lady, Politics, Education, Women

Life story

Lucretia Rudolph was born on her father's farm at Garrettsville on April 19, 1832, and was educated at the Geauga Seminary in Chester Township and the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute in Hiram, which her father helped found. She taught school in Ravenna, Bryan, Chagrin Falls and Cleveland before marrying her former classmate James A. Garfield in Hiram in 1858. Their early marriage was strained by his long absences, but she became his close political adviser through his years in Congress and the 1880 front-porch campaign from their Mentor farm. She was first lady from March 4, 1881, fell gravely ill with malaria in May, and nursed her husband for 80 days after he was shot on July 2. As a widow for 37 years she kept Lawnfield as the family home, added a memorial library with a fireproof vault for his papers in 1885-86, and wintered in South Pasadena, California, where she died in 1918. She is entombed beside him in the Garfield Memorial in Cleveland.

Ohio ties

Garrettsville (1832-1847)
born on her father Zeb Rudolph's farm, on land that had belonged to her grandfather John Rudolph; attended the district school Portage County · source
Chester Township (c. 1847-1850)
boarded at the Geauga Seminary, where she first met James A. Garfield Geauga County · source
Hiram (1850-1876)
student in the first term of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College) and later a teacher there; married at her father's house in 1858; first Garfield-owned home bought in 1863 Portage County · source
Ravenna (after 1854)
schoolteacher Portage County · source
Bryan (after 1854)
schoolteacher Williams County · source
Chagrin Falls (after 1854)
schoolteacher Cuyahoga County · source
Cleveland (after 1854; 1882-1886; 1918)
taught reading at the Brownell School; lived in a house on Prospect Street while the Lawnfield library was built; entombed in the Garfield Memorial Cuyahoga County · source
Mentor (1876-1918)
Lawnfield, the family farm bought in 1876 and her home, at least part of every year, until her death; she added the Memorial Library in 1885-86 Lake County · source

Timeline

1832 Born April 19 on her father's farm in Garrettsville, Portage County, the oldest of four children of Zeb and Arabella Mason Rudolph. source
1847 At 15 her parents sent her about 20 miles northeast to board at the Geauga Seminary in Chester Township, where James A. Garfield was a classmate until June 1850. source
1850 Enrolled in the first term of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute at Hiram; her father, a trustee, helped build its first brick building. source
1853 In November Garfield wrote the first of about 1,200 letters the couple would exchange. source
1854 Finished at the Eclectic in June and began teaching there and in Ravenna, Bryan, Chagrin Falls and Cleveland. source
1858 Married James A. Garfield on November 11 at her father's home in Hiram; with no honeymoon, they moved into a Hiram boarding house. source
1863 The Garfields bought their first home, in Hiram; their son Harry was born in October and their first child, Eliza ("Trot"), died of diphtheria on December 1. source
1869 The family moved into its own house at 13th and I streets in Washington, the first time the couple lived together for an extended period. source
1876 In October James bought the Dickey farm in Mentor, writing to her, "Now you shall have a home and a cow." source
1880 Hosted the stream of visitors and reporters during the front-porch campaign at the Mentor farm, which reporters named Lawnfield. source
1881 Became first lady on March 4 and lifted the White House ban on alcohol begun under Lucy Hayes. source
1881 Fell ill with malaria in May and was recovering at Long Branch, New Jersey, when the president was shot on July 2; she returned to Washington by special train. source
1881 President Garfield died on September 19 after 80 days in her care, and she brought the family home to the Mentor farm. source
1882 Bought the Worthington house on Prospect Street in Cleveland, where the family lived while Lawnfield was enlarged. source
1885-1886 Added the Memorial Library to the back of the Lawnfield farmhouse, with a fireproof vault for her husband's papers. source
1890 The James A. Garfield Memorial at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, begun in October 1885, was dedicated on May 30. source
1898 With her daughter Mollie and sister-in-law Lide Rudolph she organized the Miscellany Club, a women's literary and social club in Mentor that still exists. source
1903-1904 Had a winter house built on a corner lot in South Pasadena, California, by Greene & Greene, distant cousins of hers. source
1918 Died on March 13 in South Pasadena and was entombed beside her husband in the Garfield Memorial in Cleveland on March 21. source
1936 The Garfield children gave Lawnfield and its contents to the Western Reserve Historical Society for use as a museum. source
1980 Congress made the Garfield home in Mentor a National Historic Site on December 28. source

Stories

Twenty weeks in five years

Lucretia Rudolph and James Garfield met at the Geauga Seminary and grew closer at the Eclectic Institute in Hiram, where he took over her Greek class in 1853. They courted largely by mail, and the roughly 1,200 letters they exchanged survive. The courtship was rocky, and when they settled on marriage in 1858, James felt it was the right thing to do even though he was not really ready to be a husband and father. After the 1858 wedding at her father's house there was no honeymoon. James was away as a preacher, a state senator in Columbus and then a Union officer, and Lucretia moved back in with her parents with their daughter. They later worked out that in their first five years of marriage they had been together only about 20 weeks, and called this period their "dark years". Things changed after their daughter Trot died in December 1863 and the family began spending the winters with him in Washington.

Source

Mrs. Greenfield goes to New York

Lucretia was scrubbing her kitchen floor at the Mentor farm in 1880 when the telegram came from Chicago: "Dear Wife, If the result meets your approval, I shall be content." Her husband had won the Republican nomination. That winter, as president-elect, he sent her to New York City to buy dresses for her new role. She travelled as "Mrs. Greenfield" to avoid reporters, and she quietly gathered political information in the home state of Senator Roscoe Conkling, who would become the administration's chief enemy. She was gone nearly two weeks. On January 31, 1881, Garfield wrote in his diary that he could not sleep without her advice, and that he rode down the farm lane to catch a glimpse of her face as her train passed through Mentor.

Source

The memory room at Lawnfield

After the assassination, a public subscription organized by Cyrus Field and others raised about $360,000 for the widow and her five children. Lucretia used part of the income to enlarge the Mentor farmhouse in 1885-86. Working with architect Forrest Coburn, her sons Hal and Jim and Garfield's former secretary Joseph Stanley-Brown, she built a Memorial Library with a fireproof vault for his papers. Two of her children were married in the library in June 1888. A granddaughter later remembered her twirling the combination of the steel vault doors 'like a safe' and locking them each evening with a satisfied 'There!'. The National Park Service calls the room the first presidential memorial library.

Source

The assassin who hesitated

Two months into her time as first lady, Lucretia Garfield came down with a life-threatening case of malaria, and the president set aside many of his duties to nurse her. In June he took her to a rented cottage at Long Branch, New Jersey, to recover. Charles Guiteau was waiting to shoot the president, but he held back when he saw how ill she still looked. On July 2 he shot Garfield in Washington. Lucretia, barely recovered herself, returned by special train and stayed at his bedside until he died on September 19. She insisted that her own doctor, Susan Ann Edson, one of the country's first women physicians, be among those treating him.

Source

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

1 James A. Garfield National Historic Site (Lawnfield, with Lucretia's Memorial Library), 8095 Mentor Avenue
Mentor Lake County · source
2 James A. Garfield Memorial, Lake View Cemetery (her crypt beside the president)
Cleveland Cuyahoga County · source
James A. Garfield House (the couple's first home, bought 1863; NRHP), 6825 Hinsdale Street (private)
Hiram Portage County · source
3 Hiram College (the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute she attended from 1850)
Hiram Portage County · source
4 Ohio Historical Marker 6-67, Hiram College, Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, 1850 (in front of Hinsdale Hall)
11753 Garfield Road, Hiram Portage County · source
Geauga Seminary site (building demolished 1927) (demolished)
Chester Township Geauga County · source
Rudolph family farm, her birthplace (unknown)
Garrettsville Portage County · source
Lucretia Garfield's winter house by Greene & Greene (1903-04) (private)
South Pasadena, California source

Ohio places

Where Lucretia Garfield was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Born: Garrettsville, Portage County Garrettsville · Portage County
Connected: Garrettsville, Portage County Garrettsville · Portage County
Connected: Chester Township, Geauga County Chester Township · Geauga County
Connected: Hiram, Portage County Hiram · Portage County
Connected: Ravenna, Portage County Ravenna · Portage County
Connected: Bryan, Williams County Bryan · Williams County
Connected: Chagrin Falls, Cuyahoga County Chagrin Falls · Cuyahoga County
Connected: Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Cleveland · Cuyahoga County
Connected: Mentor, Lake County Mentor · Lake County
Buried: James A. Garfield Memorial, Cuyahoga County Cuyahoga County

Myths and corrections

Things often said about Lucretia Garfield, and what the record shows.

Often said Lucretia Garfield was born in Hiram, Ohio (as 1918 obituaries such as the Springfield Weekly Republican's reported).

The record She was born on her father's farm at Garrettsville in Portage County, on land that had belonged to her grandfather John Rudolph. The family moved to Hiram Hill later, when her father helped build the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute and built a farmhouse there to be near the school. source

Often said Lucretia Garfield graduated from Hiram College (as Laura Holloway's 1881 Ladies of the White House and Find a Grave put it).

The record She attended, and in June 1854 finished at, the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, which the National Park Service describes as a preparatory school founded by the Disciples of Christ. The institute was incorporated as a college and renamed Hiram College only on February 20, 1867. source

Often said She died on March 14, 1918 (official White House biography).

The record The National Park Service, the White House Historical Association and the Garfield Memorial's history all give March 13, 1918. She was entombed on March 21. source

Often said Lucretia Garfield founded the first presidential library.

The record The National Park Service's wording is the first presidential memorial library: a private room with a vault added to the family house in 1885-86. The first officially designated presidential library in the federal system is Franklin D. Roosevelt's, dedicated in 1941. source

Often said Her maiden name was Randolph.

The record Her maiden name was Rudolph. She was the daughter of Zeb and Arabella Mason Rudolph of Garrettsville and Hiram. 'Randolph' appears in some online sources, including Wikipedia's Geauga Seminary article. source

Documents

Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.

National Register of Historic Places nomination: Lawnfield (James A. Garfield Home), Mentor NPS History (npshistory.com)
Laura C. Holloway, The Ladies of the White House (1881), chapter 'Lucretia Rudolph Garfield' 1881, Internet Archive
Springfield Weekly Republican, March 21, 1918, p. 11: 'Widow of Garfield Dies in California Home' 1918, Library of Congress, Chronicling America

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

Title: Death of General James A. Garfield: Twentieth President of the United States Abstract/medium: 1 print :...
Public domain
Title: Death of General James A. Garfield: Twentieth President of the United States Abstract/medium: 1 print :...
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Title: Garfield and his family Abstract/medium: 1 print : lithograph ; 49.1 x 59.7 cm (sheet)
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Title: Garfield family Abstract/medium: 1 print : lithograph ; 69.5 x 54.9 cm (sheet)
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President James A. Garfield and his family seated around table; portraits of Washington and Lincoln on wall in...
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Title: J.A. Garfield and family Abstract/medium: 1 print : lithograph ; 51.5 x 70.8 cm (sheet)
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Print showing James A. Garfield sitting at a table in a parlor with family members
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J.A. Garfield
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Portrait illustration of of James A. Garfield, his wife, and mother.
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Cleaned up photo of James A. Garfield and Lucretia Rudolph was taken around the time of their engagement. (Wes...
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Title: James A. Garfield and family Physical description: 1 print. Notes: This record contains unverified data...
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This photo of James A. Garfield and Lucretia Rudolph was taken around the time of their engagement. (Western R...
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