Presidents and First Ladies Trivia

[RJNorton]

Hi Reignette. Yes, I have seen several references to this story. For example, the National Geographic web page here says:

While staying at the White House in the 1940s, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill—who disliked sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom—emerged naked from a bathtub and walked into an adjoining room. There, he supposedly ran right into Lincoln, who was leaning on the mantle above the fireplace. They looked each other in the face, to Churchill’s embarrassment, and Lincoln abruptly vanished, according to an account in Mark Nesbitt’s book Civil War Ghost Trails: Stories from America’s Most Haunted Battlefields.

The story, a little different, is also mentioned here.

[Laurie Verge]

Anna Surratt is said to beat on the White House door if the light at that door is ever turned off. Supposedly President Eisenhower issued orders that the light would remain on at all times and that the bulb would be changed frequently and never allowed to burn out.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Abraham Lincoln’s favourite poem was “Mortality” by William Knox. Which president’s favourite poem was/is this:

I Have a Rendezvous with Death

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air —
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath —
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ’twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear . . .
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

(Alan Seeger)

[RJNorton]

Franklin Roosevelt?

[Bill Richter]

How about JFK

[Eva Elisabeth]

Brilliant, Mr. Richter. It was JFK's favourite poem.

Alan Seeger (June 22, 1888 – July 4, 1916) fought and died in World War I during the Battle of the Somme serving in the French Foreign Legion. Seeger is the uncle of American folk singer Pete Seeger, and was a classmate of T.S. Eliot at Harvard.

If Lincoln had known the poem, he probably would have loved it, too, wouldn't he?

[RJNorton]

Which First Lady wrote the following?

"The rest of the family doesn't seem to suspect that I have 'had more than is good for me,' anymore than they suspect what an extraordinary woman I am - how very superior to the rest of my sex."

[Gene C]

Edith Wilson?

[RJNorton]

Excellent guess, Gene, but it was not her.

[Rob Wick]

Abigail Adams?

Best
Rob

[RJNorton]

Nope, Rob. Excellent guess but not her.

[J. Beckert]

Sounds like Hilary Clinton.

[RJNorton]

I am sorry, Joe, but it wasn't her, either. (Help Laurie - should it be 'it wasn't she' rather than 'it wasn't her?')

[Gene C]

How about Eleanor Roosevelt?

[RJNorton]

Nope, Gene, not her either.