ExclusiveAnna Harrison: Duty, Loss, and Legacy

Welcome to American Legends. My name is Tiffany Brannon. Each culture has its legends, and that could be myths or different stories, but here in America, our greatest legends are the wonderful heroes who are right from our history pages. Now, some of these heroes are very famous and some are obscure, but each person deserves to be discovered because each man or woman stands as a great example of how we can be better Americans in our daily lives. Some first ladies of the United States have made really lasting impacts through their initiatives to help their citizens, especially in recent years. It's not only a tradition but a duty, at least in a sense, for the first lady to have a very strong concept of what she intends to do during her four or eight years as the president's wife to make a good impact. Some first ladies have gardens, others care about education or advocate for temperance and sobriety, healthcare, what have you. But that wasn't always the case in the early days of the presidents. No clear role for the first lady was defined in any government documents, so really the first lady was simply the president's wife. The main role of the first lady was the hostess of the White House, and if the wife was unable to carry out this duty because of illness, absence, or death before her husband took office, some other female relative or friend would take that role. When first ladies are ranked, many of them are left out of the survey altogether because it's deemed that they didn't make a lasting enough impact. One such lady is the wife of the ninth president of the United States, Anna Sims Harrison. Because her husband was only president for one month, she never was in the White House, yet she still has an interesting life which deserves to be discovered. William Henry Harrison was elected president of the United States in the year 1840. Unlike many unfortunate early presidents, he was not a widower. He still was happily married to his beloved wife. Anna Sims was born in 1775. Her father was an associate justice. She was the last first lady born during British colonial times, since she was born a year before the Declaration of Independence. Sadly, her mother died when she was only a year old, and her father was very involved in the fight for independence of the colonies. He was concerned for her safety, especially because he didn't have a wife to care for her, so he rode for miles to bring her to stay with her grandparents. He dressed himself up as a British soldier to escape notice, and legend has it that he had two bags with him. One bag full of turnips, which he declared he was bringing to British officers, and the other bag full of the young Anna. He was able to bring her there successfully, where she was lovingly raised by her grandparents, who instilled in her a strong sense of faith. Because of their influence, she became a very strong Presbyterian, and this deep faith helped her very much throughout her long but sad life. Although she had a big family full of love, she would end up outliving nine of her ten children and her husband. She was very well educated for a young woman of this time. In fact, she is considered the best educated First Lady up to that point, which is impressive because most of the early First Ladies could read and write and were well cultured. She went to a few different schools and really enjoyed reading and studying. When she was a young woman, she went to live with her father and her new stepmother, whom she grew to love very much, in the Northwest Territory. Her father was very influential in founding the town where they lived, which was North Bend, Ohio. Anna was visiting some relatives in a nearby town when she met the young officer William Henry Harrison. They were initially very interested in each other and they began courting, much to her father's displeasure. He did not approve of her being involved with a soldier because he saw soldiers as being one step above barbarians or criminals, especially in the Northwest Territory. It was a lawless area, so many of the soldiers were rather lawless and he didn't think that he would be able to support a family properly. Despite her father's displeasure, they waited until he went out of town and then they eloped and ended up getting married in 1795 when she was 20 and he was 22. Her father would not speak to them for several weeks, especially to his new son-in-law, but eventually William Henry Harrison won him over and he grew to love him a good deal and he helped support him. Anna devotedly lived the life of a military bride, following Harrison from one camp to the next and being there with him during his different stations. Eventually, they began to have children and they would end up having 10 children. Remarkably, out of their 10 children, only one died in infancy and the rest of them lived to adulthood. It was often a dangerous life for the Harrisons since he wasn't off fighting in different territories. He was right there with his family in these lawless areas of the Wild West in that Northwest Territory, so they often would be attacked by the disgruntled natives or the enemy forces and as a result, their houses had to be very sturdy, almost like garrisons. When Harrison's military career was over, he and his wife were able to happily retire to a peaceful life together in a nice log cabin, but that solitude was not to last because politics would then call him to Washington. He attempted to run for president first in 1836 and then again in 1840, which point he won and then he went to Washington to be elected, but she did not accompany him at that point. You see, throughout her life, Anna struggled with ill health. A lot of the times it was because of her frequent pregnancies, but she wasn't doing too well at the time he was elected, so she stayed at their home and was planning to travel to Washington in May, but sadly, her husband died before she ever made the trip and as a result, she's said to be the only First Lady who never set foot in the White House, which is a little confusing considering that Martha Washington never lived in the White House and Abigail Adams only lived there for a few months, but if that is considering never even went into the White House, that probably is why it's accurate because although Martha didn't live there as a First Lady, I'm sure she visited it when Abigail Adams was in charge of some of the future First Ladies because she did live a while afterwards. Because Anna wasn't there as the First Lady right away, her daughter-in-law had that position. Janet, who was the wife of one of the sons, actually was already a widow at that point and she served as the hostess for that month when he was in office. After Mr. Harrison's death, Anna went to live with one of her children, John Scott Harrison, who was the only child who outlived her since he died in 1878 and she helped him raise his many children. He had three children from his first wife and then 10 children with his second wife and one of those children would be Benjamin Harrison, who would become President of the United States himself in the year 1888, the only grandson of a president to become president. That makes Anna Harrison the only woman to be both the wife and the grandmother of a U.S. president. Anna Harrison was a simple, old-fashioned, strong woman of faith. She loved reading. She loved reading the periodicals and newspapers, finding out about the latest political issues. She was very intelligent. She relied on her faith to help her in hard times. She wasn't always happy with things that are happening with her husband, just as he wasn't. Like many of the presidents and first ladies, they saw public service and being in public office as a duty, a calling, a privilege, but a hard one to bear. They all just desired a quiet life, especially considering that most presidents were toward the end of their lives by this time. They'd had a hard military career, political career. They were tired, but they knew that the country needed them, so they were willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, for the good of the country, and to help their fellow man. The only quote which really remains from her is where she said, I wish that my husband's friends had left him where he is, happy and contented in retirement. I'm not sure when she said this. It could have been when he was first running for president in 1836, when he was running again in 1840. It even could have been after he died. You could imagine that she would have felt, oh, if only he had stayed in retirement, he probably would have lived longer, because it wasn't heart failure or old age. He became sick. But despite that, she still was able to find great purpose in her life and lived another 23 years after his death, living to a very old age, enjoying the company of her children and grandchildren, and then serving almost a more important role in guiding the president as the grandmother of Benjamin Harrison than she was able as her husband's wife, as the official first lady. She was such an old-fashioned, traditional and modest lady that her clothes are remarkably old-fashioned. To see pictures of her, she was dressed in the sort of very covering, heavy gowns and almost bonnets with scarves over it, like Martha Washington and Abigail Adams. She really looked like she was a generation older than she was, and comparing her to the way the first ladies looked around her, it's remarkable. She just was, and yes, she was older than a lot of them, especially considering the one right before her was the youngest in history, having been an acting first lady at only the age of 20, and now she was 68. So yes, she was two generations older, but even more than that, she was more the generation of Martha Washington, and in her brief time as that candidate's wife and then first lady, she was a representative of that strong, old-fashioned, conservative spirit of staying strong in hard times, even in her grief which she faced, and she's a good example to all of us in her determination. Thank you for spending this time with me talking about a very easily forgotten first lady, Anna Harrison, who never acted as hostess of the White House, but who was an important mentor to one president and helpmate to her husband, another president, and who shows us through her legacy of faith and quiet resilience what it means to endure hard times. Thank you for spending this time with me, and I hope you enjoyed American Legends.