Basic Facts:
Birth: January 29, 1843 at Niles, Ohio
Death: September 14, 1901 at Buffalo, New York
Married: Ida Saxton (1847-1907) on January 25, 1871
Children: 2: Katherine and Ida
President: Two terms beginning Mar 4, 1897 and Mar 4, 1901; died September 14, 1901.
Family:
Ida Saxton met William McKinley in 1867. They did not begin courting until after she returned from a Grand Tour of Europe in 1869. While single, she worked for a time as a cashier in her father’s bank, a position then usually reserved for men.
William McKinley, aged 27, married Ida Saxton, aged 23, on January 25, 1871.
They had two daughters. Both died in childhood.
- Katherine “Katie” McKinley (1871–1875) Died of typhoid fever.
- Ida McKinley (April 1873–August 1873).
Possessed of a fragile, nervous temperament, Mrs. McKinley broke down under the loss of her mother and two young daughters within a short span of time. (1873-1875) She developed epilepsy and became totally dependent on her husband… She often took barbiturates, laudanum, and other sedatives for her condition.
During their time in the White House, Ida often needed sedation to enable her to sit through official functions as First Lady, and McKinley would throw a handkerchief over her face when she suffered an epileptic seizure.
Three years prior to the assassination of her husband, Ida McKinley’s only brother, George DeWalt Saxton, was murdered.
McKinley’s wife, Ida, disliked the color yellow so much she had all things yellow removed from the White House, including the yellow flowers in the garden.
Other:
In the elections of 1896 and 1900, McKinley ran against William Jennings Bryan.
In McKinley’s first term, his Vice-President was Garret A. Hobart who died of serious heart disease in November, 1899. McKinley had no Vice-President until the election of 1900 when he ran with Theodore Roosevelt.
Soon after his second inauguration on March 4, 1901, William and Ida McKinley undertook a six-week tour of the nation. Traveling mostly by rail, the McKinleys were to travel through the South to the Southwest, and then up the Pacific coast and east again, to conclude with a visit on June 13, 1901, to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
However, the First Lady fell ill in California, causing her husband to limit his public events and cancel a series of speeches he had planned to give urging trade reciprocity. He also postponed the visit to the fair until September, planning a month in Washington and two in Canton before the Buffalo visit.
It was at the Exposition on September 6, 1901 that Leon Czolgosz shot McKinley twice in the abdomen. McKinley died on September 14th.
McKinley was the first president to ride in an automobile while in office. After he was shot, he was transported to the hospital in an electric ambulance.
McKinley was the first president to use a telephone to campaign.
McKinley had a parrot named “Washington Post” who could whistle to the tune of Yankee Doodle.
McKinley loved carnations and wore them as a good luck charm. While attending the Pan-American Exposition on September 6, 1901, he greeted a line of people. McKinley pulled his famous red carnation from his lapel and gave it to a little girl waiting in line. Seconds later, he was struck by an assassin’s bullet.
The US Secret Service was originally formed to combat counterfeit currency. It wasn’t until 1901, after the assassination of President William McKinley, that their responsibilities broadened to presidential protection.
Abraham Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln, witnessed the shooting of President James Garfield, and was present at the shooting of President William McKinley.
“Uncle Joe” Cannon, later Speaker of the House, once said that McKinley kept his ear so close to the ground that it was full of grasshoppers.
McKinley’s then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, allegedly claimed that his boss possessed “no more backbone than a chocolate éclair”.
After the American battleship Maine exploded and sank under mysterious circumstances off the coast of Havana in February 1898, killing 266 sailors, McKinley demanded Spain grant independence to Cuba, and Congress authorized a declaration of war on April 25, 1898 (though they retroactively dated it to April 21). In the roughly 100-day Spanish-American War, the United States destroyed the Spanish fleet outside Cuba’s Santiago, seized Manila in the Philippines, and annexed Puerto Rico and Guam, ending Spain’s run of colonial dominance.
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Sources:
Internet Public Library
McKinley National Memorial
Wikipedia
Republican Presidents
Mental Floss.com
White House.gov
You Tube Video of the inauguration of William McKinley
Greenman, Barbara. The Timeline History of U. S. Presidents and First Ladies. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, California, 2009.