Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - President Tyler's Grandsons

Episode Date: July 2, 2020

How a man born 230 years ago still has living grandchildren in the year 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President John Tyler was the 10th President of the United States. He was born in 1790 and is widely considered one of the lesser presidents in American history. If you've never heard of him, don't worry, you aren't missing much. This episode isn't about him, however. This is about his two grandsons. His two grandsons who are still alive in the year 2020, 230 years after the birth of their grandfather. Learn more and try not to get a nosebleed thinking about it on this episode of Everything Everywhere Day. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. John Tyler isn't the best known U.S. President. In fact, he's best known as being the second half of the phrase, Canoe and Tyler, too, which most American students learn in history class. And I should note that most people who have heard that phrase have no clue what it means or who it's referencing. His other claim to fame as being the first vice president ever to ascend to the presidency after the death of a president. John Tyler was the vice president under William Henry

Harrison who died 31 days after becoming president. In fact, when it happened, people weren't even really sure if he could become president. It had never happened before, and people weren't totally sure what was supposed to happen when a president died. Many people assumed he would just be the acting president, not the actual president of the United States. He was often referred to as his accident, and many people would only refer to him as the acting president. But as I said, this is not an episode about John Tyler. This is an episode about John Tyler's grandchildren, and how two of them are still alive today. This could all be explained in four simple words, old men, young wives. However, if I left it at that, it would make for a pretty boring podcast.

To get into details, John Tyler was a very fecund man. He had 15 children in total, which is the most of any U.S. President. His first wife was Latita Christian, who was the same age as Tyler. They married in 1813, and together they had eight children. However, she died of a stroke in 1842 while she was first lady. In 1844, at the age of 54, Tyler married Julia Gardner, who was 30 years younger than her. It was, in fact, the first sitting president ever to be married while in office. Together, they had seven children. One of those children was Lion Gardner Tyler, was born in 1853 when President Tyler was 63 years old. Lion Tyler followed in the family tradition of having children late in life. His first wife died in

1921 when he was 68. He then took a second wife, Sue Ruffin, who was 35 years his junior. With Sue, he had three children, two of whom lived into adulthood. Lyon Gardner Tyler Jr., who was born in 1924 when he was 71, and Harrison Ruffin Tyler, who was born when he was 75, in 28. Both of those men are still alive today at the ages of 96 and 92, respectively. So, just to recap, just to recap, cap. A man born in 1790 has a child at the age of 63, who then has children in his 70s, and those children live into their 90s. That is how you can get three generations which span the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. If you're curious, and I was, and want to take this one generation further, President Tyler's father, John Tyler Sr., the great-grandfather of the two men in question,

was 44 when President Tyler was born. He was born in 1743, 277 years ago, over a quarter millennium ago. To put this into perspective, it is not uncommon for children to know their great-grandparents today. Families with extremely long generations, such as the Tyler's, are uncommon, but not unheard of. One contemporary example of this would be the current king of Saudi Arabia, King Salman, who is currently 84 years old. His father was the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, King Abdullahiz, also known as Ibn Saude. Ibn Saude was 60 years old when Salman was born. Ibn Saude was born in the year 1875, during the reign of Queen Victoria and during the Ulysses S. Grant administration in the United States.

That was before Thomas Edison had ever filed the patent on the light bulb. And just to cap this discussion off of really old fathers, I had to find out who Who was the oldest man on record ever to have a child? And that distinction is held by a man in southern India named Ramjit Raghav, who had a son in 2010 at the ripe old age of 94. And then followed it up two years later by having another son at the age of 96. After the second child, Mr. Raghav said he wasn't going to have any more children. This is a brand new podcast, and as such it can really use your support.

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