Oh What A Time... - #188 Surviving First Ladies and Elis Eats Gravel (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed!This week we’re looking at what happened to the First Ladies of assassinated US Presidents. The tale of Mary Todd Lincoln, Jackie Kennedy and the loser-known story of Lucretia Garfield.Elsewhere, Elis thinks it’s okay to eat the presentational gravel at a birthday party. Feel free to email about this or anything else: [e-mail] 1 is released on Monday and Part 2 on Tuesday - but if you want more Oh What A Time and both parts at once, you should sign up for our Patreon! On there you’ll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatimeAnd as a special thank you for joining, use the code CUSTARD for 25% off your first month.You can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, What a Time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else. Add free. Plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access to live show tickets and access to the O Watertime Group chat. Plus, if you become an O Watertime All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis, will riff on your name to postulate

where else in history you might have popped up. For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash O Watertime. Hello and welcome to part of the time. two of surviving flotuses. Let's get on with the show. So the world has got World Cup fever. Before we crack on with surviving floatuses, we have to let you know that we've just recorded

a World Cup episode of Oh What a Time. And it is the story of the first World Cup, 1930 Uruguay. And if you want to hear that episode, you can go to patreon.com forward slash oh what a time. But as a little treat, we'll give you a bit right now. So getting to Uruguay is an absolute, expedition in 1930. So the only way to cross the Atlantic back then was by ship and the journey

took around two to three weeks. Interestingly, Romania's squad was personally selected by King Carroll II. I would love it if the king selected the England squad ahead of tournaments. It would be so funny. King Charles pouring through the data from the season. The first ever World Cup goal was scored on 13th of July 1930 by a Frenchman, Lucien Loren, in a 4-1 win over Mexico. But he went home with no medal, no commemoration, and a regular factory job. But he has a permanent note in the history books. And then I love this. A few days later, we get the first ever great World Cup controversy.

On the 19th of July, France faced Argentina in their second group game. Argentina, a 1-0. France are pressing for an equalizer. and the Brazilian referee, Gilberto Almeida Rago, blows the final whistle. One small problem, there's 84 minutes on the clock.

The bench players erupt. They surround the referee. The fans run onto the pitch, like there's a riot, and mounted police come in, they eventually clear the field, and referee Almeida Rega eventually admits his mistake.

And so they call the players back out from the dressing line. Wow. They restart the match. and Argentina hold on. And it's just the first example of how seriously the world had started taking

this brand new tournament. Everyone was just so interested right from the start. That's proper kid stuff though. What's what you do with the under 10s? You know, listen, it's raining and they're falling in that. Let's brother. We've seen enough.

Another interesting footnote, Argentina's captain at the start of the tournament was Manuel Ferreira, a lawyer in training. So he played in Argentina's opening match and then Ferreira had a problem. He had to sit a law exam. So having started the opening game

with the World Cup, he then had to board a boat, sail back to Buenos Aires, take his exam, and then sail back to Uruguay to rejoin his team. So he missed one match. Wow. Argentina won without him and welcomed him back for the rest of the tournament.

So there you go. If you want that full episode, plus another video episode this month plus all the bonus episodes we've got in the archive, you can head to patreon.com forward slash oh, what a time. Remember L, over to you. Right, I'm going to discuss probably the most famous

First Lady in this episode. I would say probably the most glamorous. That's Jacqueline Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy. Oh, yeah. Bouvier was her maiden name. Yeah, very glamorous a lot. She was glamorous, but it was only part of Jackie Kennedy's appeal, right? She was a really remarkable individual.

So she was born in Salampton, New York, which is a village on Long Island in 1929. She grew up in a wealthy old money family, which had been in the United States since the early 1800s. Michael Bouvier, and her sort of an ancestor had been a soldier in the French army and fought with Napoleon against the British. Then he came to Philadelphia after Waterloo, basically on the run. And he worked there as a cabinet maker. And then he became a land speculator. And he struck a fortune because some of the land turned out to a very rich coal deposits.

So it's the American dream in that respect. So he became very, very wealthy. I always love those stories from history. Where someone, there's a prospector and they happen to hit a billion pounds worth oil. Can you imagine it? It's like, oh, right, oh, now the richest man in the world. As long as I don't fuck this up. Yeah, exactly.

If it was me, I would have done. Eventually, the family made enough money to move to New York City, where they settled on Wall Street. From there, the Bouvier family grew their wealth through finance and family connection. And surprisingly, Jackie's early life was one of privilege, educational freedom, like classic old money liberalism. So she was a big reader, very avid reader. And she acquired all three of the classic romance languages. So she spoke good French, Italian and Spanish. And she would use all three on the campaign trail as part of her.

as First Lady. So that's very impressive, you know, if you've got four languages at your disposal. So a university studies took place at Vassar College, the Sorbonne, where she studied comparative literature and political science. I mean, she was a really clever woman and George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where she graduated with a BA in French literature in 1951. And at that point, I would think to myself, yeah, I've achieved at all, actually. Not going to get any better than this.

Yeah, if we've done here. Yeah, I think I'm done. So earlier in her career, she worked as a journalist. Then May 1952, she met John F. Kennedy at a party, and the pair began a relationship. So in May 52, John F. Kennedy is a politician on the make, right? So in November, Kennedy was elected to the US Senate from Massachusetts. And in the aftermath of the election, he asked Jackie for her hand in marriage. Now, she didn't exactly say yes or no.

But she stalled because she'd been offered that a plumberer, assignment covering the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth I second in England. Oh wow. So she must have been sent over to England. For the other reason I really thought that was going to be a football tournament when you said 19. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The 1953, FAA Cup, she was like,

Stanley Matthews, he's going to be significant. I can just feel it. So when that was over, she said yes and she finally left her job as a journalist and the pair married in September 1953. So as a senator's wife, Jackie Kennedy, as she now was, spent much of her time looking after her daughter Caroline, was born in 1957,

and recovering from a miscarriage in 1955 and a still-born baby in 1956. So obviously a lot of personal tragedy in her life, you know, already before, obviously, what happened to JFK. So when John's re-election came in 1958, his campaign staff noticed that the crowd were always bigger at rallies when Jackie was present. Oh, really?

So reluctantly, she had to become more visible. So she now starred in JFK's ads. as president in his campaign literature. So this was all preparation for Kennedy's run on the White House in 1960. It's a bit like if you've got a really charismatic, intelligent wife in a presidential election, it is just such a bonus, isn't it?

It's such an advantage. It's like Michelle Obama, amazingly charismatic woman. So if they're willing to be used on the campaign trail, you've kind of got to do it. So during that campaign... It's like Theresa May's husband. What was he called? Philip May.

You have to get Philip May out because he's hot. Got to get Phil May out. He's got a sort of swagger. The Phil May's swagger, you've got to get him out. That would never want to be the other way around for a man. Like, did anyone and Margaret Thatcher's staff ever go, I think the crowds are bigger when Dennis Thatcher's here. You roll out Dennis.

They go wild. Look them. I can't remember Liz Truss's husband. Hugh O'Leary, by the way. Liz Trusses' husband. Hugh O'Leary. What does He O'Leary do? He's a charter accountant.

Is there anything sexy? And former Conservative local election candidate. Get him out. Get Hugh O'Leary out. Get him out. A nice tight little suit. Go on, get him out. That's what people want.

He also worked at Arachis Investments Limited, a company that at the time had no employees other than his one director. Get him out. We want O'Leary. We want O'Leary. When do we want him? And he stood unsuccessfully in the 2026, Greenwich,

London Borough Council election Get him out! Where is he? I'm really imagining you with a huge placard that says, where's O'Leary? We want who. We want who. The couple's first date was spent ice skating

during which O'Leary sprained his ankle. Get him out! It's a funny anecdote. Tell the ice skating anecdote. Come on, man. Perfect. So during the campaign in 1960, Jackie was pregnant, so she was largely absent because she was trying to remain behind the scenes for her health and the health of the baby. She did, however, put her journalist training to use and wrote a regular, often weekly campaign wife column for the official literature, which was syndicated in the press, and it gave very gossipy insights into her and John's life.

So, you know, which is quite a modern way of campaigning, isn't it? You say, did she write that column? Yeah, yeah, because she was changing, isn't it? That is very, that is very modern, you're right. Wow. It's sort of like a bit like reality star in a way, isn't it? Yeah, or like a behind-the-scenes social media stuff, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, so John's about to do a presidential address. So this is an example of what's the me she wrote. It was fun to pick up maternity clothes and talking to reporters about them as amusing. All that talk of what I wear and how I fix up my hair has amused me and puzzled me. What does my hair do have to do with my husband's ability to be president? Actually, I've always love clothes, and when I've had the... the time, I've enjoyed the universal feminine sport of shopping around from store to store and looking for new styles in the women's magazines. Feminine sport. So, but like it sort of makes it quite

relatable. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the column hinted at what would be Jackie Kennedy's sort of trademark eventually her status as a fashion trendsetter. So her wardrobe would be designed by Ola Kassini. She had an official jeweller as well. She was the first, first lady to employ a press secretary. So all these things served to mind. her image. But, I mean, we're doing her a major disservice to say that that was all that mattered. She's one of the most important first ladies ever

to live at the White House because she pushed for a department of the arts. A push which led to the creation of the National Endowment of the Arts during Lyndon Johnson's presidency. She was the first floater to take seriously the historical curation of the White House as a symbol of the American nation. She won an Emmy.

Really? The television documentary about the White House's history in 1962. She really has stood the test of time. I bet if you asked someone on the street, name a famous First Lady, like Jackie Kennedy would be. Yeah, she'd be top five, one and absolutely. And which is amazing given 60 years really since. Yeah.

So throughout Jake, yeah, Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton, obviously. Barbara Bush. Because of the alliteration, I remember that. Yeah, of course, Babs Bush. Babs Bush. Yeah, but she would be right up there, right? So throughout J. Monikluinsky.

There was her as well. Close. Is that right? So she served as a cultural ambassador. So she would take her own trips abroad, mainly to, well, notably to India. So so much has been said of the assassination,

because everyone knows a little bit about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. That, you know, we could do a whole programme in his own right on that. But Jackie, as everyone knows, was right next to him when he was shot and killed. So the images are very famous horrendous

and they're still really haunting because when LBJ's sworn in she's still wearing the coat because she refused to take the coat off because she said I want everyone to see what they did to him Oh really So the images are really really heartbreaking so she was only 34

When she left the White House September 63 so her whole life lay ahead of her You know that photo of her stood next to She stood next to LBJ while he's sworn in as president Yeah It always struck me Like it's a very famous photo

but why didn't someone pull her away? Like, what, you know, she's grieving? She just lost her husband. She's probably in shock. Like, why is she making it? I mean, it may have been her decision, but does someone need to grab hold of that situation and go, take a seat?

I don't know, it seems mad to me. I've never heard anyone talk about that. Because it's bloodstained that court. Yeah. And you can see the bloodstains. And it's, they've kept it, but it's not, you know, it's not available to be seen.

It's not on display. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's kept in a museum, sort of in a safe, and they changed the air every six hours. So it's perfectly preserved, but you can't see it because it's just, I mean, there's lots of reasons. So she was just 34. So she left the White House in November, 1963,

a whole life lay ahead of her. So there was no practical way of living a life as a martyr's widow. So she campaigned for Robert Kennedy as run for the president in 1968, and it was again traumatized by his assassination that year. Oh yeah. So in the aftermath, she married her friend Aristotle Anassis, surrendering the widow's pension that was her due,

but Anassis himself died in 1975, so she turned to her other skil. How was Kennedy assassinated? He was... Bobby Kennedy, shot in a kitchen. By Sirhan, Sirhan. Fair play. Close enough.

That's great off the cuff. That's great off the cuff Kennedy knowledge. I find you attractive now. I find you unsettling now No, no, that is the kind of thing I'll be on the phone to Izzy I'll say, are you going to pick up the kids? Great. Do you know what Chris Skull did today?

His off of the cup. Kennedy knowledge, like that. So she turned to her other skill, right? So she became a literary editor. So notable contributions included the English translation of Nagu Mufuz's Cairo trilogy, which is the landmark work of the first Arab writer

to win the Nobel Prize. She was one of the people behind Michael Jackson's memoir, which made an absolute fortune. So Jackie's early death from cancer in New York in May 1994, she was only very, she was only 64, very sudden, very sound event. So in the end, she was buried in Arlington National Cemetery alongside her first husband, John, restored to the position she'd always held in the global imagination.

And really she is, she's the sort of flotus by which all of the others, apart from Eleanor Roosevelt, has come to be measured. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But yeah, fascinating woman. I did a pub quiz on Thursday for the other parents at our school, and one of the images I used in the photo around was Jackie Kennedy

and everyone got it right. Oh, really? So it's interesting, as you say, that legacy is people that remain, the First Lady from a fair amount of time ago now. Still everyone got that right. That's amazing. We end with Part 3, and it is Lucretia Garfield. who is often the forgotten first lady.

I reckon if you asked, we did our survey to name famous first ladies of the United States, I would be amazed if that's not a pointless answer that someone comes up in a creche. Great pointless answer, yeah. This might even be the first time I've heard that name. I know you mentioned it at the beginning of the show. You've heard of Garfield, though, the cat, right? Of course, yeah, absolutely. When Americans talk about the wives of their assassinated presidents,

there's two names that dominate. Mary Todd Lincoln, as we've covered, watching her husband die at Ford's Theatre in 1865, and Jackie Kennedy, famously cradling her dying husband in a Dallas motorcade in 1963. There's two more. There's Ida McKinley and Lucretia Garfield, and those two barely register.

And that's partly an accent of biography. Both occupied the White House so briefly that there was no time to leave a public mark. But it's a shame because of Lucretia Garfield in particular live the really interesting life, far more than her short tenure suggests. So she was born Lucretia Rudolph in Ohio in 1832, but her family called her Crete.

There's a nickname you don't hear anymore. That's a nice name. Yeah. I like that. Crete, that's a nice name. Her father, Zubalon Rudolph, was a carpenter. Her mother, Arabella, ran the household. Crete was a sickly child, reserved and bookish, rather than outgoing. Her family, as I imagine, most families were at the time,

were quite emotionally distant. She grew up in a very somber atmosphere. sphere. America, like, growing up in the 1830s, I imagine all households are quite somber. There's no pepper pig world. Yeah, especially the wealthy ones. Yeah.

I reckon the working classes are having more of a laugh than the really wealthy ones. Zubalon Rudolph does not sound like a sort of sad guy. He sounds like a sort of fun clown. Yeah. All right then, kids, are you ready for the entertainment? Yay!

Do you think you've had enough cake? Yay, are you ready for Zubelon Rudolph? Well, Crane, if you book Zubelon Rudolph, he's not turning up giving you a fun clown show. His name is biblical. Zubelon is one of the 12 sons of Jacob in the Hebrew Bible. And so Crete's childhood was very, very religious. The Rudolph belonged to a Christian sex.

Can I get my money back then, that case? Just to be clear, if Zubelon Rudolph is now doing a lot of Bible stuff, Am I allowed to go, this isn't what you advertise? I do need my 200. Subloans, other trade is a carpenter. So maybe you can get him to knock you up some cupboards or something like that for the money. The Rudolfs belonged to a Christian set called the Disciples of Christ, founded by two Ulster Scott emigrants,

father and son Thomas and Alexander Campbell in the early 19th century in America. And the disciples were part of a much wider movement known as the Second Great Awakening, which again, I don't think it's as fun as it sounds. It's a wave of evangelical revivalism that swept the United States in the early 1800s. Its defining features are salvation through scripture rather than denominational tradition, a focus on education as a vehicle of moral progress, a surprising, for the first time, interest in equality, including between the sexes, and a kind of religious primitivism, stripping back Christianity to its New Testament roots.

So again, doesn't sound like a laugh. Don't want to be book in these guys for a children's party. No. This approach travelled well on the American frontier and explained why so many disciple families named their children after Old Testament figures and that's how Crete ended up with a father called Zubalon.

And in line with their face emphasis on education, Crete's family sent her to the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute. The Eclectic Institute. I'd never actually spotted that first time I read it. Sounds like an artie sixth form, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

My kids aren't studying maths and science. They're not really, they're not their vibe. No, they're going to the Ecclectic Institute to do Peruvian art. Dad, our homework is we've got to bring in a really cool vinyl album for Monday. Yeah, yeah. Dad, homework is I've got to smoke a spliff with the teacher. I wish I'd never sent our kids to the Ecclectic Institute. There'd be one Hollywood actor who'd gone there

who'd be massively success. But Margot Robbie went there. What time of the lunch hours? Oh, just however long we want. Oh, damn you, eclectic institute. Damn you. Today it's known as Hiram College. The Institute had been founded in 1850

specifically to embody the values of the disciples of Christ. One of her classmates was another young Ohioan James Garfield, the future president. Garfield was a brilliant student. he stayed on to teach and eventually become principal of the Institute. He and Crete moved in the same intellectual circles. They shared the same faith. And slowly over the years they drifted into a relationship

and they got married in 1858. And it was not a happy marriage, at least not at first. James found Crete to be much like her dad, distant and emotionally remote. Crete was wounded by James' wandering eye. Intellectually, they were well aligned. Both were committed to their faith and Crete held views on women's pay and status

that were strikingly progressive for the period, but emotionally it was a wobbly marriage. Painfully, though, what brought them together were two things. They suffered the deaths of several of their infant children. And James' service in the Union Army during the American Civil War, shared grief and prolonged separation did more for their bond than romance ever had. And in 1863, James Garfield was elected to the House of Representatives for Ohio. He would remain in Congress for nearly two decades,

For most of that period, Lucretia stayed in Ohio, raising the children while her husband went to work in Washington. Again, he's not changing nappies. She accepted the role, but it didn't suit her. Not even phoning. What's that? Like it would be a letter-based relationship, isn't it?

Yeah. Yeah, not even a WhatsApp video call. She accepted the role of distant wife, but before marriage, she had been a teacher, had her own income and her own routine. And that so kind of, it didn't. sit well with her being so distant and being the wife of a politician. In 1869, the family relocated

to Washington more permanently, giving Lucretia a slightly more public life, though never a particularly comfortable one. In 1880, James Garfield ran for president and won against the Democrat, Winfield, Scott Hancock. The popular vote margin was tiny, fewer than 2,000 votes, but Garfield's northern states delivered the electoral college by 214 to 155. During the campaign, Lucretia became the first

presidential spouse to appear in official campaign photography. A small but historically significant moment. There you go. Good fact. The White House somewhat unexpectedly suited her, though. She took a serious interest in the building's history, spending hours in the Library of Congress, researching its architectural and political past,

anticipating by decades what Jackie Kennedy would later do. She also enjoyed hosting in the tradition of Mary Todd Lincoln. But it wasn't to last. tragedy struck in May 1881. Firstly, Lucretia gets malaria. And back then, you were lucky to survive. She was bedridden for weeks, and she was barely back on her feet when,

on the 2nd of July, 1881, just a few months later, James Garfield was shot at a Washington railway station. The bullet itself was not immediately fatal, but infection set in, and the present lingered in agony for months, eventually dying in September 1881 months later, like I say. And Lucretia, had been a first lady for just six months.

So what would she do after such a brief, traumatic time at the centre of national life? Lucretia did what came most naturally to the daughter of the disciples of Christ. She built an institution. At her family home in Mentor, Ohio, she established a dedicated wing to house her husband's books, papers, letters and political archives. It was known as the Memorial Library Wing. The historians recognize it as the first presidential library in American. history, the model for the modern presidential library system we have today.

In fact, as we were recording, didn't Obama just open his presidential library last week? It takes them ages, doesn't it, to pull it together? Yeah, so Lucretia's life didn't end with her widowhood. It had decades still to run. She remained politically active, supporting Roosevelt in both his Republican and later progressive presidential campaigns in 1916. She crossed party lines and then backed Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, in his reelection. She died after a long life, though.

died at age 85 in 1918, by far the longest lived of the widows of America's assassinated presidents. A couple of small details to end on. In 1901, Lucretia and Julia Grant, who is the widow of Ulysses S. Grant, became the only two women in the United States granted the right to frank their own mail. Franking was a privilege normally reserved for sitting members of Congress. It allowed letters and parcels to be posted simply by being signed. No postage. quiet. Pretty cool. So do you mean

from her own house that she could just write your address? She could write Chris Scull, whatever, your address and then

just hand it to the postman and they would take it for you? Is that what you mean? Yeah, they go, thank you very much. You want of only

two women of the right. That would be very useful actually. Of all the superpowers, I'd probably pick something else. We mentioned earlier in this episode as well, people just coming upon

enormous wealth. Lucrecia owned a gold mine, a property near Al Marl North Carolina that came into her possession in widowhood. Wow. So a woman who lived through the Civil War watched her husband dying office, founded the first presidential library, campaigned for two presidents and ended her life as the proprietor of a gold mine and perhaps should feature a little more highly on the list of famous first

ladies. Yes, absolutely. A gold mine. What amazing. What a hilariously sort. Brilliant. It's the best thing you can own, basically, isn't it? Would you own a gold mine?

It's literally a gold mine. out of fashion is gold. Exactly, yeah. We've like gold for thousands of years. Have you got a pension? Don't need it. Why not? I own a gold mine.

Literally own a gold mine. You understand the concepts of gold mine. What a fascinating group, though. What a fascinating three. And, you know, heartbreaking and amazing in equal measure. That was a fascinating episode. Thank you to Dr. Darrowe Worthy, who did fantastic research for us there. We found out lots today, and I've really, really enjoyed that.

Thank you for listening. Don't forget if you want even more Oh Water Time, you can check out our World Cup episode looking at the 1930 World Cup. We're also about to do a video clip episode this month as well. You can get all that at patreon.com. For us slash O Watertime. Otherwise, we'll see you next Monday.

Bye. Look forward to it. Bye-bye. Oh, Water Time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else. Add free. Plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes,

every month, early access to live show tickets and access to the Oh What a Time group chat. Plus if you become an O Water Time All-Timer, myself Tom and Ellis will riff on your name to postulate where else in history you might have popped up. For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash oh what a time.