CAROLINE HARRISON .

The centennial of President Washington's inauguration heightened the nation's interest in its heroic past, and in 1900 Caroline Scott Harrison lent her prestige as first lady to the founding of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She served as its first president general. She took a special interest in the history of the White House, but the mature dignity with which she carried out her duties never overshadowed the fun-loving nature that had charmed "Ben" Harrison when they met as teenagers.

Born at Oxford, Ohio, in 1832, "Carrie" Scott was the second daughter of a the founder of the Oxford Female Institute. As a pupil there, she infatuated the reserved young Ben, then an honor student at Miami University. They were engaged before his graduation and married in 1853.

They enjoyed a happy family life interrupted only by the Civil War. While General Harrison was away, Caroline cared for their son and daughter, gave active service to the First Presbyterian Church and to an orphans' home. Blessed with considerable artistic talent, she was an accomplished pianist. She especially enjoyed painting for recreation.

During her husband's term in the Senate, 1881-1887, she was repeatedly kept away from Washington's winter social season by illness, and she welcomed their return to private life. But she moved with poise to the White House in 1889 to continue the gracious way of life she had always created in her own home. The Harrisons shared the White House with some of their relatives, including their daughter, Mary McKee, and her two children. Caroline’s efforts to have the mansion enlarged were in vain, but she did assure an extensive renovation with up-to-date improvements.

As well as giving elegant receptions and dinners, the first lady worked for local charities, established the collection of china associated with White House history and, along with other ladies of progressive views, helped raise funds for the Johns Hopkins University medical school on condition that it admit women. In the winter of 1891-1892, she fought illness as she tried to fulfill her social obligations. Caroline Harrison died of tuberculosis at the White House in October 1892, and after services in the East Room was buried at her own church in Indianapolis.

President Harrison’s daughter Mary acted as hostess for her father in the last months of his term. In 1896, after leaving office, he married Caroline’s widowed niece and former secretary, Mary Scott Lord Dimmick. She survived him by nearly 47 years, dying in January 1948.

Rose Cleveland

FRANCES CLEVELAND .

"I detest him so much that I don't even think his wife is beautiful," said one of President Grover Cleveland's political foes - the only person, it seems, to deny the loveliness of this notable first lady, first bride of a president to be married in the White House.

Frances Folsom was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1864, an only child. Her father was a law partner of Cleveland's. As a devoted family friend, Cleveland bought little "Frank" her first baby carriage. As administrator of the Folsom estate after her father's death, he guided her education with sound advice. When she entered Wells College, he asked Mrs. Folsom's permission to correspond with her, and he kept her room bright with flowers.

Though Frances and her mother missed his presidential inauguration in 1885, they visited Grover Cleveland at the White House that spring. Affection turned into romance, and despite a 27-year age difference, the wedding took place there on June 2, 1886.

Cleveland's sister Rose gladly gave up the hostess duties she had been fulfilling for her own career in education; and with a bride as first lady, state entertainments took on a new interest. Frances’s charm won her immediate popularity. She held two weekly receptions - one on Saturday afternoons, when women with jobs were free to come.

After Cleveland’s defeat in 1888, the couple lived in New York City, where baby Ruth was born. With his unprecedented re-election, Frances returned to the White House as if she had been gone but a day. Through the political storms of this term she always kept her place in public favor. People took keen interest in the birth of Esther at the mansion in 1893, and of Marion in 1895. Mrs. Cleveland had become one of the most popular women ever to serve as hostess for the nation.

The family moved out of the White House in 1897, and Frances bore two sons while they lived in Princeton, New Jersey. She was at her husband's side when he died there at their home, "Westland," in 1908.

In 1913 she married Thomas J. Preston, Jr., a professor of archeology, and remained a figure of note in the Princeton community until she died. She had reached her 84th year - nearly the age at which the venerable Mrs. Sarah Polk had welcomed the Clevelands on a presidential visit to the South, and chatted of changes in White House life from bygone days.

IDA MCKINLEY .

There was little resemblance between the petulant invalid who came to the White House with William McKinley in March 1897 and vivacious young woman he had married 26 years before. Now her face was drawn and her eyes glazed with pain or dulled with sedative. Only one thing had remained the same: a love that had brightened early years of happiness and endured through more than two decades of illness.

Ida Saxton was born in Canton, Ohio, in 1847, elder daughter of a socially prominent and well-to-do family. Her father, a banker, indulged his two daughters. He educated them in local schools and a finishing school, and then sent them to Europe on the grand tour.

Being pretty, fashionable and a leader of the younger set in Canton did not satisfy Ida, so her broad-minded father suggested that she work in his bank. As a cashier she caught the attention of Major William McKinley. They fell deeply in love and married in January 1871. While her husband rose in his profession, Ida devoted her time to home. That first Christmas, a daughter, Katherine, was born; then another girl came in April 1873. The frail baby died within six months. Phlebitis and epileptic seizures shattered Ida’s health. Even before little Katie died in 1876, Mrs. McKinley was a confirmed invalid.

Although politically active, William McKinley was never far from her side. He arranged their life to suit her convenience. Ida spent most of her waking hours in a small Victorian rocking chair that she had had since childhood. She sat doing fancywork and crocheting bedroom slippers while she waited for her husband, who indulged her every whim.

Once at the White House, Ida received guests at formal receptions seated in a blue velvet chair. She held a fragrant bouquet to suggest that she would not shake hands. Contrary to protocol, she was seated beside the president at state dinners as he kept close watch for signs of an impending seizure. If necessary, he would cover her face with a handkerchief for a moment. The first lady and her devoted husband seemed oblivious to any social inadequacy. Guests were discreet and newspapers silent on the subject of her "fainting spells." Only in recent years have the facts of her health been revealed.

When President McKinley was shot by an assassin in September 1901, he thought primarily of her. He murmured to his secretary: "My wife - be careful…how you tell her - oh, be careful." After his death she lived in Canton, cared for by her younger sister, visiting her husband's grave almost daily. She died in 1907, and lies entombed beside the president and near their two little daughters in Canton's McKinley Memorial Mausoleum.