Presidents and Their Pets

I was just saying yesterday that Thomas has an uncommon ability to find just what he wants on youtube. This video is a case in point. It's about the US Presidents (one of his favorite things) and their pets/animals (another of his favorites). I am generally pretty good at finding things on the internet but this one eluded me - I had to have him show it to me!



It has about 1,400 views, and a good portion of them are probably from our house.

P.S. We've fact checked and the song is accurate. For a full list of Presidential pets see here.

Archie Roosevelt (Teddy's son)
with pet badger Josiah

Christmas 1889

Thomas still loves the Presidents. When I told him I saw President Harrison's Christmas dinner menu, his first question was "Which Harrison? The grandpa or the grandson?" Given that it was 1889, it was definitely the grandson, Benjamin. He has two claims to fame - his grandfather was President (William Henry Harrison) and he served in between Grover Cleveland's two terms.

From Chicago Daily Tribune, December 22, 1889.

Bouches a la Reine "bite to the Queen" is a little puff pastry (about the size of a biscuit) filled with meat (specifically sweetbreads) and gravy.

Consomme royale is a savory shaped custard made with consomme (a rich clear broth), gelatin and egg.

Potatoes Duchesse are fancy mashed potatoes - piped from a bag in small portions with a frilly tip and baked to crispy perfection (hey I'd eat that!).

Terrapin a la Maryland is turtle meat in a sauce served traditionally in a turtle shell. 

We also had a chuckle about Mr. Morton being the Vice President. We love the School House Rock song, The Tale of Mr. Morton: "Mr. Morton is the subject of the sentence, and what the predicate says, he does."

Needlesstosay, our holiday menu will not be as extravagant as President Harrison's!

Happy Birthday, George Washington!

Thomas loves all the US Presidents but his favorite is George Washington, or as he calls him, "General George." Born on February 22, 1732, President Washington would have been 280 years old today.

On Monday, which was Presidents' Day, we discovered (via twitter) this video of all 44 Presidents with a one-sentence description of each. I haven't figure out how to embed it but here is a link to its Presidential goodness http://www.whitehousehistory.org/whha_media/whha_americanpresidents.html

My contribution to our celebration of Washington's birthday is to read Washington's Crossing (Pivotal Moments in American History) by David Hackett Fischer. So far it is fascinating (you can learn more by clicking on the picture of the book).

Our final part of the celebration is having cherry pie for dessert!

pie from the Publix bakery

New Book about President Garfield

I am really enjoying reading this new biography of President James A. Garfield. There's so much I am finding out I didn't know about the time period (1880s). For example, the White House was considered the People's House and anyone could walk in with the expectation of speaking with the President. Wow.

Learn more here:
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

The book's description from amazon:

James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back.

But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what hap­pened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in tur­moil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his con­dition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet.

Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history.

The Garfield Monument

Friday we visited Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland primarily to see the Garfield Monument. T has been really interested in the US Presidents lately; the monument memorializes the 20th President, James A. Garfield.

the front of the monument

The tomb is on the lower level (aka the basement). President Garfield and Mrs. Garfield are both laid to rest: the President's has the flag. Their daughter and her husband are in the urns.

On the main floor is the rotunda with this statue of the President. The room is three stories tall (maybe higher) and is beautifully painted all the way up to the top. The thirteen original colonies and his home state of Ohio are depicted in a series of stained glass windows and murals around the perimeter of the rotunda:

New York's window

Ohio's mural

One of the big attractions of the monument is the view. We climbed up 5 flights of spiral staircase to the balcony and said, "Wow!" 

In the foreground, you can see University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University. In the background, downtown Cleveland and Lake Erie.

In this picture you can see the lake better. In the foreground is the new "Village" residence hall complex and stadium at CWRU. 

More info on the Lakeview Cemetery website and on wikipedia.