President John Calvin Coolidge was born in Plymouth Vt. July 4 1872 and died January 5, 1933 in Northampton, Mass. age 60.  He married Grace Anna Goodhue in Burlington, Vt. October 4, 1905.  Daughter of Andrew Issachar Goodhue and Lemira Barrett, she was born in Burlington January 3, 1879 and died July 8, 1957 in Northampton, age 78.  They are buried in Plymouth.

They are distant cousins.  Their common ancestor was Matthew Whipple, Clothier, of Bocking, England.  Grace descends through his youngest son, “Elder” John of Ipswich, Mass. while Calvin descents through his oldest son, Matthew, Jr. of Ipswich as well as through ”Elder” John, making him a double descendant of Matthew the Clothier.

He earned a B.S. from Amherst College in 1895, read law in the office of Messrs. Hammond &  Field of Northampton, was admitted to the Bar June 29, 1897 and began practice in that city.  He was elected to the Common Council and Vice President of the Northampton Savings Bank in 1898, served as City Solicitor 1899-1902.  Chairman of the Republican County Committee of Hampshire County in 1904, he was defeated as candidate for Northampton Board of Education in 1905, elected to the State house of Representatives in 1906 (two terms), elected Northampton Mayor (1910-11), elected to the State Senate in 1911 (four terms including Senate President (1914-15), elected Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor in 1915 (three terms), and elected Governor in 1919 (two terms).

His firmness and vigorous action as Governor at the time of the Boston Police Strike in the autumn of 1919 gave him a national reputation and he received a few votes for President at the 1920 Republican National Convention in Chicago.  Senator Warren of Ohio won the nomination on the tenth ballot and Coolidge was nominated for Vice President on the first ballot.  They easily won the election November 2 and were inaugurated March 4, 1921.  He was elected President November 4, 1924 (382 electoral votes) defeating Democrat John W. Davis (136 votes) and Progressive Robert M. LaFollette (13 votes).

He was the 30th President, the second Vermonter, and fifth native of New England to become President.  Chester Allen Arthur (1881-85) was the other Vermonter.  Both were elected Vice President and succeeded to the presidential office upon the death of the sitting President.  The other New Englanders: John Adams (1787-1801), John Quincy Adams (1825-29, both from Massachusetts, and Franklin Pierce (1853-57) a native if New Hampshire.

Reserved, taciturn, parsimonious, Coolidge was known as a Yankee of the Yankees.  Self-respect, he said, depended on spending “less that you make.”  He was 33 before marrying because he was “not able to afford the extra expense before then.”  He was more famous for his silences than for his speeches.  His legislative creed was: “It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”  When he was nominated in 1924, the scandals of the Harding Cabinet were beginning to break and his dour, thrifty style was an enormous relief for his embarrassed Party.

Alice Longworth, President Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter, said the White House was distinctly improved under the influence of “Cautious Cal” and his unpretentiously attractive, intelligent wife.  “The atmosphere,” she said, “was as different as a New England front parlor is from a back room in a speakeasy.”  To the public, Coolidge stood for traditional virtues: prudence, probity, common sense, understatement.

Not blessed with a great deal of stamina, he once joked that he kept fit by avoiding the big problems.  The strain of office gradually wore him down and the death of his son Calvin from blood poisoning desolated him.  In August 1927, on the fourth anniversary of his presidency he issued the terse announcement: “I do not choose to run for President in 1928.  He made his last public address as President February 22, 1929 at George Washington University in Washington,
D.C.

He attended Herbert Hoover’s inauguration March 4, and retired to Northampton where he wrote a daily column, “Thinking Things Over with Calvin Coolidge” published by the New York Herald and other newspapers (1930-31), and died of coronary thrombosis.  Published works: Have Faith in Massachusetts (1919), The Price of Freedom: Speeches and Addresses (1924) Foundations of the Republic, Speeches and Addresses (1926) and The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge (1929).

The author and the President are ninth cousins.  Our common ancestors are Matthew Whipple, Jr. and Anne Hawkins.

The Coolidges had two sons: John and Calvin.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the thirty-second President of the United States was born in Hyde Park, N.Y. January 30, 1882 and died April 12, 1945 in Warm Springs, Ga., age 63.  He married Anna Eleanor Roosevelt in New York City March 17, 1905.  Daughter of Elliott and Anna Rebecca Hall, she was born in New York City October 12, 1884 and died there November 7, 1962, age 78.  They were fifth cousins once removed.  The author met Eleanor at the Democratic National Convention in Las Angeles in 1960.

Franklin earned an AB from Harvard College in 1903 and studied law at the Columbia Law School in New York City.  He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1907.  He entered politics and was elected to the State Senate in 1910 and 1912.  He was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913 and was nominated for Vice President by the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco July 6,1920 with James Cox as the Presidential Nominee.  They lost in November.

He was elected Governor of New York in 1928 and 1930 and won the nomination for President at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago July 1, 1932.  He and his running mate, John Nance Garner, won the election with 472 electoral votes to 59 for Herbert Hoover, the Republican incumbent.  The popular vote was 22,809,638 to 15,758,901.

The country was in a major depression at the time but Roosevelt convinced the nation that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  His administration developed legislation known as “The New Deal” to provide relief and jobs for the unemployed.  It didn’t end the depression but had an important psychological effect by convincing people that the Administration was taking action to end it.  As a result, he easily won reelection in 1936, defeating Governor Alfred Landon of Kansas by the largest margin ever won up to that time – 27,752,869 to 16,674,775; electoral votes 523 to 8.

During his second term the war in Europe became an additional worry and he stretched presidential prerogative to the limit in supporting the Allies.  He won an unprecedented third term in 1940 beating Wendell L. Wilkie 27,307,819 to 22,321,018 and 449 to 82.  After the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, December 7, 1941, he blossomed as a wartime leader and in 1944 the nation paid him an extraordinary honor by electing him to a fourth term.  Sen. Harry S Truman of Missouri was his running mate.  He beat Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York 25,605585 to 22,014,745 and 432 to 99.  By the time of his inauguration January 20, 1945, the nation’s war effort had been organized with great effect and the Allies were dominant in the air, at sea, and on land.

He left for the Yalta Conference to meet with Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of England, and Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, January 22 and returned to Washington, D.C. February 28.  He addressed Congress on the Conference March 1 and went to the Little White House at Warm Springs, Ga. where he died suddenly April 12, of a cerebral hemorrhage.  He was the seventh President to die in office, having served longer than any other President.  His only book was The Happy Warrior, Alfred E. Smith (1928).

President Roosevelt was related to the wife of President James Monroe whose mother was an Aspinwall.  He was a fourth cousin once removed of President Ulysses Grant through the Delano family, and through his maternal grandmother’s family, a seventh cousin once removed to his war time colleague, Prime Minister Churchill.  He and the author are eighth cousins once removed.  Our common ancestors are Matthew Whipple, Jr. and Anne Hawkins.

The Roosevelt’s had six children

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