Louise Taft
![]() | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (March 2018) |
Louise Taft | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | 11 September 1827 ![]() |
Died | 8 December 1907 ![]() |
Children | 5, including William Howard Taft, Henry Waters Taft, and Horace Dutton Taft |
Louisa Maria "Louise" Torrey (September 11, 1827 – December 8, 1907) was the second wife of Alphonso Taft, and the mother of U.S. President William Howard Taft.
Background
She was born in
From 1846 to 1858, she intermittently published The Yale Gallinipper, a "scathingly satirical" Yale newspaper with Olivia Day (daughter of Jeremiah Day) and Henrietta Blake (descendant of Eli Whitney). The three women wrote anonymously, pretending to be "three brothers" who were undergraduates at Yale. They were known for their hard-hitting criticisms of the students, faculty, and the Yale Literary Magazine.[1]
Marriage and family life
She married
They had five children, four of whom lived to adulthood. The first, who died aged 14 months of pertussis, was Samuel Davenport Torrey Taft. The second was President William Howard Taft; next was Henry Waters Taft, who became a lawyer in New York City; fourth was Horace Dutton Taft, founder of the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, and the last was Frances Louis "Fanny" Taft, who married surgeon William A. Edwards.
The family lived in Cincinnati during her husband's tenure as judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati. Then in
Death
Louise Taft died at Millbury, Massachusetts, aged 80 years, and was interred at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio. Less than one year later, her eldest surviving son was elected President.
References
- ISBN 9781456523169.
- Gary Boyd Roberts, Ancestors of American Presidents, First Authoritative Edition, 1995, p. 60.
- Ishbel Ross, An American Family: The Tafts 1678 to 1964, World Publishing Co., Cleveland, 1964.