Cookie tied to Ohio presidential history
From the Farm
I love history.
In February, at the suggestion of my older brother David, who lives with his family in Lima, Ohio, I did a weekend road trip to Canton, Ohio, to visit the presidential library and tomb of our country’s 25th President William McKinley.
Years earlier, as preserved in my first “From the Farm” published cookbook, I published a recipe for first lady Florence Harding’s breakfast waffle batter, after David and his wife, Pat, recommended I visit the presidential home and tomb of our 29th U.S. President Warren G. Harding, in neighboring Marion, Ohio.
In total, there have been eight U.S. presidents who hailed from Ohio. But McKinley and his first lady, Ida Saxton McKinley, hold a special place in history books because of his 1901 assassination.
While touring the McKinley Presidential Library and Museum, I chatted with museum guide and lifelong Canton resident Carl Patron, who shared some of the fascinating details about the president and the sad circumstances of his wife Ida.
Ida was the daughter of a wealthy banker and granddaughter of newspaper mogul John Saxton, who founded the Daily Repository newspaper in 1815, which continues to publish today.
Before marrying the young Canton lawyer who would become Ohio’s governor and then a U.S. president, Ida was a welleducated socialite and debutante who had traveled the world.
After the death of her mother and two younger sisters, Ida developed what history books describe as “a fragile and nervous temperament.” The president and first lady had two daughters, both whom died in early childhood. Later, Ida was diagnosed with epilepsy and history accounts chronicle episodes of seizures, which at times happened in public, resulting in McKinley to use his handkerchief to drape over his wife’s face to hide her discomfort.
Ida McKinley is credited with taking an interest in White House affairs, such as planning dinners. She is acknowledged as the first wife of a president to include theater, music and arts as programming for dinners and entertainment at the White House, such as when Ida hosted a dinner party for Susan B. Anthony to celebrate her 80th birthday.
While too frail to assist with kitchen duties, and accustomed to servants from the wealthy household of her own youth, Ida loved extravagant dinner parties. To date, the McKinleys hold the record for hosting the longest and most extensive menu dinner party for any White House First family. They once hosted a White House dinner party with a 71 courses, which lasted long into the late evening hours.
Ida was traveling with the President in September 1901 during his trip to Buffalo, N.Y., he was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. However, because Ida was not well at the time, she opted not to attend the President’s speaking event and therefore did not witness the fatal shooting. The president’s friend Thomas Edison suggested doctors use his “new invention,” called “an X-ray machine” to photograph the president’s chest to remove the lodged bullet. But White House advisers and the president’s personal physicians refused, fearing exposure to the radiation.
McKinley died 10 days later, after gangrene spread through his body. As explained by my museum guide, McKinley was buried with the bullet, which was never found on his body. Today, the bullet remains as lodged in him in his final resting place tomb. Ida died six years later and is entombed beside the president, along with their two daughters, whose graves were relocated by their mother after their father’s tomb was constructed.
Because the McKinley White House years were during the height of the Victorian Era, the couple enjoyed the elegant tradition of entertaining guests at the White House with tea served in the parlor. The McKinley Presidential Library and Museum includes a recreation of the couple’s parlor with two life-size figures of the president and first lady designed as animatronic creations built by the same company which created the moving and talking U.S. Presidents at Walt Disney World’s Hall of Presidents. The animated likeness of President McKinley and Ida at the McKinley Presidential Library and Museum greet guests by offering them “a cup of coffee or tea.”
Philip Potempa has published three cookbooks and is the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center.