The first step
FUN FACT: Not every U.S. president has given birth to biological children.
Get this — not a single one of them has! I know, right? Shocking!
Here’s a quick look at the stepdads in the bunch.
George Washington: our very first presidential stepparent
His lack of biological children made him an attractive starter president — no chance of accidentally unleashing an monarchy! Hooray stepparents!
Jacky (John Park Custis) was just four when his mom married George Washington; his sister Martha was a toddler.
James Madison: papa
I’ve mentioned before that Theodore Roosevelt lost both his mom and his wife on the same day. Well, Dolley Madison lost her husband and son on the same day. Both to Yellow Fever. Unimaginable. A couple of years later, Madison asked Aaron Burr to introduce him to Dolley, blah blah, blah, look at that! James Madison has a two-year-old stepson!
Like Washington before him, Madison had no biological children and no direct descendants.
Andrew Jackson: two adopted children
Jackson and Rachel didn’t have any biological children either, but they “adopted” two and served as guardians for a bunch of others.
One adopted son was a nephew of Rachel’s, Andrew Jackson, Jr.
The other was Lyncoya, an orphaned Creek Indian. Knowing that Jackson adopted an orphan softened my opinion of him a bit. Until I learned recently that he was only an orphan because Jackson killed his parents. Aaaand he was more “pet” than son. So there’s that.
Scroll all the way to the bottom for an eye-opening podcast episode about Lynoya and Jackson.
James K. Polk: I learned a new thing!
Apparently, James and Sarah Polk are the only presidential couple with no children at all … whether biological, from a previous relationship, or adopted. (Sarah did have two wards; one after James died.)
James Buchanan: the only bachelor president
Appointed legal guardian to his niece (and later acting First Lady) Harriet Lane.
WHOA! I needed to amend my post 6 speedy facts about 6 Jameses. Half of the Jameses didn’t have biological children! That’s not at all proportionate with the presidents not named James! Coincidence? Probably.
Grover Cleveland: legal guardian to his future wife
Totally not weird at all. That or the fact that he bought her a stroller. When she was a baby. In any case, together they had a bunch of kids.
Warren G. Harding
His wife Florence came from the richest family in Marion and had a super-controlling dad — Harding’s nemesis Amos Kling. (Harding found Kling “heartless” and “rent-gouging.”) Florence rebelled against her father and ended up pregnant by the town drunk. Both her dad and her baby’s father abandoned her, leaving her destitute. Florence began teaching piano to Harding’s sister, fast-forward a bit — Harding has a stepson!
Sort of.
The info I’m finding online doesn’t seem to match with the book I read. She either got pregnant by the town drunk. Or happened to be married to someone with a drinking problem, but he left her and their baby. Also, Harding was either a stepfather… or married to someone who had a kid, but the kid was raised by Florence’s dad. I'll need to learn more about this at some point. Maybe I should ask Richard Nixon’s White House Counsel, which sounds really random but it’s not. John Dean wrote the book I read on Harding.
Unlike some of the others mentioned above, Harding had a biological child.
Just not with Florence.
A bunch of presidents had step parents, too
This isn’t a full complete list (and perhaps I’ll revisit it at some point), but for now:
Abraham Lincoln’s stepmother Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln, played a huge role in his life. She was “a good and kind mother” who encouraged his love of reading.
Both Gerald Ford (born Leslie King, Jr.) and William Jefferson Clinton (born William Jefferson Blyth) are known by their stepfathers’ names.
Psst: for more on Jackson and his “son” Lyncoya, check out this episode of Plodding Through the Presidents:
