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Lucretia
Garfield
Date of Birth: April 19, 1832
Date of Death: March 14, 1918
Age at death: 85
Married: Nov 11, 1858 James Garfield
Children: 7 |
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- Mrs. Garfield recalled the splendor
of the presidential inauguration as a high point in her life
- The gala event was held at the Smithsonian
Institute where an electric lamp was on display - a new invention
that amazed the attendees
- Her life as First Lady was tragically
cut short upon the assassination of her husband
- Suffering from malaria she left the
capital shortly after the inauguration and returned to her native
New Jersey for rest and recuperation
- On July 2, she received word her husband
had been shot
- Upon her return she personally tended
to her husband, who died in September
- The attending doctors tried several
methods to find the bullet lodge in his stomach, but to no avail
- One such implementation was a new
listening devise invented by Alexander Graham Bell
- There is speculation that numerous
incision with non-sterile instruments, may have caused an infection
that eventually led to his death
- James Garfield was fluent in Latin,
and after teaching the language to his wife, she in turn tutored
their children
- In the election of 1880 Lucretia was
the first wife
of a presidential candidate pictured on a campaign poster
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