and leadership can meet any crisis just as well as they've met it over and over again in the past. i remember when my husband said we had to have 50,000 airplanes in a given period and the difference was the people were what the reason was and why and i have complete faith in the american people's ability if they know and if they have leadership and no one can move without some leadership. >> for the time being. >> take a closer look at the spouses of the nations ,presidents, their private live, role and legacy. watch the first ladies programs online at first ladies dot

c-span.org. we are talking to you at the white house historical association summit in washington, d.c. and you're herh because you work with the organization but also the descendent of two presidents. tell us your story. >> grover cleveland is the 22nd and 24th united states president and on my father's side to william mckinley. how did those two families get together? >> it's happenstance because life parents married. >> were they aware of their lineage? >> my father was a longtime history professor and so during the course of time at the breakfast table we talked about

the presidential politics and learn to so many stories about both families from those conversations. >> of the two are very different, aren't they? let's start with the one. what do you want people to know you've studied his legacy in his life. what do you think is the most important thing to know? >> everybody remembers that he was assassinated in buffalo, but the most important thing i think is how powerful because we had the industrial revolution, expansion, tremendous growth and i think a lot of times, sadly enough, both cleveland and mckinley are forgotten but throughbo books written about bh and especially about mckinley,

and of course you remember karl rove's book he wrote about mckinley. i think he has always been revered a bit in the times past, he's often been forgotten and my hope is that through the course of time and through the great efforts of the white house historical association with jacqueline kennedy in 1961, through those efforts with education, preservation and legacy, learning about those presidents that they will certainly be remembered and i am trying to do that. >> we visited the memorial in canton ohio.at what a structure. to tell the audience the story of how that came to be. >> so, the william mckinley memorial way back in the day, people revered him and of course you know the significance about the roses that they were back in the day but the citizens of ohio

thought that it was befitting to actually come togetherg and create a memorial to his legacy and of course in my opinion he's probably the most revered because he was not only a house member but alsoo the last u.s. civil war president.so so i think the legacy of data that produced and in addition to the fact that he was assassinated probably contributed to this wonderful memorial, and it really truly is. >> it's an impressive the amount of space thatiz it takes and the size of the memorial itself, which i understood the first lady was very much involved in the buildup. >> that's correct. >> v memorial museum is also on the same campus. what you talk a little bit about missus mckinley and her legacy and role in the white house?

>> wonderful mate and a supportive wife and of course you knowm, the story about her having a policy and the fact that mckinley was such a wonderful husband when she had these epileptic seizures she would get a napkin and recover and go along with of the dinner. but because they lost both children, that is the reason why hihe has no direct descendents because both died in infancy but i think because of the death of both daughters and certainly the assassination caused her to want to memorialize mckinley and the first w ladies home was actually her home. did you know that? it is the first ladies museum

gives out of their home and it is a beautiful structure. i think hillary clinton inaugurated that home back in the day. if one were to look at that period of time of disruption and technological change, are there are a lot of parallels to today so going through the digital revolution's challenges with hiimmigration. what would you take away from that era to understand what some were going through?e the technological advances and we were expanding at rapid speed but it was being poured into the country for industrial expansion. i think we can learn from that and today we can take strides and make sure we have the infrastructure to be able to

proceed and cities can understand how important it is because i think they were doing it by happenstance and hoping for the best and sometimes that did notot work out but i think e can learn from the past and we can learn from those mistakes that were made during those times. especially during that particular time because we radically changed in the early 1900s. >> grover cleveland you actually were closely related. people will remember he was the only sequential president. what else should they know? >> he had a beautiful life and there is a great story that has been passed down for many years. francis and grover was so saddened that they were defeated afterr the first election so she told the white house staff take care of the china because we will be back in four years.

i think the romance that they had prior to them getting married in the white house was a love story that will endure the test of time founded by george cleveland who was at this event and was the grandson of grover. his sister found that address thatnd exists in the white house collection so that is just a powerful display of how wonderful and how elegant she was, and i think people certainly learn from history from that. t >> but there was an age difference between the two.

>> absolutely. i think it was a love story that was kindled by francis his father, a dear friend of grover and i think upon his death he felt the need to make sure francis was taken care of for the rest of her life and they loved e each other. he was definitely a lot older by the stretch of 25 to 30 years. but at that time, she trusted him and was the guardian for many years either prior to his death, and i definitely think she had complete trust. >> they didn't like life inside the white house. they wanted to protect their family. how did they do that? >> francis would take the children by carriage to some of the sites off-campus at the

white house unbeknownst to the press, unbeknownst to anybody that was around and they would secretly do. that. midday were sometimes probably in the evenings when nobody would be suspect and i think she just very much controlled how her children would be seen. >> they also built the houses in the cleveland park section. did grover cleveland then use the white house as an office? >> a ton of correspondence that exist from that particular time because he was a gracious reader and writer. when he left office, all those letters and documents were taken by him and i was talking to george yesterday about their how

much exists and to the institutions like princeton to preserve and keep those but it's a lot of information. what happened in their lives that got them to princeton? >> princeton was the place grover and france was retired to and i never will forget the story i've been told this many times, grover didn't like woodrow wilson and at the time woodrow wilson didn't allow his children to play together because there was a little bit of a rift, so they didn't play together, but that's the connection. he retired to princeton. >> they also had a daughter that

became very famous who unfortunately also passed away baby ruth. we have a candy bar named after baby ruth. tell us about the family stories about baby ruth. >> the actual candy company contacted the family to put images of the baby and also francis and we have political memorabilia and they contacted the family. but sadly, like you said, ruth passed away and sadly, susan, she was pregnant with the child at the time and both happened almost at the same time, so she did not get a chance to say goodbye before she passed away. >> andn a very early.

>> they were afraid the disease would certainly affect the child. >> but she moves on and it never goes away. >> everybody thinks that candy bar was named after babe ruth but it was long past that time. do you hear it from the candy company that will actually say this name and you see the likeness on a lot of the candy wrappers. she was a beautiful child, francis was a beautiful woman, so why not put that on the display for sure. >> let's talk about you and your interest in politics. you mentioned the family used to talk about this. when did you take an interest in the american political history? >> probably not until like

junior high. my dad always talked about it because i had two older brothers. he always talked about the presidency into the presidential descendents but i think junior high caused me to take a greater look at it. probably my junior high years is when i became really interested in showed a greater interest and we went to a lot of the historical sites. i would say i wasn't as familiar with junior high, high school, college and the interest probably caused me to become

even greater interested. >> i've been privileged to write for some of ther greater people of course john banner and also the current speaker paul ryan. a very specific speeches. i don't do day-to-day stuff but it's a thrill being able to write with them on some policy things. most of my work is corporate communications. >> what is it like being the community ofia descendents. is there a lot of interaction between you? >> i hate to say it. years ago we attended the descendents luncheons that they used to have and probably in the last i would say five years

people have become more interested and i approached the white house historical association probably six months ago about because it's something that hasn't been done but hopefully going forward we will actually have more reunions in hopes that we could have an annual dinner you learned so much and share experiences and stories. i just love to be around people that are a lot like me. >> if you had to say your perception is different than folks that don't have this history because of the stories do you have a different

appreciation for the job? >> the greatest word webpage respect. to aspire to greater office especially during period that were quite strenuous and i think i do have a greater respect for the office and a greater respect for the people that occupy that office and the sacrifices that they definitely make each and every day. he lost a lot of time with his daughters because he traveled by rail and it was apart from his wife and that was traumatic because of her illness.

>> thank you for joining us.

talked about the first vice president to succeed a president who died in office and rejected from his own political party. rather than vote for andrew jackson thens party led by henry clay in the senate had passed the resolution of censure that took president jackson to task for removing the bank deposits that inaugurated the bank war in the second term but when the democrats regained control of congress, they passed the resolution and what they aimed to do is expunge the center to literally get it out of the record of the senate to journal. he was instructed to vote for the expungement resolution by the virginia legislature and refused. he resigned in february of 1836

out of principal but returned to politics yet again a year and a half later elected for the third time and again we see this pattern of looking at a way to try to continueis his political career by using the legislature as a springboard. he got himself nominated as vice president at the convention in december of 1839 it of course they defeated the incumbent martin van buren. imthis image is a romanticized image of tyler receiving the news of harrison's passing and elevation to the presidency. >> watch this and more online on

c-span.org. >> author and editor of 16 books including the current biography abraham lincoln and his time. this book has received numerous accolades including the institute and the prize of the guild gilder lehrman society and at the top ten books of the year. the previous award-winning books include john brown abolitionist. a reviewer for "the wall street