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james monroe to gerald r. ford convened in washington for a conference hosted by the white house historical association. next an interview with massee mckinley who descended from grover cleveland and william mckinley. this is 15 minutes. >> massee mckinley, we're talking to you at the white house historical association's presidential site summit in washington, d.c., and you're here because you work with the organization and because you're the descendent of two presidents. tell me your family's story. >> i'm related on my maternal side to grover cleveland the 22 and 24th united states president and on my father's side, the fraternal side, to william mckinley. i'm the great-great nephew of william mckinley and the great-great grandson of grover cleveland. >> how did those two families get together? >> it happened chance. my parents married and the two became one. interesting --

>> were your parents, excuse me, aware of their linage when they married? >> i have no clue. i have no clue. my father was a long-time history professor at uga and so during the course of time, he, you know, at the breakfast table we talked about presidential politics and presidential descendents and i learned so many stories about both families from those conversations that i had with him. >> the two are very different, aren't they? >> they are. >> absolutely. >> let's start with the one whose family name there, mckinley. what do you want people to know about him since you've studied some of his legacy and life, what do you think is the most important thing to know about william mckinley? >> i think everybody remembers that he was assassinated in buffalo, but the most important thing i think, susan, and i think robert mary's book has brought that to light, is how powerful of an impact his presidency, you know, gave the country because we had

industrial revolution, we had, you know, expansion around the world, we had just tremendous growth and i think a lot of times, sadly enough, both grover cleveland and william mckinley are often forgotten. through books written about both, especially about mckinley and you remember the book about william mckinley, he's always been revered but in times past he's often been forgotten. my hope is that, you know, through the course of time and through the great efforts of the white house historical association, you know, jacqueline kennedy founded in 1961, through those efforts with education, preservation and legacy, you know, learning about those presidents that they'll certainly be remembered. i'm trying very hard to do that. >> we have visited the mckinley memorial in canton, ohio. what a structure. tell our 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 wore back in the day when he was asass nated, but the citizens of ohio, especially since several were assassinated, thought it was befitting to actually come together and actually create a memorial to his legacy and his memory. of course he's probably in my opinion ohio's most revered united states president because he was not only a house member but also, susan, the last u.s. civil war president. i think the legacy that that produced in addition to the fact that he was assassinated probably contributed to them, you know, having this wonderful memorial. it really truly is. >> it's impressive. it's -- the amount of space that it takes and the size of the memorial itself, which i

understand the first lady was very much involved in the building of it. >> that's correct. >> the first lady's memorial museum is on the same campus, so would you talk a little bit about mrs. mckinley and her legacy and role in the white house. >> absolutely. wonderful mate, wonderful, supportive wife of william. you know the story of her having epilepsy and mckinley was such a wonderful husband, when she had the seizures he would get a napkin and place it over her face and she would recover and they would go on with a dinner. yes, she definitely because they lost both children -- that's the reason why he has no direct descendents because both of the young daughters died in infancy, but i think she, because of the death of both daughters and the death, you know, certainly the

assassination of william mckinley caused her to really want to memorialize mckinley and, too, the white house first ladies home is actually -- was actually her home. did you know that? >> i didn't. >> it absolutely is. the first ladies museum is ida mckinley's home and it is a beautiful, beautiful structure. i think hillary clinton inaugurated that home back in the day. >> so if one were to look at that period of time, it was a time of great disruption and technological change, industrial change, there are a lot of parallels to today, so, you know, we're going through the digital revolution, there's challenges with immigration as back at that time, so the purpose of studying history is to help us understand our time today. what would you take away from the mckinley era people can help to understand the time we're going through? >> i think like you said, the technological advances and, you know, we just were expanding it

at rapid speeds. money was being poured into the country for industrial expansion. i think we can learn from that and that today we can take the strides and make sure we have the infrastructure to be able to proceed and cities can understand how, you know, important that is. i think they were doing it by happenstance and they were hoping for the best and sometimes that did not work out. i think we can learn from the past and we can learn from those mistakes that were made during those times, in mckinley's times, especially during that particular time. we radically changed in the early 1900s. grover cleveland, you're most closely related. >> surprisingly. >> people will remember that he was america's only nonsequential president. what else should they know? >> they should know he had a beautiful wife and there's a

great story that's been passed down from my family for many, many years, francis and grover were so saddened that they were defeated after the first election, and so she told the white house staff who she dearly loved, take care of the china because we'll be back in four years and they were back in four years. but i think, you know, the romance that they had, you know, prior to them getting married in the white house was just, you know, a love story that, you know, will endure the test of time. she was married in the white house. the beautiful gown, susan, was founded by george cleveland who is actually at this event, the grandson of grover, his sister anne and also mary anne cleveland cohen, they found that actual dress, the wedding dress that actually exists in the white house collection at the -- the white house first ladies collection at the smithsonian, so that's just a powerful

display of how wonderful and how elegant she was. i think people will certainly learn from history from that. >> there was an enormous age difference between the two. how does the family process that piece of information? >> you know, i think it was a love story that was kindled by francis' father. he was a dear friend of grover and i think upon his death, i think grover felt the need to make sure francis was taken care of for the rest of her life and they loved each other. i think definitely he was definitely a lot older by a stretch of 25 to 30 years, but i think, you know, at that time she trusted him and i think that he was the guardian for many years and i think she had complete trust. they loved each other and they had a wonderful family, susan. >> they really did not like life

inside the white house. >> that's correct. >> they really wanted to protect their family. how did they do that? >> so a lot of times, you know, susan, francis would actually take the children by carriage to some of the, you know, the sites off campus at the white house and unbeknownst to the press and unbeknownst to anybody that was around and they would actually secretly do that. midday or sometimes probably in the evenings when no one would be suspect they would be around. i think she was very much -- she controlled how her children would be seen. >> they built a house as i understand in what is called the cleveland park in the section of washington and didn't grover cleveland use the white house as an office. >> that's right. there's a ton of correspondence that exists from that particular time because he was a voracious

reader and writer and as you well know we didn't have the archives like we do today, the presidential archives. when he left office, all those letters, all those documents were taken by him and i was talking to george just yesterday about, you know, how much volume of paper still exists and they're trying to give those to the museum and institutions like princeton to preserve and definitely keep those, but it's a lot of information. >> where are the bulk of his papers now? >> they're at princeton. >> what's their princeton connection? what happened in their lives that brought them to princeton? >> so princeton was the actual place that grover and francis retired to and i never will forget the story, it's a great story, susan, but i've been told this many, many times, grover did not like woodrow wilson and at the time woodrow wilson was the president at that time and

he did not allow his children or woodrow wilson's children to play together because there was a little bit of a rift. they did not play together. but that's the connection. he actually retired to princeton. >> we're talking about the clevelands' children, they also had a daughter that became very famous who unfortunately also passed away in her youth, baby ruth. we have a candy bar named after baby ruth. >> that's right. >> tell us what you know about the family stories about baby ruth. >> so the actual candy company contacted the cleveland family to actually put the images of the baby and also francis on that. we have actually -- i have tons of political memorabilia, tons of, you know, souvenirs that have been given away, and they actually contacted the family to actually allow both images on the candy bar. sadly -- >> c-span 3 takes you live to capitol hill where acting commissioner of the u.s. customs

and border protection mark morgan is getting ready to testify before the homeland security and governmental affairs committee. you're watching live coverage of this hearing on c-span