Louise Taft
Louisa “Louise” Maria Torrey (born September 11, 1827 in Boston , Massachusetts , † December 8, 1907 in Millbury , Massachusetts) was the second wife of Alphonso Taft and the mother of US President William Howard Taft .
Early years
She was the first daughter of Samuel Davenport Torrey (1789–1877) and his second wife Susan Holman Waters (1803–1866). Her three sisters were Delia Chapin Torry, who married geologist Edward Orton, Anna Davenport Torrey and Susan H. Torrey. Louisa graduated from Mount Holyoke College (previously Mount Holyoke Female Seminary ) in 1845 .
Marriage and family life
Louisa married the widower Alphonso Taft on December 26, 1853 in Millbury, Massachusetts. As a result, she became the stepmother of his two living sons from their first marriage to Fanny Phelps († 1852), Charles Phelps Taft , who later was the publisher of the Cincinnati Times-Star and from 1895 to 1897 a member of the US House of Representatives , and Peter Rawson " Rossy "taffeta.
The couple had five children together, but only four of them reached adulthood. The first to die of whooping cough at 14 months was Samuel Davenport Torrey Taft. The second was US President William Howard Taft, the next was Henry Waters Taft, who became a New York City attorney , the fourth was Horace Dutton Taft , founder of the Taft School in Watertown , Connecticut , and the last was Frances Louis " Fanny "Taft, who married the surgeon William A. Edwards.
The family lived in Cincinnati , Ohio while her husband served as a judge on the Superior Court of Cincinnati and then in Washington, DC , where he was US Secretary of War and Attorney General , and US Ambassador to Austria-Hungary and Russia .
She died near Millbury, Massachusetts in 1907 and was then buried in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.
literature
- Gary Boyd Roberts, Ancestors of American Presidents , First Authoritative Edition, 1995, p. 60.
- Ishbel Ross, An American Family: The Tafts 1678 to 1964 , World Publishing Co., Cleveland, 1964.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Taft, Louise |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Torrey, Louisa Maria |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American wife of Alphonso Taft |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 11, 1827 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Boston , Massachusetts |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 8, 1907 |
| Place of death | Millbury , Massachusetts |